My Best Christmas Cookie Baking Tips!

Baking Christmas Cookies is a tradition for many families. Growing up we baked dozens of cookies to give to friends and neighbors. I’ve continued the tradition and we tend to bake several different cookies each year. Over the years I’ve used several tricks to make Christmas baking a little easier. Today I’m sharing a few of my favorite Christmas baking tips.

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Pre-Measuring Your Cookie Ingredients

I truly love baking. I tend to like it more than cooking and Christmas baking is the best! I love being creative and trying new recipes as well as making our traditional cookies each year.

What I don’t love is the mess! I also wanted to be able to bake several cookie recipes over the course of a few days without tearing apart the whole kitchen each time.

I decided to prepare and pre-measure all of the dry ingredients for each recipe ahead of time. This allowed me to drag out most of the ingredients just one time.

Decide how many batches of each cookie you want to make. Note your measurements if you are doubling or tripling any recipes.
Check your ingredients. Make sure that your baking soda and baking powder are not out of date.
- Place 1/4 tsp baking soda in a cup or bowl and add 2 tsp. vinegar. If baking soda bubbles it is fresh. If it doesn’t bubble, it’s old and should be replaced.
- To check if your baking powder is still active put 1/2 tsp baking powder in a bowl. Pour 1/4 cup boiling water over the baking powder. If it doesn’t bubble, it’s old and should be replaced.
I like to take a paper bag or a gallon-sized zip lock bag write the recipe name and list any wet ingredients that I will need for the recipe. I sometimes like to write any dusting or rolling ingredients on the bag too, just so I don’t forget.
Grab quart and gallon-sized bags for your dry ingredients.
Start measuring out your dry ingredients into baggies. I like to do this in a certain way…
- Check your recipes. If your instructions have you mix sugars with butter and eggs, then you want to bag up your sugars together.
- If your instructions have you mix all dry ingredients together, then you are safe to put those together in one bag.
- I often omit the salt until I make the recipe, you’ll notice this in the photo below. I didn’t want to risk activating the baking soda or baking powder but to be honest I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter and you’re free to add salt to your bags.
- If you need an ingredient for dusting or rolling – powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar etc. You’ll want to bag those separately. You get the idea.

When you are ready to bake, grab the right bag and any wet ingredients that you might need and get started.

This is a simple small way to prepare ahead and make this Christmas task a bit easier every year.

Always have a “trash bowl”

This is a tip that I use almost every day. Having a larger bowl beside you when you are working in the kitchen means you’re not running to the trash can every few minutes. Plus it keeps your work surface cleaner!

Use a plate for cracking eggs and messy spoons

This might be obvious to you but it’s a helpful tip if you’ve been used to just wiping up the messes all day. I always crack my eggs on a flat surface rather than on the edge of a bowl. Now I use that small plate to crack eggs and rest my messy spoons.

Waterproof Vinyl Tablecloths For Easy Clean Up

Using a plastic tablecloth (we’ve used this one for years!) to cover the table when you’re baking is a huge help. I cool all of our cookies on racks on the kitchen table (we don’t have tons of counter space). I don’t have to worry about the crumbs or powdered sugar mess when I use a plastic tablecloth. I really like this style with the felt backing.