Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookies are delicious, buttery, crispy sugar cookies decorated with ugly sweater designs that are sure to be winners at all your holiday gatherings! Try my Sugar Cookie Recipe for another cookie recipe easy to bake and decorate!
Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie
This is the home of the ORIGINAL Ugly Sweater Christmas Cookie!! If you are looking for THAT sugar cookie… the one that is the perfect combination of sweetness, buttery crispness, and that goes perfectly with piping glaze… this is that cookie. It has won awards and been a part of more cookie exchanges than I can count! It never fails to get praise and folks are always asking for the recipe!
Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie Recipe
It all started when my church’s youth group was having an ugly sweater party, complete with a Baking Contest. Since I am a local celebrity and all (you know, the kind of celebrity that you see late at night on the weather channel being filmed during a massive tornado saying something like, “It’s like, windy out.” Yeah. That’s me.) I was asked to be a judge!
How to Make Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookies
The image above is my ‘busy” ugly Christmas sweater. I am most certainly not saying it is based on anything in my closet…But, to get decorating, you have to get the cookies made first! The design is up to you.
To make the cookies, get out your stand mixer to get started. Do not preheat the oven right away; the dough has to chill for at least an hour before baking the cookies.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until well combined (about 2 minutes).
- With the mixer on low, add in the eggs and egg yolks.
- Turn off the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl.
- With the mixer back on low, add the vanilla and almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
- Mix in the flour mixture about a cup at a time until fully incorporated.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. (This might be a good time to check your closet for any ‘ugly sweater’ ideas or designs!)
Below is my ‘weird-eyed Rudolf with a red nose that sticks out way too far and is covered with gravy and mashed potatoes by the end of the night’ ugly Christmas sweater. Again, these are not similar to anything that might currently reside in my home…
Baking and Decorating the Cookies
After the dough has chilled for at least an hour, preheat the oven to 350°F. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface. Cut out the dough into your sweater shape (I made mine as large as my hand, but you could also use a sweater cookie cutter). Bake for 6-8 minutes, watching them carefully so you don’t burn the edges.
Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet until they are firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack. When you are ready to decorate the cookies, I recommend using my favorite glaze icing to decorate them. It’s so much better than royal icing! Have fun using your imagination, and Merry Christmas!
Looking for More Sugar Cookie Recipes?
Sugar Cookies with Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Filling
Raspberry Cheesecake Chocolate Sugar Cookies
Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks or 340g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons almond extract
- 4 cups (500g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until well combined (about 2 minutes).
- With the mixer on low, add in the eggs and egg yolks, mixing until well incorporated.
- Turn off the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl.
- With the mixer back on low, add the vanilla and almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
- Mix the flour mixture in with the butter mixture about a cup at a time until fully incorporated. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Roll the dough out onto a floured surface.
- Cut out the dough into your sweater shape (I made mine as large as my hand, but you could also use a sweater cookie cutter).
- Bake for 6-8 minutes, watching them carefully so you don't burn the edges.
- Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet until they are firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack. Have fun decorating!
Did you make this recipe?
Thank you for making my recipe! You took pictures, right? Well go ahead and post them on Instagram! Be sure to mention me @iambaker and use the hashtag #YouAreBaker.
That. Is. Awesome.
I cannot believe how amazing these are!! You are hilarious & the perfect baker to make these cookies. I do look to you for fashion. Really 🙂 XO
Hilarious!! So adorable and seriously funny at the same time.
haha I love it! I am amazed by your detail work on that first one. They’re so funny!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
I’m lovin’ it!
Hysterical!! I didn’t have an ugly Christmas sweater, but was given an ugly sweater at Christmas one year. A gosh awful chocolate milk brown one covered in wooden beads and dangling feathers, plus it was TOO small as I attempted to wear it one time, just to be polite.
Your cookies are fab!!!
Your white sweater cookie has got to be THE cutest things I’ve ever seen! You are just too talented!
That’s cool. Friends of mine just did an Ugly Sweater Christmas card that was the coolest!
these are the most fantastic things I have ever seen.
You are so hilarious! I love your posts, I always get such a chuckle and this one certainly doesn’t disappoint!!!
But the sweaters are waaaaay too cute to be called ugly!!
Those photos are hysterical. The one with the woman panicking/crying to get off the man’s lap leads me to believe it may NOT be her husband as we would assume!!
xMB