An easy, high altitude recipe for soft and fluffy eggnog cookies, with cardamom, nutmeg and vanilla bean, and frosted with sweet eggnog buttercream. Christmas wouldn’t be complete without a few glasses of eggnog sprinkled with nutmeg, and these festive cookies are the perfect treat to use up a little leftover eggnog.
You might also love these high altitude recipes for cardamom eggnog cake, eggnog coffee cake, and no churn bourbon eggnog ice cream.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Perfect for Christmas. I absolutely love eggnog, and always buy some almost as soon as it’s available in December. We also make our own aged eggnog every Thanksgiving, so that it’s perfect by Christmas. These cookies have all the flavor of eggnog in a yummy Christmas cookie.
Soft and Fluffy. I based these eggnog cookies on my original soft and fluffy sugar cookies recipe. They’re easy to make, and they stay so soft for days. If you like lofthouse cookies or the soft frosted cookies from your grocery store, then you’ll love today’s eggnog cookie recipe.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
Cookies
- Unsalted Butter. Adds moisture and fat to the cookies for a flavorful, tender texture.
- Sugar. Adds sweetness and moisture. You’ll also be rolling the dough balls in sugar before baking.
- Egg + Egg Yolk. Eggs give cookies structure and strength, and the extra egg yolk makes these sugar cookies softer and chewier.
- Vanilla + Vanilla Bean Paste. Flavor
- All-Purpose Flour. Gives the cookies structure and strength.
- Corn Starch. Tenderizes the cookie dough for a softer sugar cookie.
- Baking powder. This is the leavening agent that makes the sugar cookies fluffy.
- Salt. Balances the sweetness.
- Spices. Cardamom and nutmeg add warmth and more of the eggnog flavor.
Buttercream
- Butter. You can use either salted or unsalted butter, although I always bake with unsalted and add a little salt if needed. I didn’t add any salt to this eggnog buttercream, though.
- Powdered Sugar. Sweetens and thickens the frosting.
- Meringue Powder. Adds stability and improves the texture.
- Eggnog. Thins the frosting a little and adds flavor, of course.
- Vanilla Bean Paste + Nutmeg. Enhances the flavor of the nutmeg.
Instructions
Cookies
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter with 3/4 cup sugar on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl down.
- Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and mix on low for 1 minute.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, corn starch, baking powder, salt, cardamom and nutmeg. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients by spoonfuls, mixing just until combined.
- Cover the bowl of dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 18 equal portions. TIP: This is easiest to do if you weigh all the dough, divide that number by 18, then weigh out each portion. So if you have 26 ounces of dough, you would weigh out around 1.4 ounces of dough per cookie.
- Roll each portion of dough into a ball, then coat the dough balls in the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Chill the dough balls for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a large baking sheet with a piece of nonstick baking paper or parchment paper.
- Place the dough balls 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake for about 11 1/2 – 12 minutes, until the edges are set, and the centers look slightly underdone. Bang the pan 3-4 times on the counter to help the centers of the cookies settle down and flatten a little. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Buttercream
- With an electric mixer, stand or hand-held, beat the butter for 1 minute, until smooth. Gradually add the powdered sugar, until combined, then add the meringue powder, vanilla and eggnog. Beat for several minutes until light and fluffy.
- Spread the buttercream onto the cooled cookies, and sprinkle with the nutmeg.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
What can I use instead of the cardamom?
If you don’t often cook or bake with cardamom, I’d encourage you to add it to your next grocery list. It’s a wonderful spice that I use often in baked goods, as well as in savory dishes like meatballs and chili. Still, you can leave it out if you don’t have it, and the cookies will still be great.
Why is there corn starch in the cookie dough?
Corn starch lowers the protein content of the flour, for a softer, more tender cookie.
Can I freeze eggnog cookies?
You can freeze the baked cookies without the frosting in an airtight container for up to 3-6 months. Once frosted, you can freeze them in a single layer in an airtight container for about 2 weeks – longer than that, and the frosting can get dry or crumbly in the freezer.
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High Altitude Soft Frosted Eggnog Cookies
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Electric Mixer (Stand or Hand-Held)
Ingredients
Cookies
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk (save the white for another use)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp vanilla bean paste
- 2 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ cup granulated sugar, for rolling the dough balls
Buttercream
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp meringue powder (optional)
- ¾ tsp vanilla bean paste
- 2 tbsp eggnog
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
Instructions
Cookies
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter with 3/4 cup sugar on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl down.
- Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and mix on low for 1 minute.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, corn starch, baking powder, salt, cardamom and nutmeg. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients by spoonfuls, mixing just until combined.
- Cover the bowl of dough with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 18 equal portions. TIP: This is easiest to do if you weigh all the dough, divide that number by 18, then weigh out each portion. So if you have 26 ounces of dough, you would weigh out around 1.4 ounces of dough per cookie.
- Roll each portion of dough into a ball, then coat the dough balls in the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. Cover and chill the dough balls for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line a large baking sheet with a piece of nonstick baking paper or parchment paper.
- Place the dough balls 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake for about 11 1/2 – 12 minutes, until the edges are set, and the centers look slightly underdone.Bang the pan 3-4 times on the counter to help the centers of the cookies settle down and flatten a little. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Buttercream
- With an electric mixer, stand or hand-held, beat the butter for 1 minute, until smooth. Gradually add the powdered sugar, until combined, then add the meringue powder, vanilla and eggnog. Beat for several minutes until light and fluffy.
- Spread the buttercream onto the cooled cookies, and sprinkle with the nutmeg.
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