30 Easy Cookie Recipes To Make With Kids
Caitlin Bensel; Food Stylist: Torie Cox
While trips to the Christmas tree farm and visits with Santa certainly top our lists, there is one holiday activity that stands out in our memories: baking with our loved ones. We first learned how to use a stand mixer in Grandma's kitchen, churning out batches of dough and pressing chocolate kisses into those famous peanut butter blossoms. The best way to pass on this tradition (and your love for baking) is to get the kids in the kitchen with you this holiday season.
When you're baking with kids, there's a bit of a learning curve. Rather than focus on achieving perfection, the fun of baking with family is in the process. These recipes are simple enough to execute alongside your favorite little elves, but most importantly, they're built for family fun. From festive sprinkles and icing designs to classic family favorites, these recipes will help you pass on the joy of baking to the next generation.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
You can't go wrong with chocolate chip. Every good baker should have a homemade chocolate chip cookie recipe in her back pocket, and this twist on the classic recipe will be passed down in the family for generations. Brown butter lends a rich, nutty flavor that sets these cookies apart.
Grandma's Chocolate Drop Cookies
This one from Grandma's recipe box is easy for novice bakers to make. And it's easy to customize: Add in butterscotch chips or go without the nuts. The cream cheese-chocolate icing will satisfy the most discerning chocolate lovers.
Snowy Tree Cookies
These cookies may call for a bit of construction, but the resulting 3-D Christmas trees are so much fun. We use multiple star-shaped cookie cutters to build the layers. You can make the dough up to five days in advance, allowing the kids to focus on cutting, stacking, and decorating to their hearts' content.
Spritz Cookies
With a dough that takes five minutes to prepare and the endless fun promised by a cookie press, the kids won't be able to get enough of these fool-proof holiday cookies. Allow your kids to choose their favorite shapes, and use basic colored sprinkles for decorating.
Laura Bush's Cowboy Cookies
If you're in search of a big-batch Christmas party treat, look no further than these jumbo-sized, presidential Cowboy Cookies. This souped-up oatmeal cookie includes chocolate chips, roasted pecans, sweetened flake coconut, and a touch of cinnamon.
Cheesecake Cookies
These fluffy cookies are built to be bite-sized, which means your kids can snack on a few of them without slipping into a sugar rush. The recipe is quick to prepare and bake. After the cookies cool, add a dusting of powdered sugar and a bright and merry maraschino cherry.
Red Velvet Cake Mix Cookies
Dress up that box of cake mix with this easy recipe, which results in chewy, Christmas-hued chocolatey cookies that your kids will adore. You'll whip up the five ingredients in no time, and you can vary the recipe with other candies and confections.
Kitchen Sink Cookies
Sweet and salty, these creative cookies hit all the right notes. The recipe calls for chocolate chunks, almonds, corn chips, and oats for lots of texture. Feel free to toss in any of your family's pantry staples (pretzels? potato chips?) to customize the recipe.
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
These brownie-like cookies are packed to the brim with chocolate and coated with powdered sugar. AKA, they're any kid's dream. Roll the cookie dough balls in powdered sugar and gently press them down with a spatula in the middle of baking to create the crinkly effect.
Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies
These drop cookies marry our favorite flavors of peanut butter and chocolate, and you're likely to already have all the ingredients on hand. Plus, this large-batch recipe produces dozens of cookies. You'll have plenty to send home with the grandkids.
Pumpkin Spice Cookies
If pumpkin pie is your go-to Thanksgiving dessert, these Pumpkin Spice Cookies will be a new household staple. And no pie crust is required to satisfy your hankering. This riff on the classic snickerdoodle cookie uses canned pumpkin and pumpkin spice mix.
Cathedral Window Cookies
This no-bake recipe requires just five ingredients. You can use regular mini marshmallows for this sugary recipe, but festive-colored marshmallows really replicate the look of stained glass. The kids won't be able to get enough of these treats built for family fun.
Snowflake Sugar Cookies
Start with our Easy Sugar Cookies, a basic recipe unexpectedly flavored with almond extract. Whether you opt for intricate piping or a simple sanding sugar coating, these snowflake cookies are tailor-made for holiday fun. You don't have to be a professional cookie decorator to whip up a batch of these beauties.
Toasted Oatmeal Cookies
Forget about the chocolate chips—the raisins and pecans in this recipe will turn your kids into oatmeal cookie fans. Toast the oats ahead of time and bring in the kids for stirring, scooping, and baking. Serve with a wholesome glass of milk.
