Christmas Sugar Cookies Recipe for Santa

The Christmas season is an excellent time for baking festive cookies, but this sugar cookies recipe certainly has an extra dose of holiday cheer. If you're on the hunt for that perfect cookie recipe for Santa, he'll love these Santa hat cookies just as much as you will love baking them. With vibrant red icing and coconut garnish for the fur, these Christmas cookies are as much fun to look at as they are to eat and may even earn you a little something special from Santa himself this year.

You Will Need:

1 cup of unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp of salt
2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 batch of your favorite frosting (recommended: buttercream)
red food coloring
coconut flakes
miniature marshmallows

Directions:

Using an electric mixer set on a medium-high heat setting, whip the butter until creamy and then gradually add the sugar. Beat in the large egg until your ingredients are thoroughly mixed, then add the pure vanilla extract and the salt. Using a wooden spoon, slowly stir your flour into the mixture until all of the ingredients are blended evenly and you have formed a soft dough.

Roll out your dough and, cutting into thirds, place each of the three portions onto a sheet of plastic wrap and allow them to chill for about two hours, until the dough has become firm and cold, yet not rock solid. One portion at a time, use a rolling pin on a floured surface to roll out your dough to measurements of about 1/4" thick and 4.5" in width. Place the dough onto a baking sheet and allow them to chill for about 15 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Remove your dough from the refrigerator and, trimming off the longer sides of the dough, cut out 4-inch tall triangles and pinch the corner to create a "fold" in Santa's hat. Using one baking sheet at a time, bake your Santa hat cookies for approximately 10-13 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool before you begin decorating them.

Separate your icing into two small separate bowls and add a few drops of red food coloring to one until you have achieved the desired shade of red. Using a butter knife, spread the red icing onto the tops of your cookies, leaving the furry rim of the hat uncovered. Next, use your uncolored icing to decorate the white furry band of Santa's hat. To finish this sugar cookies recipe for beautiful Santa hats, garnish the band with shaved coconut and press a miniature marshmallow to the tip of Santa's hat.

If you'd like a little more pizazz to your sugar cookies, consider dusting them with edible baking glitter.