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Decorated 3D Christmas Tree Cookies

3D Christmas tree cookies have been around for a long time. Usually, these arresting 3D cookies are constructed with the help of star-nesting cutters. However, I’ll show you how to make this popular classic design using snowflake cookies.

Tree made from stacked decorated cookies in front of a blurry background.

updated from 2012

3D CHRISTMAS TREE COOKIES STEP-BY STEP

Join me, and let’s decorate and build festive Christmas Tree Cookie centerpiece together, with step-by-step tutorial.

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THINGS YOU NEED

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Stacked sugar cookies on a cake stand.

BAKE COOKIES

I used my classic sugar cookie recipe to make snowflake cookies. What are your favorite cut-out cookies? You can use any cut-out cookies.

To break it down, I baked 11 cookies per Christmas Tree. I used five cookie cutters of the same snowflake shape but different sizes, and I baked 2 of each shape, plus one extra small snowflake for the top of the tree. You can use any of these cookie-decorating icing recipes to decorate. Today I’m going to work with royal icing.

Stacked sugar cookies on a baking sheet lined with a perforated baking mat.

ROYAL ICING COLORS AND CONSISTENCIES

  • White icing: 15-second consistency, to flood the cookies.
  • Grayish Blue: piping consistency; I used royal blue gel color to tint the icing and then I mixed in a minuscule amount (tip of a toothpick) of black gel food color. Use this color to pipe details on top of the white icing.

DECORATE COOKIES

Outline and flood the cookie with white icing (15-second consistency). Use a scribe to smooth and distribute the icing (steps 1-8). Let the icing for 6-8 hours.

Snowflake sugar cookies decorated with white icing.

Now, decorate the top of the iced snowflake cookie with piping consistency livid icing (blueish gray). I used a piping bag fitted with PME Piping #1.5 (steps 1-6). Immediately, dust the livid icing design with white sanding sugar (steps 7-8).

Snowflake sugar cookies decorated with white icing and blue details.

Repeat decorating the top of the snowflake cookies with livid (blue-gray) icing (steps 1-4). Lastly, decorate the top snowflake cookie with a small silver dragee. Glue the silver dragee onto the middle of the cookie (steps 5-8). Let the icing dry for a couple of hours, and then assemble the tree.

PME piping tip piping small lines onto cookies decorated with white icing.
A group of cookies decorated with royal icing.

ASSEMBLE 3D CHRISTMAS TREE COOKIES

To build the Christmas tree, glue the cookies on top of each other. Start with the 2 largest snowflakes, stagger and glue them with little bit of icing ( steps 1-2). Continue with the remaining 8 cookies (steps 3-8).

Gluing cookies on top of each other.

DECORATE WITH SPRINKLES

Decorate snowflakes’ ends with a silver dragees. Pipe icing into a loop decoration and attach silver dragee using tweezers (steps 1-5).

Tweezers holding small silver dragees.

Lastly, attach the top snowflake vertically on top of the assembled 3D Christmas Tree Cookie. Pipe icing on the bottom of 2 arms and glue it on the top (steps 1-3).

Gluing a small cookie on top of the stacked cookies.
Close up of small snowflake cookie.

MORE CHRISTMAS COOKIE IDEAS

Decorated cookies, stacked on top of each other.

Did you make these Decorated Cookies? Tag @hanielas on Instagram and hashtag it #hanielas

This post was originally published on November 27, 2012. On August 2, 2023 I updated this post with new step-by-step pictures and written instructions.

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One Comment

  1. What an amazing project! Your centerpiece really captures the feel of the season. Gorgeous!

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