These easy spiced rum sugar cookies come dressed to impress wearing lots of festive holiday color. They’ll surely spread the cheer this year at your holiday table! Splashes of spiced rum, cinnamon, ginger, and clove add hints of warm cozy flavor to every buttery bite of these festive Christmas cookies with sprinkles.
These easy holiday sugar cookies bake up in minutes to a nice crispy and buttery finish. A little bit of simple white icing spread on with a spoon creates a delicious little canvas for bright holiday sprinkles to sparkle and shine.
The hints of warm spice, vanilla, and rum infuse each cookie with a delicious flavor that almost resembles a sort of eggnog flavor.
Eggnog usually boasts those notes of creamy sweetness and nutmeg spice. It’s usually served around the holidays and sometimes spiked with splashes of rum or bourbon. Biting into these rum-spiked Christmas cookies totally takes me back to that creamy cup of holiday nog…
Make Easy Christmas Cookies with a touch of Warm Spice
These are the flavors that really hit home for me around Christmastime. Warmth, sweetness, and all the glitz and glam of the holidays in one little buttery bite!
You can easily use this spiced rum sugar cookie dough to make cutout holiday sprinkle cookies. Put them out on a colorful cookie platter at the family Christmas party. Bake this sprinkle sugar cookie recipe and bring on down to a festive holiday potluck! Don’t forget to bring a batch of these fun Christmas cranberry meatballs while you’re at it! Enjoy a few in the morning with your favorite cup of coffee.
Don’t forget to leave some out on Santa’s cookie plate next to the candy canes for the reindeer! Everyone is gonna want a little bite of these very merry sprinkle sugar cookies to make their holiday season just a little bit sweeter.
The trick to getting these cookies all dressed up for the holidays is a little bit of glam! That’s where the festive holiday sprinkles come in! I used Christmas sprinkles by Fancy Sprinkles. They make gorgeous bold sprinkles that really make these cookies pop and come to life with Christmas color!
Make Every Cookie Pop with Festive Holiday Sprinkles!
You can see in the photo that the Fancy Sprinkles combine different elements like large round balls, sticks, pearls, discs, and colored sanding sugars. This pretty little mix of festive sprinkles makes for a beautiful look that gives the cookies dimension, texture, and lots of color!
I used a mix of blue, silver, gold, red, and green sprinkles to decorate these delicious Christmas sprinkle cookies. I cut my cookies into fun Christmas tree shapes that I drew on parchment paper as stencils, but you can use this easy sugar cookie dough to roll and cut into your favorite shapes with cookie cutters!
Trees, stars, bells, and even circular ornament shapes would all make gorgeous little figures for these fun holiday cookies.
Sift The Dry Ingredients For You Christmas Cookie Dough
To start these easy sprinkle Christmas cookies, we’ll need to prepare our dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Start by sifting your all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground clove, and ground ginger together in a bowl. Set aside.
Combine Wet Ingredients In the Mixer
In the bowl of a stand mixer (fitted with the flat beater or paddle attachment), combine the wet ingredients. Add softened unsalted butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Drizzle in vanilla, half & half, egg, and splashes of spiced rum. Continue beating until well combined. If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can also combine the ingredients using a hand mixer and a large bowl.
Combine Wet and Dry Ingredients Little By Little
Now with the mixer running on low speed, add your sifted dry ingredients. Add these in a little bit at a time until the dry mixture is finished and evenly incorporated. Combine until mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl forming a dough.
Form Your Christmas Sugar Cookie Dough into a Disc and Chill
Remove the dough from the bowl of the mixer, form into a rounded disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill the Christmas cookie dough in the fridge for an hour or so help it firm up and set. This will help to handle the dough more easily later on when we are ready to cut and bake.
Roll Out Your Cookie Dough To Make Christmas Cookies with Sprinkles
Once the dough is nice and chilled, pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F while you get the cookie dough ready. Dust a rolling pin and working surface with powdered sugar. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness.
Cut Out Cookies In Festive Christmas Shapes
Turn your cookie dough as needed to prevent sticking and continue dusting your rolling pin and working surface with powdered sugar to help prevent sticking.
Now use your favorite Christmas cookie cutters to cut shapes into the dough to make festive Christmas cookies!
