These almond butter cookies sparkle with a roll in coarse sugar or colorful sanding sugar sprinkles! They’re deliciously thick and the crunchy sugar coating contrasts perfectly with the pillow soft centers.
Tell Me About These Almond Butter Sparkle Cookies
- Flavor: Enjoy almond butter, almonds, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla all in one—a medley of humble, yet flavorful ingredients.
- Texture: If you love a good texture contrast, these cookies are for you. The coarse crunchy sugar coating acts as a crust for the soft almond butter crumbs inside. The cookies are NOT cakey—just very soft. The chopped almonds in the cookies slightly soften during bake time so don’t worry, you won’t be biting into break-your-teeth almond chunks.
- Ease: This recipe is great for beginners because it uses basic ingredients and doesn’t require complicated shaping. And bonus! That pretty sugar coating is basically built in festive decoration without the need for icing or other garnishes. With so many Christmas cookies to make and so little time, we all can use an easy recipe in our repertoire.
- Time: Chilling the cookie dough is imperative, but the great news is that the dough only needs about 30 minutes to thicken up in the refrigerator before rolling and baking. This quick chill time is enough for you to preheat the oven and get the coarse sugar/sprinkles ready for rolling. The recipe moves pretty quickly.
The Consistency of Your Almond Butter is Important
Nut butters have a range of thickness. For example, processed store-bought creamy peanut butter such as Jif creamy is much thicker than natural-style oily thin peanut butter. Or, in today’s case, the start of a fresh jar of almond butter is thinner than the bottom of the jar. The difference in consistency between brands or even within the same jar will change how your cookie dough looks, feels, and bakes.
If you want crinkles and cracks in today’s almond butter cookies, pour out excess oil from the jar and stir it up very well before measuring. And don’t forget to chill the dough for 30 minutes before baking.
Look At The Difference
I always love a good cookie comparison and you can find other comparisons in my brownie cookies and coconut lime cookies recipe testing processes.. Both cookies use the same dough, taste identical, and are certainly pretty, but if you wonder why your cookies don’t have crinkles/cracks—thin almond butter could be the culprit!
Overview: How To Make Almond Butter Sparkle Cookies
You need 10 main ingredients for these almond butter cookies including all-purpose flour, brown & white granulated sugars, vanilla, baking soda, cinnamon, egg, almond butter, salt, and butter. Some advice:
- Use creamy almond butter (homemade almond butter is fantastic in this recipe!)
- Add optional chopped almonds: For more flavor, add chopped roasted, salted, raw, or unsalted almonds. I like using roasted salted almonds because their flavor pairs nicely with cinnamon and sweet brown sugar.
- Sugar coating: You have some options for the coarse sugar coating. I like using white “sparkling sugar” and it’s usually sold as sprinkles in the baking aisle. I use this ingredient often for recipes like shortbread cookies, stained glass window cookies, and even jumbo chocolate chip muffins. The red and green cookies are coated in sanding sugar sprinkles. If you’re shopping online, I like (affiliate links) these multicolor, these white, these green, and these red. They’re what I usually use when making festive peanut butter blossoms. You can also use turbinado sugar or just regular granulated sugar, a convenient ingredient already in the cookie dough.
The cookie dough is soft after it comes together. Chill it for 30 minutes before rolling into balls, coating in sugar, and baking.
Can I Skip or Use Other Nut Butters?
- For a nut-free version of this recipe, make these Christmas Cookie Sparkles or swap the almond butter for sunflower seed butter or Biscoff spread.
- And you can replace the almond butter with peanut butter, cashew butter, or other nut butter of choice. I have not tested this recipe with chocolate hazelnut spread such as Nutella.
