Easy Grinch Sugar Cookies

These adorable Grinch sugar cookies look like the snow capped trees at the beginning of the iconic movie! They start with a basic sugar cookie dough, get snow capped with a vanilla glaze, and finished off with a huge heart!

I know it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but I am all over Christmas mode this year.

Maybe it’s because so many Christmas festivities were cancelled last year or maybe it’s because well I just love Christmas cookies.

This week we introduced my youngest to The Grinch and watched all three of the Grinch movies. I had no idea it was one of the most popular Christmas party themes but apparently it is.

Grinchmas. Grinch days. Grinch Christmas parties. You name it and people are celebrating all things Grinch this year.

I’ve seen lots of Grinch cookies out there before, even Grinch sugar cookies, but I really wanted to do something a little different.

When I saw the iconic snow capped leaning trees in the animated movie, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.

So here you go – Grinch sugar cookies that look like the trees from the original Grinch movie. I kind of love them.

And my boys did too. My youngest might’ve stolen a cooke or two before I could even take photos!

You can use the recipe in this post or these cream cheese sugar cookies – both work as long as you follow the rest of the recipe instructions!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• They’re adorable – seriously, these might be the cutest Grinch cookies ever. People will just say aw.
• Easy – while they may look a little complicated with those snow capped tree tips, they’re actually super easy! The kids helped me they’re so easy.
• Not too sweet – unlike a lot of sugar cookie recipes that are topped with insane amounts of frosting, these ones just have a little glaze on the tip. That means they’re about the perfect amount of sweetness. Even my non-sweet loving husband liked them!

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

• Heavy cream – you can use heavy cream, half and half, or your favorite flavored coffee creamer for these cookies. I’ve done both and my personal favorite is heavy cream but all three of them work!
• Butter – make sure to use unsalted softened butter. If you don’t have unsalted, cut the salt down by 1/4 tsp to 3/4 tsp.
• Food coloring – I used a neon green food coloring for both these and my Grinch cupcakes. With the neon coloring, it only took a couple of drops to get the right color.
• Red candy melts – I used these to pipe little hearts on the trees. You could also just use candy hearts added onto the cookies like I did with my Grinch brownies if you want too.

How to Make Grinch Cookies

If you’ve ever made regular cut out sugar cookies, you’ll be able to make these. It’s as simple as mixing the ingredients together, letting the dough chill, cutting them out, and baking!

Make the Grinch Cookie Dough

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

Once that’s smooth, add the heavy cream, vanilla and eggs and beat until creamy.

Next, add the flour, baking powder, and salt to the creamed mixture and mix well to form a soft dough. It may be a little sticky and that’s okay. That’s why you chill the dough – it helps the butter stabilize and forms the dough you can roll out.

Once you have a good dough, add green food coloring and mix until color is even throughout.

You can add additional food coloring and mix well until you get just the right Grinch color you want. I used just a couple of drops of the neon green food coloring but different food colorings are more potent so use as much as you need.

Once you’ve achieved your color, place the dough for the Grinch sugar cookies in a Ziploc bag or wrap it in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour.

Chilling the dough makes it possible to roll these out after. You can chill for an hour or even overnight. Sometimes I like to make the dough at night then let the kids help roll and cut out the next day.

Cut and Bake Your Cookies

Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper. The oven can preheat while you cut out the cookies.

Divide the dough in half and roll it out on a floured surface until it is about 1/4″ thick, then use a Christmas tree shaped cookie cutter and cut dough.

Repeat until all dough is cut into Christmas trees.

Place cookies on the parchment lined baking sheet about an inch apart and then shape the top of the tree into a little curl to give it that Grinch tree look.

Bake for 7-9 minutes, until cookies just barely start to brown around the edges. Just like with other sugar cookies, you really don’t want to over bake these and they brown quickly so make sure to keep watch while baking.

Let them cool for 5 minutes before you move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Decorate the Cookies

While the cookies are cooling, make the glaze by mixing 1 cup powdered sugar with 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. If it is still too thick you can add 1/2 tsp milk to get the right consistency.

Place a drop of glaze on the top of the tree and the tips and allow to harden. Or if you find it easier, you can dip the trees into the bowl of glaze. Just know that you’ll have more glaze on the cookies by dipping than if you indiviudally add drops to the trees – it is faster though!

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the red candy melts in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, then microwave in additional 30 second increments, stirring between each, until completely melted and smooth.

You can also do this using a double boiler if you don’t have a microwave.

Pour melted candy melts into a ziplock bag, then snip the corner of the bag to make a small hole. Or use a piping bag with a small round tip.

Use the bag to pipe the small red hearts on the trees. You want to make sure the hole in your bag is small enough to give you some control over the hearts or you’ll end up with just big blobs.

Or if you’re not comfortable piping on the hearts, you can also just use candy hearts or heart sprinkles to get the same look without the effort.

Place the cookies on the wire cooling rack again and allow the hearts to harden.

These are really fun to serve for Grinchmas, a Christmas party, or even just to make as Christmas cookies for your family! I mean how cute are these???

Expert Tips

Keep the dough in the refrigerator until you are ready to roll and cut out your cookies. You can even leave the second half of your dough in the fridge while you’re rolling out the first half. The more you work with it, the softer it becomes making it harder to cut out.

Store cookies in an airtight container for up to a week before throwing away or freezing.

Freeze the cookies before decorating by placing in a freezer safe airtight container. When you’re ready to serve, just take out of the freezer and allow to come to room temperature. Glaze and decorate cookies just before serving.

Recipe FAQs

More Easy Christmas Cookies

If you like these Grinch cookies, you’ll love these other yummy Christmas cookies!

• Andes Mint Cookies – these delicious 4-ingredient cookies are soft, chewy, and filled with an Andres Mint!
• Snickers cookies – the best peanut butter cookies stuffed with a Snickers in the middle, these will be a family favorite!
• Rolo chocolate chip cookies – the best way to make chocolate chip cookies better is to put a Rolo inside for a burst of chocolate and caramel goodness!
• Orange sugar cookies – these yummy sugar cookies have just a little hint of citrus flavor, the perfect Christmas sugar cookie!
• Cherry cheesecake cookies – what you’d get if you mixed cherry pie, cheesecake, and sugar cookies together!