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Raspberry Ribbon Cookies – Buttery Cookies and Raspberry Jam

These raspberry ribbon cookies are one of my husband’s favorite Christmas cookies. The rich, buttery cookies are filled with seedless raspberry jam, but you can substitute your favorite flavor if you prefer.

raspberry ribbon cookies

One note about substitutions for the filling. It works best if you use a smooth puree, so I’d opt for a jelly, seedless jam or lemon curd.

If you have your heart set on using a chunky jam or preserve, puree it with stick blender before using.

Note that low sugar seedless jam will want to spread more during baking, but give more raspberry flavor. Full sugar jams tend to be firmer and sweeter.

raspberry ribbon cookie

How to Make Raspberry Ribbon Cookies

The deep red of raspberry jam filling in these raspberry ribbon cookies naturally brightens up any cookie tray.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (homemade extract is great if you have it)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350℉ degrees.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Blend in egg and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add dry ingredients slowly into creamed mixture, until well blended. Divide dough into four equal portions and chill for 30 minutes.

Baking, Filling, and Icing

Shape each hunk of dough into a 10 inch long by 2 1/2 inch wide log. Place 2 inches apart on well greased or lined with parchment paper.

I prefer using air bake baking sheets to avoid excess browning. I spread my dough evenly across a 14 inch wide pan.

Make a 1/2 in depression down the center of each log. Bake for 10 minutes, or until soft set. (Air bake pans may take a bit longer.)

While cookies are baking, place the jam into a plastic zipper bag with about 1/8″ cut off one corner. You can also use a pastry bag with a #4 or #5 round tip. This makes it much easier to put the “ribbon” in the raspberry ribbon cookies.

Remove pan from oven, deepen the depression in each log, if needed. (The dough rises during baking.) You can use a chopstick or wooden spoon handle for this.

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Using the baggie or pastry bag, squirt the jam into the depression. If you have all four logs baking at once, it’s easier to divide the jam evenly.

Return pan to oven and bake 10-15 minutes longer or until lightly browned. Cool for two minutes. Remove to a cutting board.

(If you’ve used parchment paper, just slide the paper onto the board. It’ll make cleanup much easier.) Cut into 3/4 in slices.

In a small bowl, combine glaze ingredients until smooth. Drizzle sugar glaze over warm cookies. Cool completely on wire racks. Yields about five dozen cookies.

icing the cookies

Storing Your Raspberry Ribbon Cookies

Store your raspberry ribbon cookies in a sealed container at room temperature. They’ll keep in good condition for about a week with cool room temps.

If you need to stack the cookies, use a layer of wax paper between layers. This will help to keep the cookies from sticking together.

Freeze the cookies for longer storage. They’re best if used within a month or so, even with freezing.

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Raspberry Ribbon Cookies

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These raspberry ribbon cookies are one of my husband’s favorite Christmas cookies. The rich, buttery cookies are filled with seedless raspberry jam, but you can substitute your favorite flavor if you prefer.

  • Author: Laurie Neverman
  • Prep Time: 40 minutes
  • Cook Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 5 dozen cookies 1x
  • Category: dessert

Ingredients

Scale

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam

Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350℉ degrees.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Blend in egg and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add dry ingredients slowly into creamed mixture, until well blended. Divide dough into four equal portions and chill for 30 minutes.

Baking, Filling and Icing

Shape each hunk of dough into a 10 inch long by 2 1/2 inch wide log. Place 2 inches apart on well greased or lined with parchment paper.

Make a 1/2 in depression down the center of each log. Bake for 10 minutes, or until soft set. (Air bake pans may take a bit longer.)

While cookies are baking, place the jam into a plastic zipper bag with about 1/8″ cut off one corner. You can also use a pastry bag with a #4 or #5 round tip. This makes it much easier to put the “ribbon” in the raspberry ribbon cookies.

Remove pan from oven, deepen the depression in each log, if needed. (The dough rises during baking.) You can use a chopstick or wooden spoon handle for this.

Using the baggie or pastry bag, squirt the jam into the depression. If you have all four logs baking at once, it’s easier to divide the jam evenly.

Return pan to oven and bake 10-15 minutes longer or until lightly browned. Cool for two minutes. Remove to a cutting board.

(If you’ve used parchment paper, just slide the paper onto the board. It’ll make cleanup much easier.) Cut into 3/4 in slices.

In a small bowl, combine glaze ingredients until smooth. Drizzle sugar glaze over warm cookies. Cool completely on wire racks. Yields about five dozen cookies.

Notes

Store your raspberry ribbon cookies in a sealed container at room temperature. They’ll keep in good condition for about a week with cool room temps.

If you need to stack the cookies, use a layer of wax paper between layers. This will help to keep the cookies from sticking together.

Freeze the cookies for longer storage. They’re best if used within a month or so, even with freezing.

If you use a low sugar jam, it may spread out more during baking than a full sugar jam.

Share a photo and tag us — we can’t wait to see what you’ve made!

raspberry ribbon cookie recipe

More Holiday Recipes

In addition to raspberry ribbon cookies, we have have several other Christmas cookies and treats on the site, including:

Easy Christmas Cookies – One Dough, Three Different Cookies

Maple Macaroons – Refined Sugar Free, Gluten Free, Delicious!

Chocolate Mint Sandwich Cookies

Yule Log Cake

Sugar Cookie Snowflakes – An Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe, All Dressed Up

There are also holiday drinks, such as:

Hot Cocoa

Wassail

Eggnog (Hot and Cold Recipes)

What’s your “must have” treat during the holiday season? Maybe there’s a recipe you’d like to try? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts (or recipes).

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3 Comments

  1. OK we tried these cookies today, we could not get the dough to a formable consistency without adding some water to the recipe, what did we do wrong? They came out wonderful, but we did have to do that extra step

    1. Maybe the flour was extra dry due to low humidity levels in the house? Maybe a different brand of butter? Did you pack the flour tightly in the measuring cups?

      I’ve noticed over the years that different brands of ingredients behave differently in the kitchen, and recipes behave slightly differently at different times of the year.

      We use Organic Valley butter. The house has in floor heating, so no forced air heating.

      When measuring flour, we always scoop or spoon into the measuring cup carefully, and don’t pack flour.

      Dunc has made four batches of these over the holiday season with good results. I double checked the recipe to make sure I didn’t type something in incorrectly, but it’s right as shown.

      You can skimp on the flour a little the next time around if the dough seems too dry instead of adding water.

      You might also want to check out “12 Baking Tips for Great Results and a Stress Free Kitchen” for more info on odds and ends that help to get consistent results.