Decorating Christmas cookies is one of those holiday traditions that can be as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be. A batch of plain stars, trees, gingerbread people and candy canes becomes something completely different once bowls of red, green and snowy-white icing appear on the kitchen table.
The colorful cookies pictured here are wonderful inspiration. Smooth royal icing turns a simple cookie into a wrapped Christmas present, a smiling snowman, a striped candy cane or even a tiny green Christmas sweater. Some designs are detailed enough to look almost too pretty to eat, while others need little more than a swipe of icing and a scattering of sprinkles.
And royal icing isn’t your only option. Different Christmas cookies call for different finishes. You might want a firm icing for gift-box cookies, fluffy peppermint buttercream for soft sugar cookies, a cinnamon glaze for gingerbread, tangy cream cheese frosting for spice cookies or glossy chocolate ganache for something rich and decadent.
These five Christmas cookie icing recipes give you all of those options.
🎄 Christmas Cookie Icings at a Glance
| Icing | Best For | Texture |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Royal Icing | Cut-out sugar cookies and detailed decorating | Smooth and firm-setting |
| Peppermint Buttercream | Soft cookies and piped decorations | Fluffy and creamy |
| Cinnamon Spice Glaze | Gingerbread and spice cookies | Thin and lightly set |
| Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting | Pumpkin, gingerbread and soft cookies | Rich and creamy |
| Chocolate Ganache | Chocolate, shortbread and sandwich cookies | Silky and chocolatey |
If you want to recreate the brightly decorated cookies in the photograph, begin with royal icing. It gives you the most control and can be adjusted for outlining, flooding and tiny decorative details.
🤍 1. Classic Christmas Royal Icing
Royal icing is the decorating workhorse of the Christmas cookie world.
It can be kept thick for borders and delicate lines or thinned slightly so it flows across the surface of a cookie in a technique known as flooding. Once dry, it creates the smooth, firm finish associated with professionally decorated cut-out cookies.
This version uses meringue powder, which is convenient for holiday baking and avoids relying on uncooked ordinary shell egg whites.
Ingredients
- 4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder
- 5 tablespoons warm water, plus more as needed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract, optional
- Gel food coloring
How to Make Royal Icing
Place the powdered sugar and meringue powder in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl.
Add 5 tablespoons of warm water and the extracts.
Beat on low speed until everything is combined, then increase to medium-high and beat for approximately 4–5 minutes, until the icing is bright white, thick and capable of holding a peak.
At this point, you have stiff royal icing.
Keep the bowl covered whenever you’re not actively using it because the surface begins drying quickly when exposed to air.
🎨 Color the Icing
Divide the icing among several small bowls.
To recreate the Christmas cookies pictured, you’ll want at least:
- White
- Christmas red
- Bright green
Gel food coloring is especially useful because it provides strong color without introducing much extra liquid.
Begin with a tiny amount. You can always make a color darker, but you can’t easily turn deep red icing pale again.
Christmas red often deepens slightly as it rests, so don’t be surprised if the color becomes richer after half an hour.
✏️ Royal Icing for Outlining
For outlining cookies, the icing should be thick enough to hold a neat line without spreading.
Spoon some of the stiff royal icing into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip—or simply snip a very small corner from a disposable piping bag.
Gently squeeze while guiding the icing around the outer edge of the cookie.
Don’t drag the piping tip directly across the cookie. Instead, allow the little strand of icing to fall into place as you guide it.
Once you’ve outlined an area, you can fill it with thinner icing.
🌊 Royal Icing for Flooding
Place some royal icing in another bowl and add water a few drops at a time.
Stir thoroughly after every addition.
When you lift your spoon and drizzle icing over the surface, the line should gradually disappear back into the bowl rather than remaining sharply defined.
For beginner decorators, slightly thicker flooding icing is generally easier to control than very runny icing.
Pipe it inside your outline, then use a toothpick or cookie scribe to gently guide icing into the corners.
Tap the cookie lightly against the work surface to encourage the icing to settle into a smooth surface.
🎅 Recreate the Christmas Cookies in the Photo
Once you have red, green and white royal icing, you can make an impressive variety of designs from one batch.
Christmas Tree Cookie
Flood the tree with green icing and allow it to settle.
Add tiny red dots to resemble ornaments and pipe a thin white garland diagonally across the branches.
A yellow star or white snowflake at the top finishes the tree beautifully.
