Welcome to "GMA's" 25 Days of Cookies. For 25 days, we are featuring cookie recipes that are perfect to make for the holiday season. Our celeb BFFs are sharing their cookie recipes with us and we’ve gathered some seasonal standouts that are sure to dazzle on your Instagram feed and Pinterest board.
Head to our full guide here all month long for the most beautiful, fun, seasonal, delicious holiday cookies perfect for your new Christmas traditions.
These festive, bright-red cookies made to look like little Santa bellies are sure to be a big hit among all ages at your next holiday gathering.
Plus, they're stuffed with Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme candy bar pieces! Need we say more?
Get the full recipe with step-by-step instructions below.
Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 to 7 Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme candy bars (1.55 ounces each), broken into 3-section pieces
2 and 1/2 cups vanilla frosting
Red, black and yellow paste food coloring
Directions:
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; gradually beat into creamed mixture. Divide dough in half; shape each into a disk. Wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to roll, at least one hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion of dough to 1/8-in. thickness. Cut with a floured 3-inch round cutter.
Place half of the circles 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets; top with candy bar pieces.
Top with remaining circles, pinching edges to seal.
Bake until bottoms are light brown, 10-12 minutes. Remove from pans to wire racks; cool completely.
Tint 1-2/3 cups frosting red; spread over cookies. Tint 2/3 cup frosting black; pipe belts and buttons over top.
Tint remaining frosting yellow; pipe buckles on belts.
- It's not easy to tint frosting to deep red. We used Wilton red paste food coloring, and a lot of it!
- If you don’t have the patience to tint your own frosting, buy the colored frostings sold in tubes -- they come in a variety of colors. Get creative: different candies can be used for buttons, buckles and belts.
- If you find yourself getting heavy-handed with flour while rolling out your dough, gently flip the cutout dough over and brush away the flour with a pastry brush before placing on the baking sheet.
Recipe courtesy Taste of Home.
Head to our full guide here all month long for the most beautiful, fun, seasonal, delicious holiday cookies worthy of your new Christmas traditions.
Tell us which cookies you're baking! Tweet @GMA using #25daysofcookies with your #25daysofcookies pictures and we may feature you on our GMA Facebook page or in our morning GMA newsletter! Deck the halls with lots of cookies, fa la la la la, la la la la!
Editor's note: This was originally published on Dec. 1, 2018.