Without even the slightest hesitation, I can declare Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies to be our family’s all-time favorite Christmas cookie. If you polled them, it wouldn’t just be a wide majority. I believe you would get a 100% affirmative from each of them! They are soft, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookie perfection.
Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies are the first cookies to disappear out of all that I make each year. They’re the ones everybody wants more of. They also happen to be about the easiest cookie I make. What’s better than that?
Wanna know a secret? I make these all year round, not just for Christmas. Yeah…they’re that kind of easy and delicious!
Enjoy, my friend!
Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies
- Total Time: 18 minutes
- Yield: 36-40 cookies 1x
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 1 cup butter
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
- 3 to 3 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
For the Frosting:
- 1 cup butter
- 2 Tablespoon vanilla
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- 2 lbs. powdered sugar
Instructions
- Cream together butter and sugar.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and beat to combine.
- Add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix until all ingredients are combined.
- Drop by cookie scoop onto a greased or lined baking sheet.
- Bake at 350° for 8 minutes. (Cookies will be puffed up and super soft. They will be barely dried on top. I promise, if you want soft, chewy cookies, you need to pull them out, now. Place the cookie sheet on a cooling rack and allow the cookies to set for 3–5 minutes before taking them off the pan. They will lose their puffiness as they settle.)
- To make frosting, beat all ingredients together with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer, until a thick creamy frosting has formed.
- Frost completely cooled cookies. You can add sprinkles or decorations if you choose.
- Store in airtight container once frosting has set up.
Notes
These freeze extremely well. Put wax paper between the layers if stacking. If freezing, you can frost them, but I would avoid sprinkle decorations as those will bleed as the cookie thaws.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 min
- Category: Desserts, Cookies
- Cuisine: American
How to Make Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies
How to Make Easy Drop Sugar Cookies
There’s no big secret to these delicious cookies. It’s the basic cookie formula, again. Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix until everything is fully incorporated.
Drop them by the cookie-scoopful onto greased or lined cookie sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. The trickiest part of the whole recipe will be figuring out the time for your specific oven. (When I’m figuring that out, I’ll bake one cookie, just to get a feel for how the dough acts in my oven.)
These cookies will puff up in the oven, the tops will have lost their dampness. When you touch it, lightly, with your finger, the top of the cookie will be dry, but you will be able to tell it’s still super soft in the middle. That’s when you pull them out of the oven.
Set the cookie sheet right on your cooling rack for several minutes. The cookies will finish “baking” and setting up. As they cool, they will lose there puffiness and be flatter. The tops may even look a little “wrinkled”. You’ve done everything perfectly. That’s exactly how they should be. After 3 or 4 minutes transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Decorating Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies
When they are completely cool, these scrumptious cookies are soft and chewy. You can get as elaborate or as simple as you want with your decorating. I have done piped decorations, successfully. Typically, I do a simple buttercream frosting with easy sprinkle decorations, though. Actually, I am known to simply frost them and not decorate at all. I promise they disappear just as quickly. However you decide to decorate them, you my friend, are going to get the title of Christmas Cookie Royal Baker when you put these out for friends and family. Yes. Be prepared for Christmas Cookie infamy. It belongs to you, now!
Much love and Merry Christmas!
More Deliciously Easy Christmas Cookies and Desserts
- Spritz Cookies with Jam, from Wendy over at Wendy Polisi blog
- Easy Yule Log Recipe, from Laura, at Little House Big Alaska
- Christmas Sandwich Cookies, from Arlene, at Flour on My Face
- Raspberry Jam Shortbread Cookies, from Lois, at Walking on Sunshine Recipes
- Fat Gingerbread Man Cookies, from Lenny, at Fat Dad Foodie
And, if you’re looking for even more cookie recipes to add to your holiday repertoire, check out my recipe for these yummy Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.
What a wonderfully easy cookie recipe and just in the nick of time. Thank you for this recipe!
★★★★★
Thank you, Bernice! Merry Christmas!
What size cookie scoop do you recommend?
I use the smallest scoop from this set, slightly heaped. https://amzn.to/33LSyDb It makes about a 1 1/2 to 1 3/4″ ball of dough. The scoop is a #50 size. It’s an affiliate link to the scoops I have.
Thanks for stopping by, today, Diane! Have a wonderfully blessed Christmas!
Thanks for the wonderful recipe! I made these for Christmas and they were delicious! I did have a question about the amount of powdered sugar in the frosting. After I had added about one pound, the frosting seemed to be thick enough, so I didn’t add the remaining pound (I was afraid it would become too thick to spread easily.) The frosting was delicious, I just wondered if adding the remaining sugar would have made a difference in some way.
★★★★★
Hi Ann! Thanks for stopping by to let me know you enjoyed the recipe. As far as the powdered sugar, I’m not sure. If all your other ingredients were measured exactly as mine that would have been much too thin a frosting for us. We enjoy it being able to dry and firm up in the refrigerator and have enough body to be piped if we decide to decorate more elaborately. We also spread it on fairly thickly. Nothing runs over the edges or sides of the cookie. It is a thick, but soft spread. If 1 lb. worked well for you, I would go with what is best at your house. Happy New Year!