Ahh, eggnog, the classic seasonal beverage that pops up only at the end of the year. This creamy drink has been around for centuries, and has such a distinctive taste and texture. It’s thick, rich, and creamy; and tastes like sweet vanilla custard spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. Another reader, Taylor, commented: “These were so delicious, I think they might become a new Christmas cookie tradition! About to make a second batch! ★★★★★” It can be enjoyed cold or warm, spiked with alcohol for a wintry cocktail, or mixed with espresso in a latte… but I enjoy it best this way: in these spiced eggnog oatmeal cream pies!
Yes, These Are Eggnog Oatmeal Cream Pies!
Pair with peppermint mocha cookies for a duo of holiday drink-inspired cookies!
Soft and chewy cookies textured with oats Extra creamy eggnog buttercream filling Sweet and spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon Lovely eggnog flavor, in both the cookies and the frosting filling No raw eggs and no booze—so no worries!
Behind the Recipe
I didn’t start out trying to make an eggnog version of an oatmeal creme pie. I wanted to make a chewy frosted eggnog-flavored cookie. A lot of eggnog cookie recipes don’t include it in the dough, just in the icing, but I really wanted it in both the cookie dough and the icing. When I tried making an iced eggnog sugar cookie, it was just way too sweet. Eggnog is already sweet, and a sugar cookie was just not the right fit for this flavoring. So I started playing around with my recipe for iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies. I reduced many of the ingredients, especially the butter and oats, and took out the molasses, and added some eggnog. When I added more flour, they were becoming cakey. But using a careful balance of not-too-much flour and not-too-many-oats, they stayed perfectly chewy, with some delightful texture from the oats.
Key Ingredients You Need & Why:
Flour: All-purpose flour gives these cookies structure. Spices: Cinnamon + nutmeg amp up the eggnog flavor in the cookies and frosting. If you can find it, using freshly ground nutmeg really gives it that little something extra! Oats: Oats don’t absorb as much liquid as flour, so the cookies stay chewy instead of becoming cakey. Baking Soda: So the cookies will puff up a bit in the oven, then deflate a bit when cooling. Salt: Flavor enhancer + sweetness balancer. Butter: You’ll need room-temperature butter for both the cookie dough and the buttercream, to make sure it creams properly. Brown Sugar: For extra-soft cookies. You can use light or dark, but I prefer dark brown sugar in these cookies. The extra molasses content deepens the flavor. Eggnog: I use store-bought eggnog in both the cookies and the frosting, so it’s alcohol-free and pasteurized. My team and I haven’t tested this recipe with homemade eggnog, though I can imagine it would be just fine. Egg: For binding the dough ingredients together. Vanilla: Adds flavor to both cookies and frosting. Confectioners’ Sugar: For the eggnog buttercream frosting.
This recipe makes 24 cookies, so 12 eggnog oatmeal cream pies. Feel free to double the recipe—I can promise you people will ask for more! Or feel free to just spread/pipe the buttercream on top of each cookie… there’s plenty to use.
Let Me Show You How to Make Them
You want a thinner cookie here, so the sandwiches aren’t tall and ginormous. (Think store-bought oatmeal cream pies vs. a double-decker sandwich… LOL.) Therefore, you need a stickier dough that will spread more:
Eggnog Oatmeal Cream Pies: Shaping Tips
You want to roll them into evenly sized balls, to make it easier to match up 2 cookies for sandwiching together. I find a food scale super useful for getting the cookies to be uniform in size. Scoop a heaping Tablespoon of dough, then drop it on the food scale, and add or take away some dough to get it to be about 24–25g. Then roll into a ball, place it on a lined baking sheet, and repeat with the remaining dough. Even after chilling, the dough is a bit sticky, and that’s ok. It’s still solid enough to roll into balls:
Make the Eggnog Buttercream Filling
Can I Make These Cookie Cream Pies Without Eggnog?
If you’d like to adapt this recipe to omit the eggnog, you can replace it with heavy cream in both the dough and the buttercream. Or try my recipe for classic oatmeal creme pies—and for a fun fall variation, these pumpkin oatmeal cream pies. Success Tip: If your cookies are spreading too much or unevenly, remove them from the oven and use a spoon to lightly push any wonky edges back in towards the center, to reshape into circles. (I do this a lot with chocolate chip cookies.) Return to the oven to continue baking. You can repeat this trick again as soon as you take them out of the oven after baking. Let’s review the shaping tips: Pipe or spread the filling onto the bottoms of 12 of the cookies, then place the other 12 cookies on top (flat/bottom sides in). I used a small star tip (Wilton 199), but anything would work.
Turn Them Into Eggnog Ice Cream Sandwiches
These soft and chewy eggnog oatmeal cookies would also make wonderful ice cream cookie sandwiches. Simply swap the eggnog buttercream frosting for eggnog ice cream, and follow the instructions for sandwiching the cookies with softened ice cream, wrapping, and freezing from my cookie ice cream sandwich recipe. This recipe is part of my annual cookie countdown called Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the biggest, most delicious event of the year! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza page including:
Gingerbread Cookies Chocolate Crinkle Cookies M&M Cookie Bars Snowball Cookies Andes Mint Cookies
and here are 75+ Christmas cookies with all my best success guides & tips.
