How to Bake and Make a Christmas Cookie Advent Calendar

Over the years we have created many different advent calendars. You may recall the year when my sister lived overseas and sent my daughter a surprise in the mail every day. One of my favourite advent calendars was last year's eco-friendly calendar...get those kids outside on chilly days and nights. Don't forget about our joke packed toilet paper roll elves...a new joke every day! This year we decided to add a sweet twist to the countdown by baking a Christmas cookie advent calendar.

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Yep, an advent calendar filled with Christmas cookies! How delicious is that? Each day you open a little box and out pops one of the delightful little advent calendar cookies. We used different holiday shapes for our Christmas cookie countdown - Christmas trees and gingerbread people.

Christmas Cookie Advent Calendar

Simple Sugar Cookie Recipe
½ cup unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Royal Icing Recipe
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon meringue powder
1 - 2 tablespoon water
red, green food colouring gels

For the advent calendar

24 matchboxes or small boxes
24 small resealable plastic bags
decorative string or ribbon
glue gun
cork board
holiday wrapping paper and tape
24 push pins

The first step is baking the cookies. You will need small cookie cutters so that the cookies will fit inside a matchbox or similar sized box.

Let's make the cookies! Cream together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in 3 batches. Stir until the dough comes together. Form a disk with dough and wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Roll out cooled dough on a lightly floured surface, and roll to ⅛ inch thickness. Cut out shapes. Bake in a 350°F oven for 8-10 minutes...until lightly golden on the bottom. Set aside to cool on a rack.

Mix up a batch of royal icing. Combine icing sugar, meringue powder and water until the icing reaches the desired consistency. If you want to pipe on cookies, keep the icing thick. Divide icing into 3 bowls and add red and green food colouring. Transfer icing to resealable plastic bags and clip the corner...create a very small hole. The smaller the hole, the thinner the piping.

Decorate the cookies and set them aside to dry completely...about an hour or two. My daughter did all the cookie decorating. I love her little trees and gingerbread people.

How to Build a Cookie Advent Calendar

Now that the cookies are baked, it's time to make the calendar. Prepare the boxes for the cookies. We found our boxes at the dollar store, they were filled with little stickers. My daughter used the stickers to decorate the sides of the boxes. You could use these little pillow boxes I found on Amazon or these simple kraft paper boxes and decorate them yourself. I simply used a marker to write the numbers 1 thru 24 on the bottom of each box. We loved the fun designs on the boxes and didn't want to write on the designs.

Next cut 24 pieces of decorative string about 4 inches long. Use a dot of glue from the glue gun to adhere a loop of the string to the back of the boxes. If you don't have a glue gun, a piece of tape would do the job. This is how the boxes will hang on the corkboard.

We used a corkboard that we already own, but you can pick up an inexpensive corkboard. Wrap the corkboard like a present, with festive wrapping paper.

Once the icing on the cookies has dried pop the cookies inside the resealable plastic bags. We used little craft bags, again from the dollar store. The bags need to be sealable to keep the cookies fresh for the entire month. Slide the wrapped cookies into the boxes.

Okay, now it's time for the layout. My daughter and I worked on the design...a Christmas tree. Layout the boxes and use the push pins to attach the boxes in place on the board. Done!

Hang the Christmas cookie advent calendar and enjoy a cookie a day all December long. One of the best things about this advent calendar is that I am already planning what we can fill the little boxes with next year. The entire calendar is reusable...we love that.

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Christmas Cookie Advent Calendar

Countdown to Christmas with a Christmas sugar cookie advent calendar. Fun and delicious!

Prep Time25 minutes mins

Cook Time10 minutes mins

Total Time35 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American, canadian

Keyword: christmas cookies, sugar cookie recipe

Servings: 32 mini cookies

Calories: 77kcal

Author: Jen

Ingredients

Simple Sugar Cookie Recipe

• ½ cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt

Royal Icing Recipe

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon meringue powder
• 1 - 2 tablespoon water
• red and green food colouring gels

Instructions

• Cream together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in 3 batches. Stir until dough comes together. Form disk with dough and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
• Roll out cooled dough on a lightly floured surface, roll to ⅛ inch thickness. Cut out shapes. Bake in 350°F for 8-10 minutes…until lightly golden on bottom. Set aside to cool on rack.
  
• Mix up a batch of royal icing. Combine icing sugar, meringue powder and water until icing reaches desired consistency. If you want to pipe on cookies, keep the icing thick. Divide icing into 3 bowls and add red and green food colouring. Transfer icing to resealable plastic bags and clip the corner…create a very small hole. The smaller the hole, the thinner the piping.
  
• Decorate the cookies and set aside to dry completely…about an hour or two.

Notes

Nutrition Info is to be used as a rough guide. Nutrition Info is based on the products I am using and you may not be using the same products/brands. Thus, the Nutrition Info may vary.

Nutrition

Serving: 20g | Calories: 77kcal | Carbohydrates: 11.7g | Protein: 1.29g | Fat: 2.75g | Saturated Fat: 1.618g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.16g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.8g | Cholesterol: 12mg | Sodium: 49mg | Potassium: 25mg | Fiber: 0.3g | Sugar: 3.96g | Vitamin A: 86IU | Calcium: 9mg | Iron: 0.54mg

Serving: 20g | Calories: 77kcal | Carbohydrates: 11.7g | Protein: 1.29g | Fat: 2.75g | Saturated Fat: 1.618g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.16g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.8g | Cholesterol: 12mg | Sodium: 49mg | Potassium: 25mg | Fiber: 0.3g | Sugar: 3.96g | Vitamin A: 86IU | Calcium: 9mg | Iron: 0.54mg

Looking for more creative ways to countdown to Christmas, check out all of these super fun activities and crafts...

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