It might be the one thing each holiday season that people spend more than doing than shopping for presents - baking Christmas Cookies. There are so many to choose from, but each one requires a lot of extra effort to make certain they are decorated just right.

But like anything else, what people prefer varies wildly across the country.

That's why the folks at General Mills collected search data from BettyCrocker.com, Pillsbury.com, and Tablespoon.com, to map out the most favored Christmas cookie in each state.

Popular Christmas Cookies by State
General Mills
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In South Dakota, it's the Easy Christmas Crinkle Cookie, which by holiday cookie standards, is fairly simple to prepare.

Easy Christmas Crinkle Cookies (Pillsbury.com)

  • 1 roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury™ refrigerated sugar cookies
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon green gel food color
  • 1/2 teaspoon red gel food color
  • 1/4 cup plus 1/3 cup powdered sugar
  1. Heat oven to 350°F.
  2. Divide dough in half. Crumble half of dough in each of 2 small bowls. In one bowl, stir or knead dough, 2 tablespoons of the flour and the green food color until well mixed. Stir or knead the remaining 2 tablespoons flour and the red food color into the remaining half of dough until well mixed.
  3. Shape into 44 (1-inch) balls. In a small bowl, place 1/4 cup of the powdered sugar. Roll each ball in powdered sugar (discard any remaining powdered sugar). Place balls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
  4. Bake 8 to 11 minutes or until tops are cracked and edges are set. Cool 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks. In a small bowl, place 1/3 cup powdered sugar; dip top of each cookie into powdered sugar. Cool completely, about 30 minutes. Store in a covered container at room temperature.

Kansas, Oklahoma, and Virginia share the Mount Rushmore State's affinity for the colorful sugar cookies.

Nationwide, the winner is the Hershey Kiss-topped peanut butter cookies, which are known by several different names and are the most popular in seven states (Florida, Pennsylvania, California, Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina, and Wyoming) but that's only because good old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies aren't included in the results because a) they technically aren't Christmas cookies, and b) they would have finished first in 22 states.


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