Edible Christmas Tree Decorations – Post 1

After my last post, I got busy researching for DIY Christmas Tree Decorations for Nabeel’s first ever Christmas Tree that he will get this year. The research landed me on an article which suggested creating edible Christmas decorations. Wow, I thought. On further reading I realised most of the decorations were iced cookies or fondant cut outs. Now, I had good enough sugar cookie dough from my last blog post on High Five Cookies lying in the freezer, this was a great chance to use it up. So it was decided, 1-Nabeel’s first Christmas Tree will have all edible decoration and 2 – I was going to share the entire experience, recipes and fun involved in making them with my lovely readers 🙂 .
Thus, here I am with my season’s special post on Edible Christmas Tree Decoration and since I want my post to inspire you guys to try out the same, it is coming in a week early. (yes, Nabeel’s tree was set up before time).

I did 3 types of decorations
 Cookie Based
 Rolled Fondant
 Cream Cracker House

Because there is so much information and too many photos to share the topic is divided into 2 posts. All cookie based decorations will be shown in Post 1 and the remaining will be done in Post 2. At the end of Post 2, I have given you a 2 day plan to follow. The entire exercise is not going to take you more than 2 days, if well planned. Read and try to recreate.

Now, let’s roll.

COOKIE BASED DECORATIONS

The first thing you need to do is get Sugar Cookie Dough Recipe & the Cookie Icing Recipe from here. Prepare the dough and use Christmas special cookie cutters to make relevant shaped cookies. As you continue reading you will know what shapes are needed exactly.

Before putting the tray in the oven create holes on top of the cookies using a straw. These holes are needed to pass the ribbon/string that will help tie the cookie to the tree. The holes tend to fill up on baking so make sure you punch big holes in the cookies. Refer to image on right.
Prepare the icing and divide into 4 parts: leave one part as it is and colour the others in red, light blue and green. You are going to need only these 4 icings for the entire exercise.
Also make sure you have read the Do’s and Don’t’s of cookie dough and cookie icing before starting.

1) Edible Mini Christmas Tree

This is a 3D tree made using star cookies of different sizes. So ensure you have star cookies in 3 sizes and at least 3 cookies of each size. Bottom to top, largest to smallest arrange star cookies and stick them using cookie icing. Dust icing sugar on the tree and tap all the sugar out. This is done to get the mild white snowy tinge. Then pipe the edges with green icing. Finally, place a decorated star on top to finish the Christmas tree. Refer to image below. I placed the mini tree next to the decorated Christmas tree since I couldn’t find a proper way of hanging it on the tree. See, if you can.

2) Sugar Cookie Christmas Man – This is actually mock gingerbread cookie decoration. Since the cookie is made using sugar cookie dough and not the original gingerbread dough it’s not correct to call it Gingerbread man. Refer to image below on how to decorate the man shaped cookie. You can string them together or choose to hang them individually on the tree.

3) Round Cookies with Christmas Images – I made a few simple round cookies (some with serrated edges) and using the icing piped out Christmas relevant shapes like candy cane, Christmas stocking, Merry X’mas text, etc. on them. See images below.

4) Christmas Snowflake Cookies – I used a small 5 petal flower cookie cutter to make snowflake cookies. Ice the cookies using blue and white icing as show in the image below. Pin up the snowflake cookies on the tip of the branches.

If you have a nice set of Christmas cookie cutters then don’t limit yourself to the above decorations. Keeping the basics in mind, get creative 🙂

Let’s go to the next post for Fondant Christmas Decorations and the Cream Cracker House.

Till then, Love Being a Mommy!
DISCLAIMER : I do not claim any rights of the designs in this post. I am just an enthusiastic mom who wanted to create some unique Christmassy stuff for her child. After spending long hours on the internet I shortlisted these fun ideas to replicate. The joy and excitement while creating them and thereafter watching my son enjoy them was priceless thus wanted to share them with you so that you could also make the same for your kids/loved ones. Have a great Christmas.