Baking is one of my favorite holiday traditions. From chocolate crinkle cookies with peppermint Hershey kisses nestled in the center to classic sugar cookies loaded with red and green sprinkles, there’s something so magical about curling up with a sweet treat by the light of the Christmas tree. This year, as groceries have become more expensive and more families are struggling to access food, it matters that we find cheap Christmas baking recipes that can be made with affordable ingredients. While your favorite bougie food mag might be telling you to make some elaborate, ridiculously expensive dessert, we know that classic sugar cookies are what we all really want at Christmastime.
What’s affordable is different for every family. For the purposes of this story, let’s assume you keep sugar, flour, butter, and some basic baking seasonings (like cinnamon) on hand.
Christmas Cake Mix Cookies
Princess Pinky Girl’s recipes are a go-to for me when I want a delicious dessert that is super easy to make and requires, like, the bare minimum ingredients. These cake mix cookies only need five, though you can add icing or sprinkles to the list if you so choose. The result: soft, tender cookies in holiday colors you can make in 25 minutes with the kids.
Peppermint Bark Oreo Cookie Balls
Another winning five-ingredient recipe: A Cookie Named Desire’s peppermint bark Oreo balls. These are fun to make as an adult or with kids — you get to crush a bunch of stuff — and they’re ready in about 25 minutes start to finish. They look delicious to eat on a movie night, or they’d make a great gift wrapped in a cute cellophane bag with ribbon.
Easy Cranberry Bars
Laughing Spatula’s cranberry bars would be a great dessert to take to a holiday gathering at work or with friends. The bulk of the ingredient list relies on pantry staples, so you’ll just need to grab sour cream, a bag of fresh cranberries, and some vanilla extract if you’re out.
White Chocolate Peppermint Fudge
White chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, peppermint extract, and some candy canes — that’s all it takes to whip up Averie Cooks’ white chocolate peppermint fudge. Her post has great tips for first-time fudge-makers, like how best to store it so it stays fresh and how long to let it set before venturing that first slice.
Gingerbread Blondies
Gingerbread is usually a little pricier to make since most of us don’t keep molasses and ground ginger in the pantry at all times. If you want to make classic gingerbread cookies, Budget Bytes has the most budget-friendly recipe for them I’ve found. Personally, I gravitate toward Princess Pinky Girl’s gingerbread blondie as a more cakey, moist version of the traditional dessert.
Homemade Rice Krispie Treats
Growing up, we made Rice Krispie treats for every holiday. You can add festive sprinkles, a colorful icing drizzle, or mix in something like crushed candy canes and white chocolate chips. You can even add food coloring to the marshmallows when you melt them and then shape the Krispies into whatever you want — gingerbread men, little trees, or snowmen. If you’ve never done it before, Budget Bytes explains the whole process of making your own Rice Krispies treats thoroughly.
Eggnog Poke Cake
Eggnog lovers, this one’s for you: an eggnog poke cake courtesy of Princess Pinky Girl. Again, this recipe relies on a boxed cake mix base, so you don’t need to have any flour or sugar on hand to pull it off. (Side note: her red velvet Christmas poke cake looks amazing too.)
Snowball Cookies
A Cookie Named Desire’s snowball cookies would be so cute for a cookie exchange or winter party. You may have to pick up some almond flour if you don’t keep it handy, as well as some peanut butter cups of course, but overall this recipe falls on the cheaper end of the spectrum.
Hot Chocolate Mug Cake
A Cookie Named Desire’s hot chocolate mug cake is so simple to make it’s insane, and what could be more satisfying on a cold night than a hot, personal-sized chocolate cake just for you? Her recipe will teach you how to make the mug cake mix so you can also make a bigger batch and keep it around for an easy cake fix as needed.
Grinch Cookies
Laughing Spatula’s Grinch cookies are the cutest crinkle cookie I’ve ever seen. You’ll need special heart sprinkles or candies for the centers and some green food coloring, but if you bake much at all, you’ve already got everything else you need in the cupboard.
Christmas Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
Classic cut-out sugar cookies are a must for decorating parties, and Averie Cooks’ recipe will help you pull them off with the fewest ingredients necessary. Rolling the dough out and mixing up the icing all takes a little more time than other recipes in this list, but this is where the magic really happens this time of year anyway.
Brown Butter Snickerdoodles
No dessert sounds cozier to me than a warm brown butter snickerdoodle fresh out of the oven (you know your whole house is going to smell amazing after baking these). All The Healthy Things’ recipe relies on pantry staples you likely already have, and if you do need to pick up a few things — cream of tartar or a new box of baking soda — they’re all pretty cheap.
Sweet & Salty Christmas Bark
While not technically a baking recipe, A Cookie Named Desire’s Christmas bark definitely still results in a yummy, festive dessert. You can use up candies and holiday accoutrement you already having lying around too. Like those leftover pecans from Thanksgiving pie baking, perhaps…
Brb, I need to go buy marshmallows and Rice Krispies ASAP.
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