Candy Cane Cookie
Flood the cookie in white.
Once the base has begun setting, pipe diagonal red stripes across the candy cane. Add narrow green stripes between some of the red for the colorful look pictured.
Christmas Present Cookie
Flood a rectangular cookie with green icing.
Pipe thin lighter-green or white diagonal stripes across the surface.
Finish with a large red ribbon and bow.
The bow doesn’t need to be perfectly realistic—a few loops and tails immediately make the green rectangle look like a Christmas present.
Snowman Cookie
Flood the snowman’s body in white.
Once set, add black eyes and buttons, a tiny orange carrot nose and a green scarf.
A few small black dots form the mouth.
Christmas Sweater Cookie
Flood the sweater shape in green.
Then use white icing to add tiny snowflakes, dots, zigzags and decorative borders.
Christmas sweater cookies are wonderful because no two need to match.
Gingerbread People
Leave most of the gingerbread cookie visible and use royal icing only for details.
Pipe white icing around the arms and legs, add a smiling face and decorate with colorful buttons, bows or little green overalls.
If you need the cookies themselves, start with our Traditional Christmas Gingerbread Cookie Recipe.
❤️ 2. Peppermint Buttercream Icing
Not every Christmas cookie needs a hard-setting icing.
Peppermint buttercream is fluffy, creamy and delicious on soft sugar cookies, chocolate cookies, sandwich cookies and brownie-style cookies.
It doesn’t dry hard like royal icing, so these cookies shouldn’t be tightly stacked. But if you’re serving them on a Christmas dessert platter, that wonderfully soft texture is part of their appeal.
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2–3 tablespoons heavy cream or milk
- ½ teaspoon peppermint extract
- Pinch of salt
- Red gel food coloring, optional
- Crushed candy canes, optional
Instructions
Beat the softened butter for about 2–3 minutes, until pale and creamy.
Gradually add the powdered sugar.
Add 2 tablespoons of cream, peppermint extract and a small pinch of salt.
Beat until fluffy. If necessary, add another teaspoon or two of cream until the frosting reaches a smooth piping consistency.
For a beautiful candy-cane effect, divide the buttercream in half and tint one portion pale red or pink.
Place red and white frosting side by side inside a piping bag fitted with a star tip. As you pipe, the colors will swirl together.
Finish with a tiny sprinkling of finely crushed candy cane.
If peppermint is one of your favorite Christmas flavors, our Peppermint Meringue Kisses make another wonderfully festive treat.
🤎 3. Cinnamon Spice Cookie Glaze
Sometimes the simplest icing is exactly what a cookie needs.
This cinnamon glaze takes only a few minutes to whisk together and tastes especially good on gingerbread, molasses cookies, oatmeal cookies and other warmly spiced Christmas treats.
You can dip an entire cookie into the glaze, spread it across the top or drizzle thin ribbons back and forth.
Ingredients
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch of ground nutmeg
- Pinch of salt
- Additional milk as needed
Instructions
Whisk together the powdered sugar, milk, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg and salt.
Continue whisking until completely smooth.
If the glaze is too thick, add milk ½ teaspoon at a time.
If it becomes too thin, whisk in additional powdered sugar.
For a smooth glazed cookie, hold the cookie upside down and gently dip the surface into the icing.
Lift it straight upward and allow the excess to drip back into the bowl.
Turn the cookie upright and place it on a wire rack until the glaze sets.
For a more rustic appearance, drizzle icing over the cookies with a spoon.
✨ Turn Cinnamon Glaze Into Snow
Cinnamon glaze doesn’t have to cover the entire cookie.
A thin white glaze drizzled over gingerbread can resemble fresh snow, especially when paired with a little white sanding sugar.
Try glazing only the upper edges of Christmas-tree cookies, gingerbread houses or stars.
You get plenty of sweetness while still allowing the golden-brown cookie underneath to show.
🤍 4. Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream cheese frosting brings a welcome tanginess to Christmas cookies that are already fairly sweet.
It’s particularly good with gingerbread, pumpkin cookies, carrot cookies, red velvet cookies and soft spice cookies.
Unlike royal icing, this frosting stays soft and creamy.
Ingredients
- 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- Pinch of salt
- 1–2 teaspoons heavy cream, if needed
Instructions
Beat the cream cheese and butter together until completely smooth.
Add the powdered sugar gradually, beating on low speed at first so you don’t cover the kitchen in a Christmas snowstorm of powdered sugar.
