Make four adorable, decorated Christmas cookies using just one 9×13" pan! No rolling pin, no cookie cutters, just two colors of frosting and mini M&M's.
What you need:
- Sugar cookie bars & frosting (recipes below)
- Piping bags: I use seamless piping bags so you can pipe straight lines without a coupler or piping tip
- Star tip, optional
- Mini M&M's
- Red food coloring
How to Make
Watch me make this!
Christmas Sugar Cookie Bars (1 pan, 4 ways!)
Makes: 28 bars
Turning my popular Frosted Sugar Cookie bars into 4 adorable Christmas cookie bars using just one 9x13" pan! This is the same recipe as the original but is 1.5x the amount of frosting.
Ingredients
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Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. If butter hasn't been softened you can place in microwave for 10 seconds to *slightly* soften it.
- In a large bowl, cream together 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) and 1 cup granulated sugar on medium speed for 20-30 seconds. While mixer is still on medium speed, add in 1 large egg, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon almond extract.
- Once mixed, add in 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt, and 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, ½ cup of flour at a time while mixing. Be sure to measure your flour properly using the spoon & level method, as adding too much can result in dry bars. Mix until all flour disappears, typically 20-30 seconds. You do not need to beat/mix this any longer than it takes to mix in the flour. When pinched between your fingers, dough should be similar to a playdoh consistency and not be very sticky. Refer to photo above in post for how dough should look.
- Spray a metal 9×13 pan with cooking spray, then line pan with parchment paper (having the grease underneath the paper will help the paper stay down).
- Drop the dough into 1 tablespoon sized chunks into the prepared pan. Use your hands or a spatula to press down the dough until it covers the pan.Tip: If the dough is sticky, you can place another piece of parchment paper on top and continue pressing down. To get clean edges, you can fold down the sides of the parchment paper and press like shown in the post above.
- Bake bars at 350℉ for 14-16 minutes. The trick to soft sugar cookie bars is to take them out right when you see the TINIEST amount of brown around the edges. The center may look underdone and this is okay; the bars will continue to bake in the hot pan when cooling.
- Allow to cool completely before frosting (you can put the pan in the fridge on a cooling rack to speed this up).
To Make Frosting:
- In a large bowl, beat ¾ cup unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks) on medium speed using a hand or stand mixer (with paddle attachment) for 1-2 minutes (until light and creamy).
- Keeping the mixer on medium speed, slowly add in 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, ½ teaspoon almond extract, and 3 cups powdered sugar. Once incorporated, turn mixer to high speed and beat for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add 1 tablespoons milk and beat for 30 seconds. Add the remaining 1-2 tablespoons milk if frosting seems too thick to spread.
- Split the frosting into two bowls: one white, one red. Note that frosting with Red food coloring darkens with time, so don't worry about trying to get it a true red.
- Cut the baked 9×13" bars in half horizontally. Spread a thin, even layer of white frosting over the top half and red frosting over the bottom half, using just enough to fully cover the surface without the cookie showing through. Set aside the remaining frosting for piping the details.Let the frosting firm up for about 5-10 minutes to get cleaner cuts. Cut the different shapes according to this diagram:
- Transfer the remaining frosting to piping bags, snipping a small tip off each, and use it to pipe the lines on the candy cane sticks and gift designs.Use Mini m&m's for decorating to create the snowman faces and bows on the gifts. To pipe the Santa hats, place the white frosting piping bag inside a second piping bag fitted with a star tip.Note: This frosting firms up quickly, so add any sprinkles immediately after decorating!
Storage:
- Store in an airtight container and store for 2-3 days. These do not need to be refrigerated but do freeze & thaw well! If freezing, I'd recommend not using the m&m's because the color can bleed when they thaw.
Notes from Melissa
Cream Cheese Frosting Option: If you want to make these sugar cookie bars with cream cheese frosting instead of buttercream, I've got you covered! Make a double-batch of my Cream Cheese Frosting for Cookies and spread on top (you can even add sliced berries for a sugar cookie fruit pizza!
It was so easy, and they looked great!
So much easier then doing a big batch of cut outs! I did this with a few of the other one pan recipes and I love how easy it is to make a variety tray of cookies this way!
The cookies are yummy and although I had to improvise (missing a few things) they still turned out great.
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review, Megan! I really appreciate it!
So easy and yummy
Thank you so much for leaving a review, Jessica!
Great ideas! So easy! I don’t live the fussiness of needing to stand by the oven for batches of cookies baking. These are just what I needed! Thank you!
Thank you so much for leaving a review, Patti! I really appreciate it!