Decorated Christmas Sugar Cookie Bars

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 Create a beautifully decorated pan of Christmas Sugar Cookie Bars that will feed a crowd! They look fancy, but couldn’t be easier!

I am sort of in love with this recipe and the way these cute little Christmas Sugar Cookie Bars turned out!

Any time I can make a whole lot of something is a short amount of time, I do it. I knock it out.

Sugar cookie bars and I have a history together and I love them for a number of reasons. Mainly because they are so darn good and you don’t have to spend an afternoon scooping cookie dough to feed a crowd. This holiday season, instead of making my Soft & Chewy Gingerbread Bars (one of my all time favorites…I’ll probably still make these!!) OR these Simple Sugar Cookie Bars (which are thick and delicious!) I opted for a thinner, frosted AND decorated Christmas sugar cookie bar that is deceivingly simple to make.

How’d I do it? I will break it down right now.

First off, I used my Vanilla Bean Christmas Cookie Recipe (minus the vanilla beans because have you seen the prices lately?! YIKES.) and instead of cutting out shapes, I pressed the dough into a half sheet pan and baked. Let that cool completely.

THEN, I used…wait for it…store bought frosting and covered the entire thing with a thin layer. Using a sharp knife, score the top to create a 35 rectangles (6×5). Then using other candies and frostings from the store, I went row by row, creating Santas, Snowmen, Christmas Trees and Rudolphs!

Be sure to print out the recipe so you get all the ingredients and instructions, so when you head to the store, you don’t forget anything!

Have a great day, friends!!

PS- I ended up making and photographing these bars twice!! So, you might see some varying techniques as to how these were decorated. You can pick and choose which you think are the cutest and make these how you like!

PPS- right above the recipe, I wrote out a long list of helpful tools and decorating items I used which would probably be helpful 🙂 ALSO! Feel free to just make an entire sheet pan of Santa’s or Rudolph’s. No need to make them all, though they are real cute 😉

Santa, baby! 

Helpful Links and Tips

(a few affiliate links below)

You are welcome to make homemade frostings for this, but I used store bought chocolate, vanilla, red and green. The chocolate and vanilla came in a can from the grocery store, right next to where the cake mixes are sold. The Red and Green frostings were from a craft store, though I found them at Target here and here. The colored frostings come in pouches with two tips built right in, which was really convenient. ALSO! These disposable icing bags are so simple to use and are well worth the extra few dollars.

For the trees, I used mini M&M’s for the star, these sprinkles as the ornaments and broken pretzel rods as the ends.

For Santa: I used the red and white frostings using the items listed above, plus a red mini M&M for the nose (or these red sprinkles) and then black sprinkles for the eyes. I sprinkled white sparkling sugar sprinkles on his hair, but that is totally optional.

For Rudolph: I used chocolate frosting in a disposable icing bag, with broken pretzel rods as the antlers, regular sized M&M’s for the noses and either brown mini M&M’s or black sprinkles for the eyes.

For the Snowmen: I used vanilla frosting in a disposable icing bag, red frosting for the scarf (with either the round or star tip) orange mini M&M’s for the nose, black sprinkles for the eyes and optional snowflake sprinkles and white sparkling sugar sprinkles.

I found nearly everything at Michaels, though it seems like Joann, Target or even a Fred Meyer or other good grocery store would have a lot, if not, all of this stuff.

Happy decorating!

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5 from 5 votes

Decorated Christmas Sugar Cookie Bars

Create a beautifully decorated pan of sugar cookie bars that will feed a crowd at Christmas! They look fancy, but couldn't be easier!

servings 35 cookie bars

Prep Time 35 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Ingredients

• ▢ 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• ▢ 2 tsp baking powder
• ▢ 1 cups vanilla sugar or regular sugar
• ▢ 2 sticks butter cold & cut into chunks
• ▢ 1 egg
• ▢ 3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• ▢ 1/2 tsp pure almond extract

For the decorations:

• ▢ 2 16 oz. cans vanilla frosting
• ▢ 1 16 oz. can chocolate frosting
• ▢ 1 8 oz. Green Decorating Icing with tips Wilton Brand
• ▢ 1 8 oz. Red Decorating Icing with tips Wilton Brand
• ▢ Mini M&M's
• ▢ Regular sized M&M's
• ▢ red & green holiday sprinkles
• ▢ pretzel rods
• ▢ small red sprinkles
• ▢ small black sprinkles
• ▢ coarse granulated sugar sprinkles
• ▢ edible snowflake decorations

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a small bowl stir flour and baking powder together. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar together. Stir in egg, extracts and vanilla bean. Slowly incorporate dry ingredients.
• Press dough into lightly greased half sheet pan 18x13 to create an even layer. Bake 15-20 minutes or until the edges are lightly golden brown. Cool completely.
•  Using 1 can of vanilla frosting, cover the cookie bars with a thin layer. Score the top to create 35 rectangles (6x5) to help with decorating and creating even cookie creations.
• FOR SANTA: using the Red Decorating Icing, pipe the entire length of one row of cookies to create the red portion of Santa's hat, like you're writing wide upside down U's. Fill a disposable icing bag with vanilla frosting and cut off the tip. Using circular motions, pipe white icing along the red hat border to create Santa's curly white hair. Create two rows. Using this same circular motion, pipe along the bottom edge of the cookie to create Santa's beard. Pipe on white mustaches. Add a red sprinkle or red mini M&M for the noses and two black sprinkles for the eyes. Sprinkle coarse granulated sugar over the hair.
• FOR RUDOLPH: Fill disposable icing bag with chocolate frosting and cut off the end. Pipe upside down U shapes onto each rectangle and fill in. Using a butter knife, spread frosting around to remove piping lines. Add either two brown mini M&M's or two black sprinkles for the eyes and red M&M's for the noses. Break apart pretzel rods and create antlers.
• FOR TREES: Using either the round or start tip, pipe green frosting into triangles and fill in. Sprinkle with red & green holiday sprinkles OR mini M&M's. Add yellow mini M&M on top of each tree. Break apart pretzel rods to create tree stump.
• FOR SNOWMEN: Using the white frosting, pipe figure 8's onto each rectangle and fill in. Pipe a red scarf using the red frosting with either the round or star tip. Add two black sprinkles for the eyes and an orange mini M&M for the noses. Optionally: add three black sprinkles or two brown mini M&M's as buttons, edible snowflakes and coarse granulated sugar sprinkles as snow along the bottom.

Nutrition

Calories: 73kcal | Carbohydrates: 15g | Protein: 1g | Cholesterol: 4mg | Sodium: 7mg | Potassium: 42mg | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 5IU | Calcium: 15mg | Iron: 0.2mg

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: christmas, decorated, sugar cookie bars

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