Add the vanilla and salt.
Beat briefly until smooth and fluffy.
If you want a softer frosting for spreading, add a teaspoon of cream. If you’re piping decorations, you may not need any additional liquid.
Decorating With Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream cheese frosting looks especially beautiful spread in loose swirls rather than perfectly smooth.
Try topping a soft gingerbread cookie with a thick layer of vanilla frosting and finishing it with:
- Cinnamon
- Chopped toasted pecans
- Gingerbread crumbs
- Christmas sprinkles
- Orange zest
- Sugared cranberries
Because cream cheese frosting is perishable, frosted cookies should be kept refrigerated rather than stored like ordinary royal-iced sugar cookies.
🍫 5. Silky Chocolate Ganache Cookie Icing
If your idea of Christmas baking involves plenty of chocolate, ganache is difficult to resist.
Warm cream and chopped chocolate combine to create an extraordinarily smooth icing that can be drizzled, dipped or spread depending on its temperature.
For cookies, this recipe uses a relatively chocolate-rich ratio so the ganache becomes thick enough to sit beautifully on top rather than remaining a thin sauce.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon light corn syrup, optional, for extra gloss
Instructions
Place the finely chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl.
Heat the cream in a small saucepan until steaming and just beginning to bubble around the edges. Don’t allow it to boil aggressively.
Pour the hot cream over the chocolate.
Leave it completely undisturbed for about 3 minutes.
Then begin stirring slowly from the center outward until the mixture transforms into smooth, glossy chocolate ganache.
Stir in the vanilla, salt and optional corn syrup.
Use it relatively warm for dipping or drizzling.
Let it cool longer if you want a thicker consistency that can be spread over the cookie.
🍫 Christmas Chocolate Cookie Ideas
Dip half of a shortbread cookie in ganache and sprinkle the chocolate with crushed peppermint candy.
Cover star-shaped cookies with chocolate and add gold sanding sugar.
Drizzle ganache across white-iced cookies for dramatic contrast.
Or sandwich two cookies together with peppermint buttercream and dip one end into chocolate.
A little dark chocolate also pairs beautifully with the warm spices in gingerbread, much like our Gingerbread Truffles.
🎨 How to Get Bright Christmas Icing Colors
Red icing has a reputation for being surprisingly difficult to achieve.
The secret is patience.
Use concentrated gel coloring rather than adding large quantities of watery liquid food coloring. Start with less than you think you need, mix thoroughly and allow the icing to sit for a while.
The color often deepens as it rests.
For green, combining a strong leaf or Christmas green with the smallest amount of darker green can create a richer evergreen shade.
And don’t underestimate white. Leaving plenty of bright white icing among the red and green keeps decorated Christmas cookies looking cheerful rather than overwhelmingly colorful.
The cookies in the featured photograph use exactly that balance: bold holiday colors with plenty of snowy white details.
🌈 The Wet-on-Wet Royal Icing Technique
One of the easiest ways to make a cookie look complicated is to decorate while the base layer of royal icing is still wet.
Flood the cookie with your main color.
Immediately pipe lines, dots or little circles of another color directly into the wet icing.
Because both colors are still fluid, they settle into the same smooth surface.
Drag a toothpick through dots to create hearts, garlands or feathered patterns.
This technique is wonderful for ornaments, Christmas sweaters and candy canes because the pattern looks embedded into the cookie rather than sitting on top.
❄️ Create Snowflakes With Royal Icing
You don’t need advanced piping skills to make recognizable snowflakes.
Start with one vertical line.
Cross it with a horizontal line and then two diagonal lines.
Add tiny branches to the ends.
That’s enough to create a beautiful snowflake.
White-on-green and white-on-red are particularly striking Christmas combinations.
You can also pipe white snowflakes over completely dried white icing for a subtle raised design, then dust them with sparkling sugar while the detail icing is still wet.
🍪 Which Icing Is Best for Christmas Sugar Cookies?
For classic cut-out Christmas sugar cookies, royal icing is the most versatile choice.
It produces clean details, allows you to flood larger areas and eventually dries firm enough for carefully packaging decorated cookies.
If you’re planning a family cookie-decorating afternoon and don’t care about intricate designs, a simple glaze may be easier.
Buttercream is best when flavor and soft texture matter more than stackability.
Cream cheese frosting works wonderfully with softer, warmly spiced cookies.
