Drop Sugar cookies are soft, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookie perfection! Without even the slightest hesitation, I can declare this to be our family’s all-time favorite Christmas sugar cookie recipe.
If you polled them, it wouldn’t be just a wide majority. I believe you would get a 100% affirmative from each of them! These sugar cookies are that good!
Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies are the first cookies to disappear out of all that I make each year. (Even the ones I hide. lol)
My Drop Sugar Cookie recipe is the one everybody wants more of. That everyone wants the recipe for. That are most often requested for parties.
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!
The Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- Butter I use salted butter, but use your own preference. It doesn’t seem to affect the outcome of this drop sugar cookie recipe.
- Granulated Sugar
- Eggs
- Vanilla Extract
- All Purpose Flour
- Baking Soda
- Salt
For the Frosting:
- Butter
- Vanilla Extract
- Milk
- Powdered Sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
FAQ’s
I don’t recommend rolling and cutting drop cookie dough. Technically, you could chill it and then put it between two sheets of parchment and roll it out. Then you could cut the cookies out. After that you would need to chill the cut cookies before baking and even then, this particular dough will spread more than you typically want for cut-out cookies. Your cookies will lose any definition and design during baking. This dough was made for delicious drop sugar cookies. In a few weeks, I’ll share a good cut-out cookie recipe.
Baking powder creates a bigger rise and a lighter, “cake-like” crumb. We want these cookies to be soft and chewy, not cake-like, so I don’t use any baking powder. Baking soda is the only leavening necessary.
No Need for Rolling and Cutting
It was so important to me to stress that you can still have fun and nicely decorate these delicious, soft and chewy sugar cookies.
If you don’t have the tools or patience for rolled and cut-out sugar cookies, you can still create wonderful decorated cookie designs.
Last year, before our family Christmas Eve get-together, my daughters, daughter-in-law and granddaughters all got together at my house for a sugar cookie baking and decorating party.
You guys! It was so much fun and hopefully the beginning of a new holiday tradition.
With just a basic buttercream recipe, these soft and chewy sugar cookies can be frosted and decorated to fit any occasion. We used butter knives or icing spatulas to simply spread the frosting over the tops of the cookies.
Then with some piping bags and half a dozen of the most common decorator tips, some mini M&Ms and various Christmas cookie and cake sprinkles, we set to decorating our sugar cookies.
I think everybody had great ideas and I love how varied the designs were. From the youngest to the oldest, everybody just created what made them happy. I think they turned out great!
And what a fun family time we had doing it! You guys have to plan a drop sugar cookie decorating party, this year! It’ll be a blast!
How to Make Frosted 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 sugar cookie, just to get a feel for how the dough acts in my oven.)
How to Know When the Cookies are Done
These cookies will puff up in the oven, the tops will have lost their dampness.
When you touch one, lightly, with your finger, the top of the cookie will feel 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. Trust me.
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 Sugar Cookies
When they are completely cool, these scrumptious sugar cookies are soft and chewy.
You can get as elaborate or as simple as you want with your decorating.
Simply spread the frosting over the sugar cookie tops and call it good. That’s what we do when it isn’t Christmastime.
Or break out the piping bags, candy and sprinkles to create your own beautiful sugar cookie masterpieces.
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!
As always, thanks so much for being great supporters and my favorite blog readers!
If you do make drop sugar cookies using this recipe, i hope you’ll consider dropping by, again and leaving a comment on this post with a 5 star rating.
Those 5 star ratings help other readers find our recipes when they do searches on Google.
Thanks so much and happy baking!
The Recipe
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Frosted Drop Sugar Cookies
- Total Time: 18 minutes
- Yield: 36–40 cookies 1x
Description
Drop Sugar cookies are soft, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookie perfection! Without even the slightest hesitation, I can declare this to be our family’s all-time favorite Christmas sugar cookie recipe.
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
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
- Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.
About Glenda
I believe cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be complicated and that YOU can do it. My simple recipes, tutorials, and cooking tips will help you get weeknight dinners on the table with less stress. Forget takeout or the drive-thru. Let me show you how to make homemade easy. Read more...
My new favorite cookie for the holidays thank you for sharing
You’re so very welcome, Carol. Merry Christmas!
I’ve made these dropped sugar cookies a few times now and they are, by far, the best dropped sugar cookie recipe ever. I’ve experimented with a lot of sugar cookie recipes.
Sarah, you’ve made my day! I’m so glad you’re enjoying them. They are a true family favorite and so a very personal recipe for me.
These cookies are so fun to make! I made them, and my daughter had a great time helping me to decorate them. It was so much fun! Thanks for sharing this recipe.
That’s great, Sonia! What a special memory you got to create with her!
Making these for Christmas is always a huge hit, plus decorating them is so much fun. They taste light delicious. I recommend them.
Made these with the fam and they enjoyed it! They designed their own cookies and they love them. We’ll surely make these again for Christmas. Thanks for this fun and wonderful recipe Glenda!
I loved how easy these drop sugar cookies were to make and they taste fantastic too!
This is one of my favorite Christmas cookies. They are so simple and delicious.
Beautiful cookies and perfect for the holidays! They were fast and easy to make!
Gave plates of these cookies to my coworkers for Christmas and they were a hit! Thanks for sharing!
Glad to hear your gifts were a hit, Christine!
My sister made this recipe the other day and we all got together and decorated them. The frosting is RICH, but so good. I also thought it was fun to see how people decorated the drop cookies. You can get a lot more creative with a drop cookie than a cookie that’s already cut into the shape of a ginger bread man. Would definitely recommend.
Thank you, JC. We always have so much fun with the decorating, too!
My absolute favorite sugar cookie. 😍I’m not a fan of store bought sugar cookies because they’re usually dry and powdery, so having this easy recipe on hand is a game changer!
This is most favorite cookie recipe! Sometimes I’ll change it up and roll them in cinnamon and sugar before baking and make them snickerdoodles instead of frosting them.