Decorated 3D Christmas Tree Cookies Tutorial

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

updated from 2012

3D CHRISTMAS TREE COOKIES STEP-BY-STEP

• Beginner’s Guide To Cookie Decorating
• Ultimate Guide to Cut-Out Cookies (tips, tricks, troubleshooting)
• Royal Icing Recipe
• Small Batch Royal Icing Recipe
• Cookie Icing Recipes (includes vegan royal icing, glaze, fondant)
• Guide To Royal Icing Consistencies with Visual Help(what is stiff, flood icing, etc.)
• How To Freeze Royal Icing
• How To Make Royal Icing Transfers
• Royal Icing FAQ ( for example: how to make black icing, color bleeding, storage, and more)
• How To Make a Cookie Cutter Template
• Ultimate Guide To Cookie Decorating Tools

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THINGS YOU NEED

• Nesting Snowflake Cutters or Star Cookies Cutters (nesting sets are great for this project)
• Gel Food Coloring: blue, black – to make bluish gray
• Tipless Piping Bags
• PME Piping Tip #1.5
• Scribe Tool
• Silver Dragees
• White Sanding Sugar
• Tweezers

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BAKE COOKIES

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

• I baked 11 cookies per Christmas Tree.
• I used five cookie cutters of the same snowflake shape but different sizes.
• 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.

ROYAL ICING COLORS AND CONSISTENCIES

• White icing: 15-second consistency for flooding 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 dry for 6-8 hours.

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

• Repeat decorating the top of the snowflake cookies with piping (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.

ASSEMBLE 3D CHRISTMAS TREE COOKIES

• To build the Christmas tree, start with the 2 largest snowflakes, stagger and glue them with a little bit of icing ( steps 1-2).
• Continue with the remaining 8 cookies (steps 3-8).

DECORATE WITH SPRINKLES

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

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

MORE CHRISTMAS COOKIE IDEAS

• Christmas Bow Cookies
• Gingerbread People Christmas Table-Setting Cookies
• Simple Christmas Decorated Cookies
• Simple Candy Cane Cookies via LilaLoa
• Easy Christmas Holy Cookie Platter

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.