Rudolph Christmas Reindeer Cookies with Powdered Sugar Icing & M&Ms 

If you love sugar cookies and you’re looking for a luscious treat to indulge in this Christmas, this Christmas Reindeer Cookies recipe is for you! 

This easy recipe is completed in just 14 minutes, and it’s infused with delicious scents and flavors. Beware that once you try this festive treat, you will revisit this recipe again and again.

Given the tasty icing and reindeer faces on these cookies, they’re perfect to create as we approach the winter season.

These cookies are the ideal dessert to add to your to-bake list or party ideas, and they’re sure to become your favorite cookie recipe! 

What Are Christmas Cookies?

Christmas cookies are simply vanilla biscuits that are cut out in Christmas shapes and topped with icing containing a colorful festive frosting.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Reindeer Faces – This is one of the most exciting parts of the cookie-making process, where your artistic and creative skills are put to the test. The adorable reindeer eyes, reindeer antlers, and cute nose that are present on your cookies will make you want to eat them in one bite.    
• Sugar cookie dough – The foundation of this recipe is sugar cookie dough, a delightfully tasting base that helps brings out the sugary goodness of your cookies.  
• Delicious Treat – The powdered sugar decorating icing at the top of your cookies makes them the perfect cookies to make if you have an insatiable sweet tooth.  

What Do Christmas Cookies Taste Like?

These fun reindeer cookies taste like shortbread cookies, but they aren’t as buttery or crumbly. Essentially, they taste like vanilla biscuits with a dollop of frosting. 

Are Christmas Cookies Healthy?

One of the core ingredients of Christmas cookies is sugar, so how healthy the cookies are will depend on how healthy it is to consume them.

Generally, Christmas cookies are healthy since they contain a balanced amount of go-to baking ingredients such as flour, unsalted butter, and milk.

But as with every other food and drink, Christmas cookies are healthy only if you eat them moderately, most notably during the festive season. 

What Are The Benefits Of Christmas Cookies?

These fancy cookies have a variety of health benefits. Sugar, its defining ingredient, has a number of benefits if you consume it with enough care, such as a boost in energy and a functioning central nervous system.

Our bodies need to consume one main type of sugar, called glucose. This is needed for survival, as it’s the number one food for the brain, and fuels our body accordingly.

However, Christmas cookies don’t come with a completely positive side since taking in sugar in high amounts can cause a number of health issues.

Overconsuming sugar in your diet can cause a drastic change in your energy levels.

This is because wanting more sugar can lead to increased cravings, mood swings, and a lack of energy that can only be satisfied by more sugar.

Eating more sugar than is required for a healthy diet can gradually weaken your immune system, leading to a decrease in the strength of your white blood cells that are needed to fight infection as your body holds onto excess glucose.

Ok, enough with all that. Let’s make some delicious reindeer cookies!

What Are The Ingredients For Reindeer Cookies

• All-purpose flour – Including this in your recipe gives you certain micronutrients such as vitamins, iron, and phosphorus. 
• Unsalted butter – Adding this to your flour mixture ensures your cookies contain a pure, sweet cream flavor. 
• Powdered sugar – There is no need to explain why this is crucial for your recipe. The sweet yumminess it brings along, of course!
• Vanilla extract – You want to add this to your mix if you are a fan of a warm yet subtle signature vanilla taste. 
• Baking powder – It’s good for your kidneys and will make your cookies soft, light, and airy. 
• Salt – This is to help your cookies maintain a balanced flavor. 
• Milk – Mixing this into your recipe makes your cookies much lighter. 
• Water -This makesthe dough more elastic and adds steam as your cookies bake, making them puff more.
• Meringue powder – Add this to stabilize your cookies’ frostings and prevent drooping.
• Brown liquid food color – This is what gives your cookies a subtle color. 
• M&Ms – These fun toppings are both delicious and required to complete your fun reindeer faces.

Tools Needed To Prepare Christmas Reindeer Cookies

• Bowl for mixing your ingredients 
• Baking tray for laying balls of cookie dough on  
• Parchment paper for coating your baking tray  
• Stand mixer to ensure your ingredients are mixed well  
• Cookie cutter for shaping reindeer-style of cookie 

Ingredient Additions & Substitutions For Reindeer Christmas Cookies 

Vanilla Extract 

If you don’t have vanilla extract in hand at home, you can make use of almond extract.

Almond extract is filled with essential vitamins, proteins, and minerals, benefiting your skin and hair. 

