Shortcut Christmas sugar cookie cups are decorated with festive, colorful sprinkles and filled with frosting, making them bite-size sweets that are perfect for the holidays.
Preheat oven to 350F and spray a 24-well mini muffin pan with nonstick spray. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a medium mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer), combine sugar cookie mix, butter, egg, and vanilla extract. Mix on medium speed until well-combined into a soft dough.
Add red and green sprinkles to the dough (the amount you use will just depend on how much you want in your cookie cups--I use 2 tablespoons in mine). Mix on low speed to incorporate.
Scoop dough out into the prepared mini muffin pan, placing a round of dough into each well. Use a teaspoon or your fingers to make a depression in the center of each round, forming a cup.
Bake in preheated oven for 12-14 minutes, or until edges are turning golden brown. The centers will still be a little soft and will puff up a little.
Remove pan from oven and use a teaspoon to gently press down the puffed up centers. Let the cookie cups cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then remove to a plate or wire rack to cool completely.
Once the cookie cups have cooled, scoop the canned frosting into a piping bag fitted with a tip. Squeeze a bit of frosting into each cup, then serve and enjoy!
Notes
I recommend using baking-safe jimmies sprinkles (these are the slender rod-shaped sprinkles) rather than sanding sugar or non-pareils in the cookie dough, as the jimmies are less likely to bleed their dye into the dough. I used Baker’s Choice sprinkles from Amazon.
If desired, you can add some more sprinkles on top of the frosting before serving. You can also add food coloring to the frosting if you'd like to dye it red or green!
A piping bag and tip make it easy to add decorative frosting to the cookie cups, but if you don't have those, you can add the frosting to a heavy-duty zip-top bag and snip the corner of the bag, then squeeze it through the opening.