Adorable chocolate Christmas cookie sandwiches filled with spiced cream cheese frosting! These cookies were a huge hit and are one of my favorite quick & easy no bake Christmas cookies!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. This recipe was developed for a paid partnership with Goya on Instagram for Goya’s Chocolate Maria Cookies.
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About these chocolate Christmas cookie sandwiches
If you’re looking for easy no bake Christmas cookies, this is the recipe for you!
These Christmas cookie sandwiches are ideal to make if you’re pinched for time—especially if you want to make something both delicious and cute in under an hour. They’re the perfect addition to custom cookie gift boxes and are a cozy treat to have alongside your loved ones this holiday season.
The cookies are actually store-bought Goya Maria Chocolate Cookies that I decorated using my easy icing recipe. However, if you don’t feel like making icing, you can totally use store-bought icing or candy melts!
After decorating, the cookies are sandwiched with a very simple spiced cream cheese frosting. It’s quick to make—it’s velvety smooth, yummy, and pairs perfectly with the chocolate Goya cookies. All you’ll really need to do is whip up cream cheese, mix in heavy cream, add salt and spices, then sweeten it with maple syrup and powdered sugar.
Easy, right? So if you’d like to make these super easy spiced holiday cookies, keep on reading! 🙂
Equipment
- Electric whisk or stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment
- Large mixing bowl or bowl of stand mixer
- Rubber spatula
- Piping bags: For piping the designs and adding the spiced cream cheese frosting.
Ingredients
- Goya Chocolate Maria Cookies: The star of the show! They’re chocolatey, not too sweet, full of amazing flavor, and are the base of these chocolate Christmas cookie sandwiches.
- Icing: You can use my easy icing recipe, candy melts, or store-bought icing!
- Food coloring (optional): This is only if you use follow my easy icing recipe. I always prefer using gel food coloring because it is highly pigmented. A little goes a long way!
- Cream cheese
- Heavy cream: This will help lighten the cream cheese maple frosting and make it fluffy.
- Powdered sugar
- Maple syrup: This adds nutty, toffee-like flavors to the spiced cream cheese.
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Table salt: I use Morton’s.
- Decorations: Mini marshmallows (for snowman design), sprinkles, etc.
How to make these holiday chocolate cookies
- Decorate the cookies: Use homemade/store-bought icing or candy melts to draw decorations!
- Make the maple cinnamon cream cheese frosting: Whip the cream cheese until fluffy. Then, mix in salt, spices, and maple syrup until combined. Gradually add powdered sugar until you get your desired sweetness level, then transfer to a piping bag.
- Sandwich the cookies: Pipe your maple cream cheese frosting and sandwich the cookies together!
- Store: You can store these no bake Christmas cookies in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 days. You can also freeze them for up to 3 months! When you’d like to eat them, thaw at room temperature for 5-10 minutes, then enjoy. 🙂
Tips
For decorating the Goya Chocolate Maria Cookies:
- Plan out your designs: This can help you feel less overwhelmed when it comes to decorating, especially if you have to make them quickly! This will help you figure out what icing colors to make or purchase. Feel free to draw the designs I created, or find inspiration through Google & Pinterest. If you’d like to copy mine, I used white, black, red, green, blue, and yellow.
- Decorate the Goya cookies first, then pipe the filling: It’s much easier to hold a single cookie and decorate closely, rather than holding the freshly piped cookie sandwich.
For the spiced cream cheese:
- Make sure the cream cheese is softened: This helps you whip the cream cheese until it is nice and fluffy. If the cream cheese is cold, it’ll break up into chunks and take longer to whip into a velvety smooth frosting.
- Add powdered sugar a little at a time: Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs moisture. In this case, the sugars in the powdered sugar and maple syrup pull water out of the cream cheese. Too much would yield runny maple cream cheese frosting, which wouldn’t hold its shape. So, mix in the maple syrup first, add the minimum amount of powdered sugar, then taste. Add more powdered sugar by the tablespoon, adjusting the sweetness level to your preference. Keep an eye on the frosting consistency!
- Do not over mix: This can lead to runny cream cheese frosting.
- Fixing runny cream cheese frosting: Try whipping in a few tbsp of cornstarch, then refrigerating the frosting for 20-30 minutes.
FAQs
The cream cheese may have been too cold. This would cause the cream cheese to break up into chunks, rather than whipping into a smooth batter. Keep mixing it until it smooths out.
You may have added too much powdered sugar or over mixed the batter. You can try whipping in a few tbsp of cornstarch, then refrigerating the frosting for 20-30 minutes.
How to store the cookies
Store these no bake Christmas treats in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Over time, the cookies will get softer because of the high moisture of the spiced cream cheese frosting. I think it’s delicious and a great texture, though.
If you’d like to prevent that from happening too much, I recommend storing the cookies in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months. And when you’d like to eat them, thaw the cookies at room temperature for 5-10 minutes, then enjoy. 🙂
More holiday desserts
- Oreo black sesame penguin cupcakes
- Brown butter cinnamon shortbread cookies
- Matcha shortbread brownie bars
- Bear leche flan
I really hope you enjoy this recipe. If you make these Christmas cookie sandwiches, I’d love to your spin on the designs! You can tag me at #bitesbybianca / @bitesbybianca on Instagram. Enjoy!
📖 Recipe
Chocolate Christmas Cookie Sandwiches w/ Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
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Equipment
- 1 electric whisk or stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment
- 1 large mixing bowl or bowl of stand mixer
- 1 rubber spatula
- 1 large Piping bag for the cream cheese frosting
- small piping bags, for the decorations. use one bag per colored frosting.
Ingredients
For decorating:
- 32 Goya Chocolate Maria Cookies
- homemade/store-bought icing or candy melts (I used white, black, red, green, blue, and yellow)
For the maple cream cheese frosting:
- 8 ounces (226.8 g) cream cheese, softened
- 3 tablespoons (45 g) heavy cream
- ½ teaspoon (3 g) salt
- ½ teaspoon (1 g) cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon (0.5 g) nutmeg
- 3 tablespoons (60 g) maple syrup
- 5-8 tablespoons (40-64 g) powdered sugar, adjust to taste
Instructions
For decorating:
- On a tray, line up your 32 Goya Chocolate Maria Cookies into 16 pairs.
- Use piping bags and icing/candy melts to draw on decorations on the top half of each cookie pair. Only 16 cookies will be decorated.While the decorations harden, make the cream cheese frosting.
For the maple cream cheese frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl, beat 8 oz of softened cream cheese until fluffy and no lumps remain.
- Whip in 3 tbsp heavy cream until light and fluffy.
- Add in ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp nutmeg, and 3 tbsp maple syrup. Mix until fully combined—do not beat it for long. Avoid over mixing or the frosting may become runny.
- Add 5 tbsp of powdered sugar, mixing until just combined, then taste. If you'd like a sweeter frosting, add 1 tbsp of powdered sugar at a time until you reach your desired sweetness level.
- Transfer to large piping bag.
Sandwich cookies:
- Pipe maple cream cheese frosting on the bottom cookie of each cookie pair. Top with the decorated cookie. Enjoy!