Are you ready to take your Christmas baking or holiday baking to the next level? Instead of plain Christmas cookies, we are going to make cinnamon lattice cookies! Now, don’t worry because once you know the secret behind these, they’re easy peasy!
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Cinnamon lattice cookies don’t need to be highly decorative because the decoration is in the lattice. And that’s already impressive enough! These are fancy enough for a Christmas bake swap or to package up in little boxes and give as gifts. As for the flavour, imagine a cross between sugar cookies and moist, buttery pie crust. With an unusual texture too, thanks to the latticing!
How to Make Lattice Cookies like a Pro
The cinnamon lattice cookies recipe starts out like many baked cookie recipes. You will be mixing the dry ingredients and then beating in the eggs, butter and sugar to get nice dough. At this point you can even refrigerate the dough for a few days. So if you prefer to plan your Christmas baking ahead, you might like to get a head start on these cinnamon lattice cookies.
The secret of the lattice is all about making evenly sized strips. If you have thick ones and skinny ones, the lattice design won’t look good. So take your time and remember: if the strips go wrong, you can just roll the dough back out and try again! The crisscross pieces of dough can be cut with a round cookie cutter to make the finished cookie shapes.
Nothing goes to waste here because the scraps of dough are made into strips and used to make the final few cookies. Or else you can just make one plain cookie if you only have a little bit of dough left over. The one thing to bear in mind is that you need to work fast. It is easier to make lattice pastry with ice cold dough. If it gets too warm, you can pop it back in the refrigerator, and continue with the recipe later.
Fun Tweaks and Variations
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can try other shapes of Christmas cookies. And yes, still keeping the lattice design! Do you have any Christmassy dough cutters for your holiday baking recipes? How about a jolly fat Santa or a church bell or even a reindeer! As long as you’re using a simple cutter without too many fiddly bits to trap dough, it will work just fine. There is nothing wrong with simply making them round though – these are already an elegant cookie.
Something else you might like to do is to add either food colouring or a coloured ingredient like cocoa to one half of the dough, then weave the lattices using light dough and darker dough, for a more unusual effect. This might be a good idea for Halloween too – try half orange and half green, or even black!
You might also see other lattice designed on holiday baking recipes. Take pumpkin or apple pie for example. These can have a plain pastry lid or they might feature a lattice pastry top. The lattice is usually kept very loose on this type of baked goods though, both to look good and so steam can escape from the filling. Some savoury pies are latticed, as well as sweet ones. It is just a technique which looks good and is also functional. And the design looks amazing on lattice cookies.
These parchment paper sheets are perfect for baking Christmas cookies! No sticking and (hopefully) no burning, plus easy clean up.
History of the Lattice Design
From the second half of the 16th century through to the first half of the 18th elaborate pies were all the rage. The more elaborate the better! Of course, this didn’t affect the flavour, but people did prefer fancy-looking pies.
Architectural designs became more elaborate during that era, as did the baking. The upper classes would have fancy baked goods to show off on their tables. Of course, they didn’t have pizza cutters back then to make things easier when holiday baking – only sharp knives!
What is Sanding Sugar?
These Christmas cookies are sprinkled with white sanding sugar before baking. If you haven’t heard the term before, sanding sugar is a large crystal sugar which doesn’t dissolve when heated. Other names for sanding sugar include decorating sugar or pearl sugar.
You might also like Vegan Gluten Free Pistachio Cookies, Gluten Free Chocolate Dipped Almond Horns, or Biscotti X Fig Cookies.
Cinnamon Lattice Cookies Recipe
Cinnamon Lattice Cookies
Ingredients
- 71/2 Cup flour
- 3 Tsp cinnamon
- 1 1/2 Tsp nutmeg
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 3 eggs large
- 3 egg yolks
- 2 1/4 Cup butter
- 2 1/4 Cup sugar
- 2 1/4 Tsp vanilla extract
Topping
- 1/4 Cup Sugar for topping
Instructions
- In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients and then set aside.
- In another bowl, beat the eggs and yolks together. Set this aside, too.
- In the bowl of a mixer, beat the butter until fluffy. Beat in the sugar until combined. Then add in the vanilla and the egg mixture to combine.
- Gradually beat in dry mixture until the dough comes together.
- Remove the dough and divide into 4 pieces. Shape each piece into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and then refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- Remove dough from the fridge and unwrap. Place each disk between lightly floured pieces of parchment, dusting with more flour to keep dough from sticking if needed. Roll out each to a 14 inch square that is about 1/8 inch thick.
- Stack dough pieces with parchment on a baking sheet, cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment.
- Remove baking sheet from the fridge and unwrap. Remove 2 dough pieces. Rewrap the baking sheet and return to fridge. Using a pizza cutter, slice one dough piece into 1/2 inch wide strips. Repeat with the second dough piece.
- Now to make the lattice…it isn't as hard as the directions make it sound. With the first dough piece, gently fold back every other strip in half without bending. Position one strip of dough from the second square perpendicularly against the bends in the strips you just folded back. Unfold the bent strips so that they lie on top the perpendicular strip. Repeat this crisscrossing process (folding back the strips in the first piece that are now covered by the perpendicular strip, placing another strip from the second piece perpendicularly against those bends, and unfolding the bent strips so they lie atop the new perpendicular strip) until a lattice pattern is woven through half of the dough piece.
- Turn the parchment 180 degrees and repeat the above steps on the other half of the dough square.
- Using a 3 1/2 inch round cutter, cut out cookies and transfer to the prepared baking sheets. Gather scraps as you go and wrap tightly in plastic wrap to refrigerate. Sprinkle cookies lightly with the topping sugar.
- Remove dough scraps from the fridge, form into a disk, and chill for about 30 minutes. Then repeat rolling, chilling, lattice-making, baking, and cooling directions to create the last few cookies.
- Repeat with the 2 remaining dough squares to make all the cookies.
- Bake 11 to 15 minutes until golden. Cool cookies on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Nutrition
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Because these grains are big and light-reflecting, they add a beautiful sparkle to cookies. All the better for Christmas baking! Find it at a baking supply store or order online. If you can’t find sanding sugar for these lattice cookies, use coarse regular white sugar. It will hold its shape after baking but won’t sparkle quite as much.
These Christmas cookies are a great idea because they are deceptively simple to make, and they look incredible! They hold together even after a quick dive in your cappuccino. So grab your pizza cutter and get ready to make the most amazing cinnamon lattice cookies!
Let me know if you try these cinnamon lattice cookies. I am sure you will love this addition to your holiday baking.
Bella Bucchiotti
Bella Bucchiotti is a storyteller, food lover, dog mom and adventure seeker living on the Pacific coast. She shares her passion for food, dogs, fitness, adventures, travel and philanthropy, in hopes of encouraging followers to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places and stand for a cause. Bella lives with Type 1 Diabetes and Celiac Disease.
These cinnamon lattice cookies look so good. They would be perfect for the holidays!
I have never seen or tasted lattice cookies before! They are SO pretty to look at! I’m glad you featured this too because I was looking for new baking ideas for my little one and I to do for the holidays that are unique, yet not as messy and complicated as the others. The lattice design will be the most fun, but it looks so delicious too!
Oh my word, these sound so delicious and look so fancy! So yes, I’m ready to take my cookies to the next level!
I do love the look of these cookies! Have never made them myself but I think I may try!