These cookies are so fun, festive, and perfect for making for a crowd this Holiday season! I used my favorite soft & tender sugar cookie recipe for the cookie base, then coated them in red, green, white, and brown candy melts. Of course, these cookies wouldn’t be complete without a little sprinkle of festive sprinkles! I hope that you all enjoy this recipe as much as I do! As always, feel free to make your own adjustments to this recipe to make it more to your liking :)

A hand holding a red gingerbread-shaped cookie with sprinkles; more colorful cookies in red, green, white, and brown are on a plate and cooling rack in the background. There is a gingerbread tattoo on the hand.

How To Make Mini Holiday Sugar Cookies

These little Christmas cookies are so easy and fun to make! They make for the perfect small treat to enjoy with your friends and family, or a great addition to goodie bags for friends, neighbors, teachers, etc. Regardless of how you enjoy them this year, this recipe is so easy and simple, and you’ll be left with the perfect mini Christmas sugar cookies!

Make the dough
Whisk flour, salt, + baking powder in a bowl
cream butter + sugar until fluffy (about 2 mins)
scrape bowl → add egg + vanilla → mix again
Add dry ingredients → mix until a soft dough forms and pulls away from the bowl
Give it one more quick mix to ensure everything is combined
Roll + chill
plop dough on parchment → flatten into a disc
Cover with a second parchment sheet → roll to about ⅛ inch
transfer the whole sheet to a baking tray
Chill at least 2 hours (overnight is even better for no-spread cookies)
Cut shapes
Grab your mini holiday cutters (2.5–3 inches)
Cut out as many shapes as possible
Re-roll scraps until you use up the dough

A baking tray lined with parchment paper holds unbaked, cut-out holiday sugar cookies in shapes like stockings, trees, mittens, and gingerbread people. Several metal cookie cutters are also on the tray.

Bake
Preheat oven to 375°F
Place cookies 1½ inches apart on a parchment-lined sheet
bake 8–10 mins until edges look lightly golden
cool completely on a wire rack before decorating
Dip in candy melts
Melt each candy color separately in 30-second bursts
Stir between each burst until smooth and shiny
If thick, thin with 1–2 tablespoons of coconut or vegetable oil
Dip each cooled cookie into the melted candy
let excess drip off → scrape the bottom edge
place on parchment + add sprinkles while wet
Done!
let them sit, arrange them on a plate, and enjoy your cutest-ever holiday cookies!

Recipe Tips

Chill your dough long enough. This is the #1 way to prevent spreading with cut-out cookies.
Roll evenly. Uneven dough = uneven baking.
Room temp butter + egg = perfect dough texture.
Don’t overmix. Once the flour goes in, stop mixing as soon as the dough forms.
Use parchment, not silicone mats. Parchment helps the cookies keep their shape better.
Dip fast! Candy melts set quickly, so have sprinkles ready.

How To Store Mini Holiday Sugar Cookies

Room temperature: an airtight container up to 5–6 days
Refrigerator: lasts up to 1 week, but room temperature keeps the texture best
Freezer: freeze undecorated or decorated cookies for up to 2 months
Freeze cookies flat in layers with parchment so candy melts don’t scratch
Tip: If freezing decorated cookies, let them thaw uncovered so condensation doesn’t make the candy melts sticky.

Recipe Variations

Candy cane mini cookies – dip in white melts + crushed peppermint
Gingerbread minis – add ½ tsp cinnamon + ¼ tsp ginger to the dough
Chocolate-dipped minis – swap candy melts for melted chocolate
Marble look – swirl two candy melt colors together for a pretty finish
Gold-drip minis – drizzle edible gold paint on the set candy melts

A hand holds a bitten frosted sandwich cookie above a plate of festive, colorful holiday cookies shaped like trees and stockings, with more cookies on a cooling rack and frosted pine branches nearby.

Mini Holiday Sugar Cookies

Recipe by Maddison Koutrouba – thesqueakymixer.com

4.5 from 72 votes

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Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

minutes

Cook Mode

Keep the screen of your device on.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Decorating
2/3 cups red candy melts
2/3 cups green candy melts
2/3 cups brown candy melts
2/3 cups white candy melts

Directions

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
In a large bowl with an electric mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy and creamy. About 2 minutes. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as you mix.
Add in the egg and vanilla. Continue to mix and scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that everything is combining evenly.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until a nice, soft dough forms and starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and let the dough mix for a few seconds longer to ensure that everything has been combining evenly.
Transfer the dough to parchment paper and flatten it into a disc. Place another piece of parchment paper on top of the dough and roll it roughly to about 1/8″ thickness.
Place the rolled out dough on a cookie sheet and transfer to the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Once the dough has chilled, use small 2.5″ – 3″ cookie cutters to cut out as many Holiday shapes as possible. You can find similar cookie cutters that I used on Amazon, here! Re-roll the scraps until all of the dough is used up.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and place each cookie 1 1/2″ apart from each other on a cookie sheet fitted with parchment paper.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the cookie is golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before decorating.
Melt each color candy melt separately in 30-second intervals, mixing in between each time until completely melted and smooth. Depending on the brand of candy melts you’re using, you may need to thin them out a bit for a smoother finish. To do this, you can add 1-2 tablespoons of either coconut oil or vegetable oil to the candy melts and stir to combine.
One at a time, dip each cooled cookie in the melted candy melts. Let the excess drip off back into the bowl, and use a fork to help you. Scrape the bottom of the cookies along the side of the bowl, then place each cookie onto a cookie sheet fitted with parchment paper. While the candy melts are still wet, add your sprinkles. Continue this process until all of the cookies are dipped.
Enjoy!!