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This fun recipe for 3D stacked Christmas tree sugar cookies is a great project for Christmas time when you’re in a baking mood. The tree shapes are made of sugar cookie dough and feature green frosting. Star cookie cutters make the stars on top of the cookie trees stacks. Despite being so gorgeous, Christmas sugar cookies really are easy to make!
Soft in texture and huge in flavor, 3D stacked Christmas tree sugar cookies are perfect for the festive season. They pair perfect almond and vanilla flavors.
More sweet treats to whip up include Italian ricotta pie, Nutter Butter reindeer cookies and melted snowman cookie bark.
Christmas Tree Cookies Ingredients
You need ingredients for the cookies themselves as well as for the green icing. The sugar cookie dough calls for butter, sugar, vanilla and almond extracts, egg, flour, baking powder, and salt.
The frosting for these 3D trees is a mixture of butter, powdered sugar, cream, salt, green food colouring, and more vanilla and almond extract. If you have a favourite royal icing recipe, that could be used instead.
The finishing touch on the cookie trees is white candy melts and also some white crystal shimmer sparkles.
How to Make 3D Stacked Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies
It’s easiest to use a stand mixer with a paddle attachment to prepare the sugar cookie dough, but you can use a hand whisk if you don’t have one.
Cream the butter and sugar and then beat in the egg and vanilla and almond extracts for several minutes.
Next add in the flour, salt and baking powder and mix until just combined. Take half of the sugar cookie dough and roll it into a ball or make a dough disk. Leave the rest of the Christmas sugar cookies dough in the bowl.
Roll out the dough ball on a floured surface and use different sizes of star cookie cutters to cut out the tree shapes for your Christmas sugar cookies.
Bake them on parchment paper-lined baking sheets for a few minutes until golden brown. Repeat with the remaining dough.
Now you have your tree shapes you can make the green frosting. Beat the butter with half the powdered sugar. Add the remaining powdered sugar. Also beat in the cream, vanilla, salt, food colouring and almond extract.
If needed, you can add more cream if the frosting seems too thick or more green food colouring if it isn’t bright enough. Transfer the frosting into a piping bag with an open star tip.
Next up, it’s time to make the white stars for your cookie trees. Melt white candy coating and then use it to fill little star moulds. Hit the mould on the countertop a few times to get rid of any little bubbles in the candy.
Now add the sprinkles and give it a shake to distribute them evenly. Let them cool on a wire rack or cooling rack in the refrigerator or even at room temperature on the countertop.
Assembling the 3D Tree Cookies
The last step in making these cute Christmas tree cookies is to assemble them. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or wax paper. First pipe stars around the cookie outline so the points of the stars are all covered in icing stars. Then stack them from the largest cookie on the bottom up to the smallest cookie on top to form cookie trees. Put a white star on top of each one on the small cookie and refrigerate them on a tray with wax paper to set them.
Dust these tasty Christmas tree cookies with a little powdered sugar to resemble snow and serve. You could also package them up as holiday cookies for a cookie exchange or save them for your Christmas party.
Variations and Add-Ins
There are various tweaks and changes you can make, based on what ingredients you have as well as personal preference.
You can sub white sugar for the white crystal sprinkles and choose from green food coloring liquid or food colouring gel. Feel free to use different colours if you want, perhaps introducing some festive red. You could use gold stars for the top of the tree instead, too.
Also feel free to leave out the vanilla extract and/or almond extract, or use something different like hazelnut for another flavour. Gingerbread cookies could be used instead of this buttery sugar cookie recipe or you could change to other fun shapes (like circles or triangles) instead of the stars.
3D Stacked Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies FAQs
I recommend keeping 3D Christmas tree cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They do soften a bit but should hold their shape well.
I ordered my star cookie cutters online and you can also get a set of piping tips there. They are ideal for making these 3D sugar cookies.