Milk 

If you cannot consume milk and are seeking an alternative ingredient, you can switch to soy milk which is the closest substitute for milk that isn’t dairy.

It contains a similar amount of protein to milk but also has half the amount of fat, calories, and carbohydrates that milk does.

Meringue Powder 

Egg white is your friend if you do not have meringue powder in your pantry and need a quick substitute. It is a great source of protein, which helps strengthen your muscles and maintain muscle mass over time. 

How to Make Christmas Reindeer Cookies

Ingredients

FOR THE COOKIES

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 ½ cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons of milk

FOR THE ICING

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoon warm water
• 1 ½ tablespoon meringue powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Few drops of brown liquid food color
• Few green m&m’s

Instructions

Baking The Cookies

STEP 1: Take butter, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until combined and the mixture turns creamy.

STEP 2: Add flour, salt, and baking powder into the mixture; next, add milk (1 tablespoon at a time) and mix all together to form a dough.

STEP 3: Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to overnight.

STEP 4: Preheat the oven to 350 F or 175 C.

STEP 5: Remove the chilled dough and roll out the disc until ¼ inch thick. With the help of a large size circle cookie cutter, cut into round shapes.

STEP 6: Bake the cookies for about 9-10 minutes.

STEP 7: Allow the cookies to cool completely before decorating.

Royal Icing The Cookies

STEP 1: In a bowl, take powdered sugar, meringue powder, and vanilla extract and beat for 2-3 minutes adding water gradually (1 teaspoon at a time), Beat until stiff peaks are formed.

STEP 2: Divide the icing into two different bowls. Keep more than half icing white and add brown liquid food color to the remaining icing.

STEP 3: Dip one side of the cookies in the white icing and let it dry. You can also pipe the icing on the cookies if you’re uncomfortable dipping the cookies.

STEP 4: Pipe (brown icing) the antlers and eyes on each cookie using a piping bag with a tiny hole.

STEP 5: Pipe a drop of brown icing to mark the nose (don’t use white icing for this because you might get confused about where to stick the m&m’s), and stick green m&m’s as the nose.

What To Serve With Reindeer Christmas Cookies

A cup of tea is your best bet if you’d like to enjoy your cookies with a subtle yet satisfying drink.

Tea has various health benefits, such as improving your immune system, fighting inflammation, and even preventing ills such as cancer and heart disease.

You can pair them with milk for a more classical approach to serving your cookies.

You may be familiar with this practice from leaving cookies with milk for Santa Claus as a child, but it’s never too late to dig into this wonderful combination yourself.

If you’re seeking a deliciously warm side to your freshly made fun cookie, you could never go wrong with a mug of hot chocolate that will be sure to lift your spirits with a shot of sweetness.

Other amazing combinations from the archives are:

• Homemade Vietnamese Pumpkin Spice Iced Coffee
• Nigerian Chapman Cocktail aka Fanta Chapman
• This Copycat Starbucks Caramel Brulee Latte

Tips About Making Reindeer Christmas Cookies

• Be careful with the powdered sugar – Powdered sugar icing tends to be a bit messy, and if you apply too much of it, you may end up with messy pieces. 
• Let your cookie dough rest in the fridge – You should aim to store it in the fridge for about 30 minutes before cutting each cookie dough ball into your desired shapes.  By letting the dough rest, the butter or fat becomes solidified again, leading to more rounded cookies. 
• Use chocolate chips instead of M&Ms  – Part of making these cute cookies is the fact that you get to draw on each one, and the reindeer nose can be created as easily with chocolate chips as it would with M&Ms.  

How To Store Reindeer Christmas Cookies

Before storing, you need to make sure that your cookies are cooled completely. You should store them at room temperature in an airtight container, such as Tupperware or cookie jar.

FAQ About Reindeer Christmas Cookies

Conclusion

This reindeer Christmas cookies recipe is the perfect treat to enjoy as the Christmas season approaches and festivities commence.

It is a quick and marvelously tasty dessert to have at a family gathering or just a sweet snack.

These fun cookies are easy to make, and you can serve them with various fulfilling beverages such as tea, milk, and hot chocolate.

The aromatic flavor of vanilla mixed with the sugary goodness of the icing on top will leave you craving more.

The crunchy yet subtle texture of these cookies decorated with adorable reindeer faces will make you look forward to Christmas and the warm festive season that is to come!

So, give this delicious recipe a try, and you may just find that it is your ultimate Christmas cookie recipe.