Christmas Sugar Cookies Tutorial

I’ve been baking and decorating sugar cookies for years! It’s a sure hobby of mine and I even used to do custom-orders and sell them. Some of my favorites are these dinosaur fossil themed cookies and the donut sugar cookies I made earlier this year.

When I was growing up, one of my favorite Christmas traditions was to decorate sugar cookies with friends and family! We would bake dozens of sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, make a few huge batches of buttercream frosting, and have an assortment of candy and sprinkles to decorate with. To be honest they didn’t always look the fanciest (sometimes ten-year-olds just care about piling on as much candy as possible…) but they sure tasted great. This year I made sugar cookies decorated with royal icing. They’re cute and Christmas themed and so tasty as well!

This is my absolute favorite sugar cookie recipe. I’ve always used this one! This is the icing recipe I use, which is an easy alternative to traditional royal icing. However I’m planning to try making real royal icing next time.

These cookies would be perfect for a Christmas cookie exchange, Christmas party, or hostess gift. They keep well for up to five days in a sealed plastic bag.

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Supplies

A batch of sugar cookies, circle shaped
Icing
Food coloring (red, green, yellow, black)
Piping bags (eight)
Rainbow sprinkles

Instructions

Mix up a batch of sugar cookies (this is my favorite recipe). Cut them in circles and bake.

While they cool, make your icing. I usually use this icing recipe. Half of the icing should be thick enough to hold it’s shape when piped, and the other half should be runnier. The thicker ‘piping icing’ should follow the ‘twenty second rule’. If you run a butter knife through the icing, it should take twenty seconds for the line to completely disappear. For your runnier icing, called ‘flood icing’, it can take 5-10 seconds.

Divide your piping icing into five small bowls and your flood icing into three small bowls. Color the piping icing red, green, yellow, black, and leave one white. Color the flood icing green and red and leave one white. Spoon the icing into piping bags. To pipe, cut the corner off a bag to make a small hole.

Tutorial: Christmas Tree Cookies

Outline the cookie with white piping icing. Fill with white flood icing. Let dry. Using green piping icing, pipe a zig-zag in the shape of a tree. While still wet, dip the cookie in rainbow sprinkles to coat. Use black piping icing to pipe a tree trunk, and yellow piping icing to pipe a dot on top of the tree as a star.

Tutorial: Santa’s Elves Cookies

Outline a cookie with red piping icing. Fill with red flood icing. Let dry, then use green piping icing to pipe the collar. Use white piping icing to pipe three horizontal stripes across the middle of the cookie. To finish, use yellow piping icing to pipe dots at the points of the collar. Repeat on another cookie using green as the main color and red as the collar color.

Tutorial: Santa Cookies

Use red piping icing to outline a cookie. Fill with red flood icing. Let dry. Use white piping icing to pipe a cloud-shaped collar at the top of the cookie. Use black piping icing to pipe a thick black line across the center of the cookie, for a belt. Let dry. Use yellow piping icing to pipe a rectangle at the center of the black belt as a buckle. Let dry, then pipe a line through one side to finish the buckle (see the last photo).

Tutorial: Christmas Lights Cookies

Outline a cookie with white piping icing. Fill with white flood icing. Let dry. Use black piping icing to pipe a zig-zag across the cookie. Immediately dip the face of the cookie in rainbow sprinkles to coat the wet icing.

Enjoy your finished product!

Let your icing dry completely and then you can enjoy your cookies! If you use the icing recipe linked above they may not stack well, so keep that in mind and use parchment paper between the cookies if stacking. The cookies will stay fresh in a sealed plastic bag for up to five days.

What will you do with these cookies? You can bring them to your family Christmas gathering, a Christmas party, use for a cookie exchange, or just make them to take a photo for Instagram and then eat them!

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