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Christmas Light Bulb Cookies recipe are a fun treat to make with your kids for the holidays! These will become a holiday favorite and are almost too pretty to eat. 

Christmas Light Bulb Cookies recipe are a fun treat to make with your kids for the holidays! These will become a holiday favorite and are almost too pretty to eat. So now it’s really the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas Light Bulb Cookies time. I love Christmas in case you didn’t already figure that out. Everything about it just makes me smile. The holiday baking is one of my favorite traditions.

I literally tell myself every year “DO NOT MAKE SO MANY COOKIES”, but every year I get out of control and make too many cookies. We had a LOT of leftover cookies last year. I froze some of them and we proceeded to eat them over a three month period. It was ridic.

I don’t think I can every look at another batch Italian Ricotta Cookies again. Just kidding, I love them and will continue to make them each and every year.

You don't need royal icing to make these Christmas Light Bulb Cookies recipe. They are a fun treat to make with your kids for the holidays! These will become a holiday favorite and are almost too pretty to eat.

One type of cookie I always always ALWAYS make is my Favorite Cut-Out Sugar Cookies. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without them. Doing this is therapeutic, mind numbing and nostalgic for me. I.love.it. Also, my Walnut Snowball Cookies fall into that category.

Well, last year I decided to go crazy and make my favorite sugar cookie recipe into Christmas Light Bulb Cookies. Holiday traditions are my favorite! And smiling, smiling is my favorite, too. That was a little “Elf” shout-out, don’t mind me.

If you consider royal icing a pain in the butt like I do (who has time for that?), these are the perfect pretty cookies for you to make instead. Royal icing is fussy, it’s picky, it is not my friend. You might say it’s a royal pain in the BUTT. No intricate designing or special tools needed to decorate these Christmas Light Bulb Cookies, but they look just as impressive and just as beautiful.

You don't need royal icing to make these Christmas Light Bulb Cookies recipe. They are a fun treat to make with your kids for the holidays! These will become a holiday tradition and are almost too pretty to eat.

So, go and make all the cookies. Like lots and lots of cookies and holiday things. Delicious holiday things. If you are into old family recipes, try my Christmas Rum Balls or my Chocolate-Dipped Almond Horns.

You may have already made your sugar cookies for the year, but what I’m trying to say is that you might just want to toss those out and make these now instead. Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Light Bulb Cookies
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 2 dozen
 
Christmas Light Bulb Cookies recipe are a fun treat to make with your kids for the holidays! These will become a holiday favorite and are almost too pretty to eat.
Ingredients
For Cookies:
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 large egg
  • 11/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ teaspoon salt
For Frosting:
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1½ - 2 tablespoon milk
For decorating:
  • 1 small tube of black icing for drawing the strings on cookies
  • mini M&Ms, for light bulbs
  • sprinkles, if desired
Instructions
Cookies:
  1. In the bowl of a mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  2. Mix in egg and then the vanilla extract, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
  3. Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a separate mixing bowl.
  4. In small increments, add this to the butter/sugar mixture and mix on low until incorporated.
  5. Chill the dough for at an hour or more.
  6. When dough is chilled, preheat oven to 350ºF.
  7. Roll out dough to your preferred thickness. Don't make them too thin or they will get hard when baking.
  8. Cut out circles with a biscuit cutter or cookie cutter (or rim of a glass).
  9. Place the cookies on a parchment-lined or silicone mat lined baking sheet.
  10. Bake for 8-10 minutes until just golden around the edges. Check at 8 minutes.
  11. Remove from oven. Let cool on the cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to a wire cooling rack.
Buttercream Frosting:
  1. In the bowl of a mixer, cream sugar, butter, vanilla together until light and fluffy.
  2. Add milk a little at a time until frosting is spreadable and desired consistency.2a1
  3. Spread on cookies.
For decorating:
  1. Pipe a thin black line onto each cookie, and then press mini M&Ms sideways into frosting (see photos for reference).

Christmas Light Bulb Cookies recipe made with mini M&M's are a fun treat to make with your kids for the holidays! These will become a holiday tradition and are so impressive!

Recipe source: recipe for cookies and frosting is my own. Idea to decorate them as ornaments found on verybestofchristmas.blogspot.com

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