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For all those readers who asked…here is a whole-wheat Christmas cookie recipe! Now even though these are made with 100% whole-wheat flour please know they do contain some refined sugar (in both the cookie and the icing). I do occasionally post recipes made with refined sugar because, in my opinion, a cookie that’s homemade from scratch is far better than the factory-made version (or something like a “slice and bake”). And Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without cookies for Santa!
When it comes to decorating Christmas cookies though there always seems to be one dilemma…food coloring. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that we like to avoid the chemically-laden artificial dyes. So what’s one to do? Last year, we pureed some naturally dyed candies to color the icing and shortly thereafter purchased some natural India Tree natural dyes for a birthday cake. This year I played around with adding tumeric and paprika (yes, from our spice cabinet!) and also used some naturally colored sprinkles that I found at both Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Shawn, our team’s FB coordinator, said she dusted off her juicer to help her add some colors to her kids’ icing. No matter what you do to add some character to your cookies I can only hope you’ll feel the same as me: Those artificial neon colors just don’t look appetizing anymore now that I understand they are derived from petroleum and even require a warning label in some countries. What’s appealing about that? Naturally dyed cookies might not be as bright in color, but I think they taste just as good and, you be the judge, do these girls look like they are missing a thing?? 
Before we dive into the recipe I’d also like to make sure you know about our natural “Laundry Powder” sponsor, Molly’s Suds. They sent me a bag of their product that I just started using recently myself. The first thing I noticed is how good it smells. I’ve always had issues with those super smelly, perfumy laundry soaps out there so I’ve been buying unscented versions for years. Well, I now realize I don’t like that perfumy stuff because the smell is – here we go again – artificial. Molly’s Suds uses a natural, organic peppermint oil and I’ve found that it’s quite refreshing! And more importantly their Laundry Powder gets the job done when it comes to actually cleaning our clothes. So it’s definitely a product I would recommend to others! Be sure to use our “100Days20″ coupon code for 20% off if you’d like to try it out.
- 1½ cups whole-wheat flour, plus extra for rolling out the dough
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup cold butter (1 stick)
- ⅓ cup granulated white sugar
- 1 egg
- 4 teaspoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1½ cups powdered sugar
- 7 – 8 tablespoons heavy cream
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- In a medium-sized bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl fitted with an electric whisk cream the butter and sugar together for several minutes. While the mixer is going add the egg, cream, and vanilla until thoroughly combined.
- With the mixer still going on low, slowly add the flour mixture until well mixed. Turn off the mixer and squeeze the dough together into a ball using your hands.
- Using a rolling pin roll the dough out onto a floured surface until it’s about ⅛ inch thick. Use cookie cutters to cut desired shapes and place them onto an ungreased baking sheet.
- Bake in the oven for 5 – 7 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately transfer to a cooling rack (if you have one) until cool.
- Meanwhile, use a fork to mix together the powdered sugar and heavy cream in a medium sized bowl. Top cookies with a thin layer of icing and other decorations if desired.
Why don’t you just use Sucanat? It’s a fabulous replacement for refined sugar! We mostly use raw honey, but for baking we use Sucanat (which is an unrefined raw cane sugar) and it turns out perfectly!
Hi DaNelle. During the pledge, Lisa and her family only used honey and maple syrup. But, you are right, beyond that, Sucanat is a great replacement for white sugar. I have used it often…we’ll keep it in mind for future recipes. Jill
I made cutout Christmas cookies this morning too! Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without them.
For the colors, I use raspberry puree for red (pink) and liquid chlorophyll for green. Chlorophyll, of course, is what makes plants green. You can find it in liquid or powder form in the vitamin section of your favorite natural food store.
Newbie questions:
How long (days) can the whole wheat (without icing) crackers stay good at room temperature? How do you consume after freezing?
The same question for the whole wheat muffin recipe too , how do you consume muffins after freezing?
Thanks
My Whole Foods didn’t have any sprinkles
And Austin isn’t getting a Trader Joe’s for a couple of years – BOO!!
I mad pink icing for my daughter’s birthday last week with beet juice (from a can of beets) and it was perfect. And carrot juice made great orange icing at Halloween.
