Rudolph Cookies – Holiday Cookie Exchange Recipe

Do you host a Christmas cookie exchange or cookie recipe swap every year?  Six of my blogger friends have gotten together to do a recipe swap on our blogs and share them all with you so you’ll have some new recipes to swap or bake this Christmas! 

Some of them are favorite family recipes, others are festive treats, and my little girl is gonna be sharing a kid-friendly recipe with you!   She almost did the cookies completely by herself at age 3.5 (all except for putting in the oven, taking out of the oven, buying the food, and breaking the pretzels) so maybe I should just count this as her first guest post on my blog.   She made kid-friendly, gluten-free (except for the pretzels) Peanut Butter Rudolph Cookies and they are just as yummy as they are cute!  

We both donned our Christmas aprons and had such a fun time in the kitchen together – precious memories!  She is truly becoming my little assistant in all that I do and I couldn’t be more thankful for her.

This recipe starts with a basic 4 ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe which I am sure you have seen before.

4 ingredient Peanut Butter cookies

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

We doubled the recipe and used my mixer to mix them up but you could probably just use a bowl and spatula to make it super kid-friendly.  She has helped mommy with the mixer many times so insisted that we mix them that way. 

Roll the cookies in additional sugar and place them on a non-stick pan or on parchment paper.

Since these cookies don’t have flour or a lot of ingredients in them they won’t change shape much at all after baking, so you’ll want to smoosh them down a bit so they’ll be flat when they are done baking. 

While they are baking prep the decorations.  You’ll need mini pretzels, red m&m’s, and chocolate chips.  Break the pretzels into pieces- we found it easier to use the outer round pieces of the pretzels for the antlers.  You could also use pretzel sticks too. 

Put the eyes, antlers, and nose in the cookies while they are still very warm so they will stick well. 

These were so fun and easy to do – the perfect recipe to do with kids!  If you aren’t a peanut butter fan do the same decorations on a sugar cookie or even use a mix or prepared dough.  The fun part is definitely decorating them to look like Rudolph.   I bet Santa would even enjoy these cookies on Christmas Eve. 

She was so proud of her cookies and her momma was so proud of her.   We put together a plate of cookies and shared them with our neighbors so she got to put a piece of straw in the manger on our Giving Manger tradition too.  I just love this time of year – special memories, baking, spending time as a family, sharing with others, and celebrating the true meaning for the season. 

I’ll include the entire recipe below.  I hope you’ll try these cookies this Christmas and have some fun with your kids in the kitchen.

Easy, Kid-Friendly Peanut Butter Rudolph Cookies

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Mix all ingredients together by hand or with an electric mixer.  Form into balls and roll in additional sugar.  Flatten with fork criss-cross design or just with fingers on baking sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-11 minutes.  

To make the Rudolph decorations you will need:

• mini pretzel twists
• chocolate chips
• red m&m’s

Lightly push decorations into cookies while still warm so they will stick. 

Enjoy!

Now go check out the other cookie recipes in our cookie exchange recipe swap!  I can’t wait to try some of these!

Holiday Cookie Exchange Recipe Swap

Reindeer Cookies – The Frugal Homemaker 

Mocha Slice Cookies- Southern Bella Home

M&M Cookies – At Home In The Wildwood

 Peppermint Twist Cookies- Jenron Designs

Iced Sugar Cookies- ForgottenWay Farms

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookie- The Front Porch Farmhouse