At this point you can either:
- Just top them off with festive Christmas sprinkles in fun holiday colors and bake.
- Bake plain, top with a little simple white icing, and then top with fun holiday sprinkles.
The second choice is my favorite just because it’s the classic way to go! Delicious and colorful traditional sugar cookies always have that touch of snowy white icing. It hugs all those little sprinkles into place creating a beautiful little background on each cookie. Plus, if you’re making little Christmas trees, the sprinkles look like little ornaments sitting on a snowy tree. So festive and cute!
Bake Christmas Cookies In The Oven
Transfer your cut Christmas cookie shapes to a baking sheet. Line baking sheet with a non-stick baking mat or parchment paper. Transfer your cookie cutouts to the cookie sheet using a thin spatula leaving a little space in between each cookie.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are just lightly golden around the edges and no longer puffy.
When bake time is up, let the cookies cool on a cooling rack or a wire rack. Prepare a little white icing for the Christmas cookies while you wait for them to cool.
Make A Quick White Icing For The Spiced Christmas Cookies
In a small bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, water, light corn syrup, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Whisk together to combine into a consistency that lets a smooth drizzle from the whisk. If too thick, add water a few drops at a time from a teaspoon until desired consistency is reached.
Spread On Icing and Top with Festive Christmas Sprinkles
I like to test the icing by smearing some onto one of the cookies. If it’s too runny, add a little more powdered sugar to adjust as needed.
Decorate the cooled Christmas cookie shapes by smearing on a little icing using the back of a spoon.
Sprinkle with your favorite holiday sprinkles in fun Christmas colors to finish off these festive cookies.
Let the Cookies Set Overnight
Return the decorated cookies to a cooling or clean baking sheet to let the icing and sprinkles set. Leave cookies out to set and dry overnight or place in the refrigerator overnight.
Once they’ve had enough time to dry, you can place these festive Christmas cookies with sprinkles in an airtight container to take to a party or in a decorative tin to gift to friends.
There’s no sweeter way to share the holiday spirit with family and friends than fun holiday baked cookies like these!
Festive Spiced Rum Christmas Cookies with Sprinkles
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 3 cups All Purpose Flour
- ½ tsp Cinnamon
- ¼ tsp Ground Clove
- ¼ tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Fine Salt
- ¾ cup White Sugar
- 2 sticks Unsalted Butter - softened
- 1 tbsp Half & Half
- 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp Spiced Rum - I used Captain Morgan spiced rum
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- Your Favorite Christmas Sprinkles - I used Fancy Sprinkles
For the Icing:
- 2 cups Confectioners' Sugar
- ¼ tsp Vanilla
- 1½ tsp Light Corn Syrup
- 2 to 3 tbsp Water
- Pinch of Salt
Instructions
Make the Cookies
- Start by sifting your all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground clove, and ground ginger together in a bowl. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (fitted with the flat beater or paddle attachment), combine the wet ingredients. Add softened unsalted butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Drizzle in vanilla, half & half, egg, and splashes of spiced rum. Continue beating until well combined.Â
- Now with the mixer running on low speed, add your sifted dry ingredients. Add these in a little bit at a time until the dry mixture is finished and evenly incorporated. Combine until mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl forming a dough.
- Remove the dough from the bowl of the mixer, form into a rounded disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill the Christmas cookie dough in the fridge for an hour or so help it firm up and set.
- Once the dough is nice and chilled, pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F while you get the cookie dough ready. Dust a rolling pin and working surface with powdered sugar. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness.
- Now use your favorite Christmas cookie cutters to cut shapes into the dough to make festive Christmas cookies!
- Transfer your cookie cutouts to the cookie sheet using a thin spatula leaving a Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are just lightly golden around the edges and no longer puffy. When bake time is up, let the cookies cool on a cooling rack or a wire rack.Â
Make the Icing
- In a small bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, water, light corn syrup, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Whisk together to combine into a consistency that lets a smooth drizzle from the whisk. If too thick, add water a few drops at a time from a teaspoon until desired consistency is reached.
Decorate
- Decorate the cooled Christmas cookie shapes by smearing on a little icing using the back of a spoon. Sprinkle with your favorite holiday sprinkles in fun Christmas colors to finish them off in colorful holiday style!
