In the spirit of the holidays, I tested three sugar cookie kits from Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, and Target’s brand, Favorite Day, ranking them on affordability, taste, the skill required to execute well, the overall experience, and many other criteria. 

First up is the Pillsbury Ready-to-Bake Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies. The cheapest of the three kits at $4.60, these cookies came pre-shaped and took less than 20 minutes to make. I’m 99% sure that you can’t mess it up: preheat the oven, line the baking sheet with parchment, place your cookies on the sheet, and bake for 11 minutes at 350 degrees. If you’re looking for a cost-effective option that requires little to no baking experience, time, or effort but still want to enjoy a festive sugar cookie, then this is the perfect option for you! I’d say these cookies are best suited for a snack break during a relaxing Christmas movie night. The convenience and price of the Pillsbury Ready-to-Bake Sugar Cookies make it a strong contender for the best holiday sugar cookie kits on the market, and they can be easily found at Target or Safeway.

Next up is the Betty Crocker Cookies for Santa Cookie Kit, the most expensive option costing almost $9, from Safeway. The kit comes with almost everything you need, including the cookie mix, sprinkles, and frosting. It requires a quarter cup of butter and 1 tablespoon of water in addition to the kit itself, ingredients that most people would have at home. Also, the box can be repurposed into an adorable box for the cookies themselves with lines to write a letter to Santa. As the most expensive option, I was a little disappointed by the mediocre taste of the frosting (though what can you really expect from packaged frosting) included in the kit. Nonetheless, these sugar cookies will satisfy your sweet tooth, and the experience of making and decorating the cookies, I believe, is part of the price. Also, as a bonus, they look pretty good in photos!

Last but not least, we have Target’s Favorite Day’s Gnome Sugar Cookie Kit. Of all the kits, these are certainly the hardest to execute due to the involved design component. Almost $6, the kit comes with the sugar cookie mix, red color powder, 2 piping bags, silver sanding sugar, sour cherry candy, and a gnome cookie cutter, making it worth the price. However, it is worth mentioning that the kit requires almost 2 sticks of butter, an egg, milk, and 2 cups of powdered sugar which does decrease its convenience. I thought that the buttercream frosting didn’t complement the cookie, and the texture of the cookie was also off. I learned this the hard way, but don’t add food coloring to the red buttercream because it will separate. Nonetheless, the decorating process was extremely fun and the gnomes are quite adorable with a fun spin on the more common Santa hat-themed cookie-making kits.

Overall, the quality of each kit was quite impressive, especially given the likely price markups due to the holiday season. Each cookie-making kit has its strengths and weaknesses, so depending on your situation and priorities, any of these may work for you. My personal favorite, however, was the Pillsbury Ready-to-Bake cookies, being the most affordable, easy to make, and personally, the tastiest. The next time you’re walking down the cookie aisle at the grocery store, maybe grab one of these kits to try out yourself!