Pecan Snowball Cookies
Sometimes called pecan sandies, these balls of buttery vanilla shortbread have crunchy pecan pieces dispersed throughout their crumbly texture. Recruit the kids to roll these cookies in powdered sugar. The recipe makes 4 dozen, so you'll be thankful to have a few elves to help out.
Easiest Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe
Hannah Zimmerman / Southern Living
Four ingredients and 35 minutes later, you'll have a batch of scrumptious, naturally gluten-free cookies. This quick cookie dough solely depends on peanut butter, sugar, and egg for its shape. The oil in the peanut butter and the proteins in the egg blend together with the sugar to make a cookie with a soft texture.
All-Time Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sometimes you just want the classic—nothing added, nothing fancy. If chocolate chip cookies are your little one's favorite, this recipe will be requested often. (But if you do want your cookies to offer something extra, we offer versions like cranberry-white chocolate and almond toffee.)
Brownie Cookies
Victor Protasio; Food Stylist: Emily Nabors Hall; Prop Stylist Shell Royster
These chocolatey cookies have that unmistakable chewy quality that is downright delicious. Melted butter gives additional richness alongside the bittersweet chocolate chunks scattered throughout the dough. But we had you at "Brownie Cookie," right?
Birthday Cake Cookies
Not just for birthdays, these versatile cookies can suit any occasion with a change in colored sprinkles. With a distinctive vanilla cake flavor, jimmies, and white chocolate chips, one bite will transport you back to childhood birthday parties where this cake was doled out in generous slices. A scoop of vanilla on the side is perfectly appropriate here.
White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Suitable for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any cool fall day, our White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies are easy to prepare and quick to bake. Our Test Kitchen recommends using Ghirardelli Premium Baking Bars for a bakery-style look and premium taste. Bake on the upper rack to avoid over-browning, and be sure to chill the dough before you scoop it.
Fudgy Flourless Chocolate Pecan Cookies
This gluten-free recipe is filled with toasted chopped pecans and gooey pockets of melted chocolate. Whipped egg whites make the cookies airy and crisp on the outside and soft and brownie-like on the inside. And the kids only have to wait 15 minutes to eat them.
Brown Butter Snickerdoodles
Plan to brown the butter about an hour before you call the kids to the kitchen. The nutty flavor a golden-brown butter imparts makes the extra step very much worth it. Not to mention the cinnamon and sugar scent that wafts from your oven—these cookies will be gobbled down fast.
Sprinkle Stocking Cookies
Decorating is made easy for even the youngest kids by simply dipping cookies in sprinkles. And there's plenty of opportunity for getting fancy with icing, too. Make the dough ahead of time and let it chill for two to 24 hours.
Christmas Pinwheel Cookies
These pinwheels may look tricky to pull off, but it couldn't be simpler. Two tinted dough pieces are simply layered, rolled into a tube, and refrigerated. Once well-chilled, all you'll need to do is slice and bake. Your kids will feel like master bakers once they see the results.
No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
These irresistible cookies are perfect for the inexperienced baker—or an impatient one who's craving one-of-a-kind cookies that take 10 minutes to prepare. Mix together sugar, butter, chocolate, and oats. Drop onto wax paper and allow 30 minutes to harden.
Peanut Butter Cornflake Cookies
This no-bake recipe evokes fond memories of classroom parties at school. The sweet, gooey recipe is made from just four ingredients and doesn't even require refrigeration. If you're packing them up for an event, remember to use layers of wax paper when stacking your cookies.
Melted Snowman Cookies
Shake up the sugar cookie decorating with these humorous melted snowmen. This is a fun project for any age since perfectly aligned decorations aren't required when thawing weather takes its toll. Use our Easy Sugar Cookies and decorate with melted vanilla candy coating, some sprinkles, and black frosting.
Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
You grew up making these cookies with Grandma. Now it's your kid's turn to press the chocolate kisses into the peanut butter cookie dough. Follow these tips from our editor and you'll have a photo-worthy batch in no time.
Molasses Crinkles
This old-fashioned cookie will have you reminiscing about cooking in your Grandma's kitchen. This Christmas favorite is loaded with the classic flavors of dark molasses, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. The kids will enjoy rolling the little balls of dough in sugar, then watching them expand and crackle on a baking sheet.
Monster Cookies
Caitlin Bensel; Food Stylist: Torie Cox
Let the kids mix in all the candies and oats. We recommend starting with M&Ms for a colorful cookie, but you can also throw in chocolate or butterscotch chips, raisins, mini marshmallows, or nuts. They'll enjoy scooping out the rainbow-colored dough, and the extra-large size will surely make these cookies their new favorite to eat and make.
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