Love this alternative refined sugar free recipe.
http://detoxinista.com/2012/03/almond-flour-frosted-sugar-cookies/
I’ll tell you what NOT to do with your kids. “Let’s make Christmas cookies with white frosting this year, Santa loves white frosting.” My boys wouldn’t buy that one!
The trick is to do cookie shapes that are naturally white. We made snowflakes with white frosting and white snowflake sprinkles and snowmen with chocolate chips for eyes, mouth and buttons and a sliver of dried apricot for the nose. Next year I plan to try dying my own sugar with cranberry juice. I find Tree of India’s food coloring/colored sugar to be so muted, its not worth the exorbitant price.
We were on a budget this year when it came to our holiday desserts so we had to be a little creative when it came to decorating our cut-out cookies while avoiding artificial colors. We definitely couldn’t afford the natural dyes and even the bags of hard candy (to grind up) were a little spendy. What we ended up doing was getting a package of naturally colored candy canes (to grind up for sprinkles) and everything else was stuff we already had on hand. We used coconut flakes, Enjoy Life chocolate chips (in whole form and also ground up to a sprinkley dust) and ground up cashews. We also added cocoa powder to some of our frosting so we had white (in both vanilla and peppermint) and brown and sometimes we piped the frosting on in designs. Honestly, when all was said and done, the cookies were far tastier than just colored frosting or colored sugar toppings would have been and we had just as much fun being creative and decorating. I think I was the only one who missed the colorful cookies (thanks to years of tradition). Our 7 year old didn’t care at all that the cookies weren’t vibrant and colorful. He was just excited to get to add chocolate!
I love reading this. Those cookies must have been gorgeous and delicious, and I SO agree that often it’s only me who remembers doing things the old way. I often remind myself that we’re making new memories for our boys, we don’t need to do everything the way I did as a child. They are not disappointed.
Cookies for Santa . . . don’t know how you can pass that up!
Merry Christmas! 
Wish I would have seen this recipe sooner, but I will definitely book mark it for next year! Very sweet picture!
For green frosting, we used this recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/avocado-buttercream-frosting-recipe/index.html
It turned out great!
We used freeze dried strawberries blasted in the blender to make a nice red powder. Mixed in with regular icing, it turned a prety pink. We have done blue/purple with butterfly pea flowers. Easy easy, the water runs blue/purple when you boil them.
So glad to see more moms like you embracing the natural food colors. We’ve been experimenting with them, too and have moderately good results.
I love the look of those natural-coloured cookies
Hope you and your family have a great Christmas 
Great idea about the natural dye! Thanks for the post. I also use refined sugar sparingly…I just make sure that’s it’s “cane sugar”. Otherwise it’s most likely GMO (from GMO sugar beets).
So fun to bake with those beautiful little girls. Those cookies look absolutely delicious…I’m going to use the recipe for New Year’s. My little girl will love it. For natural dyes, I find using grape juice, cranberries (boiled with water and strained) and even coffee grounds can work. We just use a natural recipe for the frosting, then divide it into smaller sections to add the dye. It’s fun and healthy!
For our annual Halloween sugar cookies I used Sugar in the Raw this year. I put it in y magic bullet to get a better texture for cookies. They turned out great! The recipe is in the link below.
http://www.molliessprinklesoflife.com/2012/11/halloween-2012-and-sugar-cookie-recipe.html
I am so excited that I get to be in charge of our classroom cookie decorating for the Valentina’s party. That means homemade cookies and icing vs store bought with food dye. Do you think the icing can be made ahead of time (a few hours before the party) and refrigerated? I was thinking about storing it in big zip locks, then at party time, squeezing onto each of their plates to spread on the cookies themselves. What do you think?
Hi Amber. I think that is fine. Hope it went well. Jill
I’m wondering if anyone has tried making these thicker like those soft, thick store-bought frosted sugar cookies that are so tasty but oh so bad for you…? I’m planning to make some guitar shaped cookies for my son’s birthday party in a couple weeks and would love to use a whole wheat recipe, but we like the nice thick and soft ones.
Hi Rachel. We’ve not experimented with adapting this recipe. If you do, we would love to know how they turn out. ~Amy
[...] PS – Check out our recent experience trying to make holiday cookies with natural dyes. [...]