Cream Cheese Christmas Tree Cookies
Delicious holiday cookies made with cream cheese that are perfectly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside!
Servings 2 dozen
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 8 oz cream cheese brick, softened
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Cream Cheese Icing
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- Forrest green food gel
Optional Garnish
- Gold metallic sprinkle balls
- Gold metallic stars
Instructions
Cookies
- In a large mixing bowl, add butter, and cream cheese, and beat with a hand mixer until smooth. Add the egg, and vanilla extract, and beat again. Add baking powder, salt and one cup of the flour. Beat at a low speed until combined. Add each additional cup of flour beating at the low speed after each cup is added. Divide dough in half and wrap each of them in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle a large cutting board with flour. Place down one disk of dough, then dust the top of the dough with flour as well. Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness. With a 4 inch tree shaped cookie cutter, cut out several trees and carefully transfer them to parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Combine scraps and re-roll the leftover dough cutting additional cookie trees using additional cookie sheets.Bake one pan at a time for 10 – 12 minutes, or until cookies are done and edges begin turning golden brown. Remove from oven, and cool completely.
Frosting
- Add cream cheese, butter and vanilla extract to a medium sized mixing bowl and beat with a hand mixer until combined and fluffy. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating in between each add until smooth. Add several drops of forest green food gel and mix until you get a deep green color.Add part of the frosting to a piping bag with a small star tip. Pipe the frosting starting on the bottom of each cookie (without piping on the trunk) into swoops, lifting the piping bag while squeezing out the frosting slightly in the beginning, then immediately bringing the tip down as you continue the frosting line about 1/2 of an inch. Repeat until you complete the bottom row. Then pipe additional rows of swoops until you get to the top of the tree. Add gold sprinkle balls to the trees for ornaments and gold sprinkles stars to the tops of the trees as an additional option.Let the icing slightly harden for a couple of hours or serve it right after decorating.