Chocolate ganache is the indulgent choice—and especially useful if your cookie platter needs something darker to contrast with all that red, green and white.
Our Festive Christmas Sugar Cookie Recipe gives you the perfect blank canvas for trying several of these icings.
🛠️ Christmas Cookie Icing Troubleshooting
My Royal Icing Is Too Thick
Add water extremely gradually.
Sometimes just a few drops are enough to change the consistency considerably.
Stir thoroughly before deciding it needs more.
My Royal Icing Is Too Thin
Add sifted powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time until it thickens.
My Flood Icing Is Running Off the Cookie
Your icing is probably too thin, or your outline isn’t strong enough to contain it.
Use a slightly thicker consistency and pipe a defined border first.
My Icing Has Air Bubbles
After thinning royal icing, let it rest briefly.
Once you’ve flooded the cookie, gently tap it against the counter and pop visible bubbles with a toothpick before the surface begins setting.
My Buttercream Is Too Stiff
Beat in a small amount of cream or milk.
Add only a teaspoon at a time.
My Buttercream Is Too Soft
Add a little more powdered sugar or chill it briefly.
My Ganache Looks Too Thin
Let it cool.
Ganache thickens considerably as the chocolate cools.
My Ganache Is Too Thick
Warm it very gently for a few seconds and stir again.
⏰ Let Decorated Cookies Dry Before Packaging
Patience at the end is just as important as patience while decorating.
Royal icing may look dry on the surface before it has hardened all the way through. If you’re planning to stack cookies in a tin or package them individually, allow plenty of drying time.
Large flooded areas take longer than tiny piped details.
Buttercream and cream cheese frosting are different: they remain soft and aren’t designed for stacking.
Ganache firms as it cools but generally doesn’t become as hard as royal icing.
Choose the icing according to what you plan to do with the finished cookies—not simply according to appearance.
🎁 Which Icing Is Best for Christmas Cookie Gifts?
For cookie tins and gift boxes, royal icing is usually the most practical choice.
Once thoroughly dried, carefully decorated cookies can be arranged between sheets of parchment without immediately smearing the designs.
A simple glaze can also work well when completely set.
Soft buttercream and cream cheese frosting are better suited to cookie platters where the cookies won’t be stacked.
If you’re building a Christmas gift box, combine decorated sugar cookies with sturdy treats such as Peppermint Meringue Kisses or homemade candy rather than putting heavy sweets directly on top of delicate iced cookies.
👨👩👧 Turn Cookie Decorating Into a Christmas Activity
You don’t have to produce bakery-perfect cookies for the afternoon to be a success.
Bake the cookies in advance and prepare several bowls of icing. Put red, green and white into small piping bags and place bowls of sprinkles, candies and sanding sugar around the table.
Then let everyone decorate.
Children may turn a snowman purple. Someone will inevitably give a gingerbread person far too many buttons. A Christmas tree may wind up with more icing than cookie underneath.
Those often become everyone’s favorite cookies.
Write names on parchment beside finished creations if everyone wants to keep track of their masterpieces.
🧊 A Note About Egg Safety
Traditional royal icing recipes sometimes use uncooked egg whites.
For a recipe that won’t subsequently be cooked, using meringue powder or appropriately pasteurized egg products is a convenient alternative. If you choose an egg-white royal icing recipe, use pasteurized egg whites rather than untreated raw shell eggs.
That makes meringue-powder royal icing particularly practical when you’re decorating Christmas cookies to share with a crowd.
❤️ Turn a Cookie Into Christmas
The wonderful thing about Christmas cookie icing is that you don’t need professional decorating skills to create something festive.
A green triangle becomes a Christmas tree with a few red dots. A white circle becomes a snowman with an orange nose. Red stripes transform a curved cookie into a candy cane, while a handful of zigzags can make a perfectly respectable—or wonderfully ridiculous—Christmas sweater.
Start with the royal icing if you want to recreate the colorful cookies pictured here. Then experiment with peppermint buttercream, cinnamon glaze, cream cheese frosting and chocolate ganache as your Christmas baking continues.
Some cookies may look polished enough for a bakery window.
Others may be slightly crooked.
Put them all on the Christmas platter anyway.
The best part of decorating holiday cookies has never been making every one identical. It’s watching a tray of plain cookies slowly turn red, green, white, sparkly and unmistakably Christmas.
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