The Cutest Little Christmas Tree Cookies

These little cuties have been on my list of favorites for years. YEARS, friends, years. But there’s just one problem - I can’t actually find the recipe.

My cookie recipes mostly come from a collection of vintage, well loved holiday cookie magazines. You know the ones - you see them in the check-out line at the grocery store. I don’t think I’ve purchased a new one in at least 10 years, I just keep on working what I know is tried and true (along with some new ones here and there) from the sources I have - and because of this, I pretty much keep these puppies under lock and key (because the last thing I want is to walk into the kitchen and see my 4-year-old has used them to make a collage.)

But, try as I might, I haven’t been able to find the original recipe for several years. Which makes me sad. However, they’re really just sugar cookies in an inventive shape. Therefore, I’ve modified one of my go-to sugar cookie recipes to recreate this favorite. I hope you enjoy them, too!

Step 1: Gather Your Ingredients

These are pretty basic cookies - what makes them special is their shape. To that point, I would suggest using a super high quality vanilla extract. Good vanilla makes ALL the difference, especially in cookies like these where it has nowhere to hide. Penzy’s makes a great one, and there are plenty of others, as well. If you’re feeling really adventurous, it’s pretty easy to make your own. Maybe I’ll cover this next year. However, even if you don’t have the good stuff on hand, regular old vanilla extract will work just fine.

Additionally, I used natural food colors but traditional (read: artificial) food colors would actually work better. I’ll talk about why below, but just know the food color is like seeing Judy Garland in Technicolor in The Wizard of Oz - it looks awesome, but she was still the same Judy Garland in black and white and she was just as fabulous. Long story short - the food coloring is optional.

Step 2: Combine The Wet Ingredients

Soften the butter in the microwave if not already soft (very carefully, check it every few seconds). Beat together butter and sugar, scraping down the sides to make sure it’s evenly mixed together. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined.

At this point, you can add your food coloring if you are using it… and this is where things went a little wonky for me. I’ve been using the natural food colorings for the past several years because, honestly, no one needs Red #4 in their lives. Unnecessary.

However, the natural food coloring I typically use (McCormack, found in almost any grocery store) tends to be lighter in color than artificial food colors typically are. Additionally, it only comes in primary colors - meaning I had to mix blue and yellow to get green. It’s not an exact science and I had some pretty interesting results (to come later in this post). In any event, I used 3/4 tsp each of the blue and yellow food colors here.

Mmmm… butter and sugar!!!

It looks grainy and that’s fine. I really liked this shade of green…

Step 3: Mix Dry Ingredients Together and Combine With Wet Ingredients

In a separate bowl, whisk together (with an actual whisk or just a fork - either will do) flour and sugar. SLOWLY, add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and beat until combined, scraping down the sides. Please, friends, please go slowly - about 1/4 to 1/3 of the dry ingredients at a time. Take it from one who once ended up covered in flour from head to toe, you don’t want to have too much flour in that bowl when you turn your mixer on!

Baking action shot - just look at that baby spin!!!

Step 3: Assemble Trees

Line your baking sheet with parchment paper. If you’ve never used parchment before you’re in for a TREAT, because it takes the bite out of clean-up and is just generally awesome. If you’ve forgotten or weren’t following along last year, I have a hack for fitting the parchment to your cookie sheet. See below.

Take a small amount of dough in your hands and kneed it a bit - really just squeeze it in each hand, passing it back and forth a few times. All you’re trying to do is to get it to hold itself together. Wait a minute, is the dough an allegory for my life?!

Anyhoo, take a small marble-sized dollop of dough in your hands and roll it into a ball. Arrange 5 balls on a cookie sheet, touching each other snugly, like bowling pins. Place trees about 1” apart on your cookie sheet.

To create the trunks, carefully break your whole pecans in half. To be honest, most of mine break in one clean half while the other half ends up as crumbles. Just be kind and gentle to your pecans and you’ll be fine. Hold on to the cookie with one hand and push the broken side of the half pecan into the bottom center of each tree. It’s okay if they get a little smushed at this point - most of those imperfections will work their way out in the oven.

Parchment hack: guestimate the size you’ll need for your cookie sheet, then fold the excess to make it the right size…

…Flip the parchment over so the folded pieces are on the bottom. Voila - perfectly sized parchment in a snap!

Little cuties ready for the oven :).

Step 4: Bake Cookies

Bake cookies at 325 degrees for 13 - 15 minutes, or until you can just barely see them starting to brown on the bottom. Remove cookies from the oven and let them rest on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. Don’t rush this part - if you try to lift them off of the cookie sheet too soon your little tree balls will fall apart. They need those few minutes on the cookie sheet to really stick to one another.

Here’s where it got a little interesting for me. Remember how I used the blue and yellow natural food colors to make my trees green? Well, they went into the oven as a very pretty moss green (think: Joanna Gaines), but came out looking like green highlighters (think: Debbie Gibson)… apparently, the food colors reacted differently in the oven and the yellow became more dominant than it had been pre-cooking. Oh well, they’re still green - they’re just a little more 1983 than intended ;). I did make a second batch without food coloring, as pictured below. I’ve done this in years past and I like the natural look for a bit of variety. As I said above, the color is optional.

Lime green Christmas trees. Unintentionally bright but still festive :)

Without food coloring and with added decorations. I like them both ways.

Well, there you have it - 2021 Cookies #1 are in the books! I’m going to have to double up on some of my posts because I’m behind schedule and these need to be done by Christmas Eve for delivery. I’ll even let you all in on my assembly process this year - there’s a method to that madness, as well!