3D Stacked Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies Recipe
3D Stacked Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 Cup salted butter, softened
- 1 Cup granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 Teaspoon almond extract
- 1 egg
- 3 Cup all purpose flour, plus more for rolling
- 1 ¼ Teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ salt
Frosting:
- ½ Cup salted butter, softened
- 4 Cups powdered sugar
- ¼ Cup heavy cream
- ¼ Teaspoon salt
- ½ Teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ Teaspoon almond extract
- food colouring, forest green
Stars:
- candy melts, white
- sprinkles, white crystal shimmer
Instructions
Cookies:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, use a paddle attachment to cream together the sugar and butter.
- Add in the vanilla, almond extract, and egg. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy (4 to 5 minutes).
- Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix on medium low speed just until combined.
- Take half of the dough and form it into a ball. Set the ball back in the bowl.
- On a clean surface, sprinkle some flour around to prevent the dough from sticking to the surface when rolling and cutting the cookies. Then place the ball of the dough on the flour dusted surface and roll out to be around 1/4″ to 3/8″ thick.
- Use the star cookie cutters to cut out the same amount of each size star. Place the cut out stars onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Spread the stars out to be 1″ apart, making sure the smaller stars are in the center of the cookie sheet and larger stars are around the edges, this will help prevent the smaller stars from over baking.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 8 to 12 minutes. The cookies should be very blonde still when coming out, no golden or brown edges. Set the cookies aside to cool completely. Repeat steps 5 to 7 until all of the dough has been used.
Frosting
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, use a paddle attachment to beat the butter and half of the powdered sugar together. Once smooth, add in the remaining powdered sugar, cream, vanilla, almond extract, salt, and food coloring. Start with just a few drops of the food coloring.
- Beat on high until light and fluffy, if the frosting is too thick add additional heavy cream 1 Tablespoon at a time until desired consistency has been reached. Add additional food coloring to reach desired color.
- Scrape the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small open star tip.
Stars:
- Melt the white candy coating in a heat safe dish.
- Fill the small star molds with the melted candy coating so they are filled about 1/4″ deep, you want the stars to be fairly thin, if they are too thick they won’t sit on top of the trees properly. To make sure there are no air bubbles and the candy coating is even, carefully shake the mold a bit and hit the bottom of the mold onto your work surface a few times.
- Pour the sprinkles onto each star in the mold, and carefully shake the mold again to ensure the sprinkles are covering evenly.
- Set aside to cool completely, either on the counter or in the fridge.
Assembly:
- To assemble, pipe small stars around the outline of the cookies, all of the points of the cookies should be covered with the frosting stars, but in the center of the cookie you can just fill with a blob of the frosting. Stack the stars with the largest cookie on the bottom and smallest on the top.
- Add one of the white stars to the very top.
- Place each cookie into the fridge right after stacking. This will help them set and be sturdy.
- When ready to serve, you can serve as-is or dust with a little powdered sugar to give a snowy look.
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
These gorgeous 3D stacked Christmas tree cookies could very well become your favorite sugar cookie recipe. They are made with star shaped cookies stacked in tree shapes and green in color. The cookies are decorated with white stars on top and crystal sprinkles to look like snow. Put on the Christmas music and make some delicious sugar cookies.
Merry Christmas, friends! Enjoy this stacked sugar cookie Christmas tree recipe and let me know if you make them.
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Bella Bucchiotti
Bella Bucchiotti is a Canadian-based syndicated food, travel, and lifestyle writer, photographer, and creator at xoxoBella. She founded xoxoBella in 2015, where she shares her love for food, dogs, sustainability, fitness, crafts, outdoor adventures, travel, and philanthropy to encourage others to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places, and stand for a cause. Bella creates stress-free and family-friendly recipes for weeknight dinners and festive feasts.
I’m over the moon with how delicious this dish is. It’s definitely going to be a regular on our dinner table!
Es una grandiosa idea para postres individuales… 🎄❤️
The cutest! Adding to my baking this for this christmas