As much as I love cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner from start to finish, there are times when I just need a shortcut to make my life easier. That moment is a last-minute holiday party when I have zero time to make anything to bring. Enter this easy holiday hack for store bought cookie dough.
Here’s how to jazz up your everyday pre-made dough for fancy cookies, without the stress.
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My Easy Holiday Hack for Store Bought Cookie Dough
Full disclosure, I hadn’t even thought of this trick until a couple of years ago. My chef friend Natasha introduced me to this genius idea after dipping some dough into crushed peppermint as a last-minute party idea. I’ve used Natasha’s trick ever since, but this year I decided to go wild and add chocolate. (By the way, if you’re looking for easy recipes without fluff but all the flavor, I highly recommend checking out Natasha’s blog, Nosh with Tash.)
Choose a Topping
The first part of your cookie dough hack is to choose your topping.
For my cookies, I went with two different toppings: candy canes and Heath bars. I’m normally not a huge peppermint girl, but the mint tastes nice and balanced with the chocolate chips. Toffee is a classic holiday treat, so this just made sense to me.
Other topping ideas include:
- M&Ms
- Sprinkles
- Cinnamon sugar
- Pecans or walnuts
- Pretzels
Drizzle, Drizzle, Drizzle
The second component of this store bought cookie dough hack is the *fancy* drizzle. This is literally just chocolate chips I melted in the microwaved. This is SO easy, but I think the drizzle really dresses them up! I went with both white and regular chocolate chips, but you can pick one or the other if you want to keep things super simple.
Read below for a few tips on how to make your semi-homemade cookies steal the show.
More Tips for This Cookie Dough Hack
Tip #1
When breaking apart your cookie dough, take each piece in between your palms and roll into a ball. The rounded ball will bake more uniform and circular, like homemade cookies. This is an easy hack so that your cookies don’t bake square or flat in that typical, store-bought cookie dough shape.
Tip #2
For the toppings, put each in a plastic bag and grab a meat mallet, then hammer away. I like to do this on a stabilized cutting board, with a towel between the plastic bag and mallet to help soften the noise. (It will be loud.) Make sure your toppings are nice and crumbled, and relatively small.
Tip #3
When you dip the cookie into your toppings, be sure to gently press into the bowl or plate so that the toppings stick. Place the cookies topping side UP on your cookie sheet.
Tip #4
Before you drizzle the chocolate, make sure your cookies are on a large sheet of parchment to avoid things getting messy.
You can use a piping bag bag to drizzle the chocolate, or a good old fashioned spoon. If using a spoon, drizzle further away and higher up from the cookies so that the gravity can really pull down on the chocolate. Quickly move your hand across your cookies. Perfection is not the goal here, just move in the same direction. (For example, either stay drizzling in a diagonal motion, or stay drizzling from left to right.)
Tip #5
I like to place my cookies in the fridge in a single layer to help the chocolate harden before plating or taking to my party.
Voila! These store bought cookie dough cookies are instantly fancier and ready to impress party guests with these easy hacks!
P.S. If you’re looking for FANCY holiday cookies, be sure to check out this post for my snowflake sugar cookies.
