It’s Christmas cookie season! Perhaps you’re going to a Christmas party and need to bring an easy holiday dessert or you just want to do Christmas cookie decorating as a festive family activity. Either way, we’ve compiled 12 easy and creative cookie decorating ideas that will make the holiday season both fun and tasty.
From classic cookies like shortbread and sugar to store-bought chocolate chip, there’s a recipe perfect for you. Some of them are so easy to make, the kids can help too. Then you get the memories of making the cookies as well as the reward of actually eating the end product. Enjoy!
More from CafeMom: 8 Colorful Christmas Cookie Recipes You Gotta Try
Easy Icing
A lot of cookie decorating recipes call for using royal icing, which uses a mixer and contains eggs or egg white powder or meringue powder, depending on the recipe. But Southern Living posted a simpler icing recipe on TikTok that only uses powdered sugar and milk and achieves a similar consistency to royal icing without the use of a mixer.
Beginner-Friendly
TikTok baker @southstreetcookies posted three beginner-friendly decorating ideas using popular cookie cutter molds. The designs only use three icing colors (red, green, and white) and a wet-on-wet icing technique perfect for first-time cookie decorators. You will need a scribe (or a toothpick in a pinch) to create the designs.
Round Designs
You don’t need a thousand Christmas cookie cutters to have a variety of cookie designs. On TikTok, @southstreetcookies also posted a video showing 12 seasonal designs you can make using just a round shape. You don’t even need a cutter to make the round cookies; the rim of a cup will work just fine.
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Buttercream Form
Want a festive design without as much work? Follow @thewhitewhisk’s tutorial on TikTok. The food blogger baked cookies using a silicone snowflake mold, removed the cookies, filled the mold halfway with buttercream icing, and placed the cookies back in the molds to set. The end result is a cookie with thick icing and a perfectly formed design. You can also use candy melts or chocolate instead of the icing, as seen in another video from @thewhitewhisk.
Swirled Frosting
Swirl holiday colors together like green and red or white and red to create simple but fun cookie frosting designs. On TikTok, @emilyahutchinson used the technique to make cute peppermint candy shaped cookies.
Check out The Squeaky Mixer’s swirled frosting tutorial, and feel free to mix whichever colors you prefer.
Sprinkle Dip
Chocolate kiss cookies are already so good, but we love the technique of rolling the dough in sprinkles before baking to add a festive touch. Check out the video tutorial from @cakemehometonight on TikTok and get the full cookie recipe on her website.
Linzer Cookies
To make a linzer cookie, cut a smaller shape out of one round cookie and place it on top of a whole round cookie with a bit of jam in the middle. Or use green frosting to make tree shapes really stand out like @cathrynlaurawood did on TikTok.
Double Stacked
Have you ever wanted the flavor combination of a chocolate chip cookie and a sugar cookie? Now you can have it. TikToker @beccadscott showed in a video how she took store-bought chocolate chip cookie dough and stacked a store-bought sugar cookies (like these pre-cut, festive ones) on top. Then she baked the whole thing together. The end result is a chewy sugar cookie center surrounded by a chocolate chip cookie border.
Rudolph Faces
Jam thumbprint cookies have been holiday staples for decades, but now you can make them extra festive. Turn the cookies into Rudolph faces (with the jam as the red nose) by adding pretzel antlers and some black icing eyes. See a video tutorial from TikToker @cotybeth.cakedesign and get a full recipe on Adventures of Mel.
Snow Globes
Decorate store-bought or homemade cookies however you want with sugar santas, reindeer, or trees and then add half of a clear plastic ornament to create a snow globe effect. See this video tutorial from TikToker @monochrome.haus for all the steps.
Chocolate Covered
Dip half of whatever your favorite cookie is into chocolate and add sprinkles or crushed candy cane. It’s an easy Christmas dessert that’s sure to look and taste great. Check out the recipe for bakedrizzledust‘s chewy, chocolate-covered maple cinnamon cookies if you need some inspo.
Oreo Ornaments
Even the kids can help make this festive dessert. Just dip Oreos into white chocolate, decorate them with sprinkles, and add a Rolo chocolate to be the “ornament” topper. See @shannonmayor’s full video tutorial on TikTok, and have fun decorating!
