How to Decorate Elf Cookies – Video Tutorial
It’s not even Thanksgiving for some of you, yet here I am with another Christmas themed post. I hope you don’t mind that I’m a preparing early and have more holiday-themed cookies to share with you. These ones are fairly simple to make and I find them so endearing.
Thanks to Cheap Cookie Cutters for making the cookie cutters! You can find the Santa Ornament Cookie cutter here and the Santa Elf here.
And thanks to Pier One Imports for the elf design and to Target for the Santa ornament design!
If you’d like to start baking and decorating early too, click on the links to find posts on freezing cookies, thawing cookies and the shelf life of cookies.
Royal Icing
You can find my favorite royal icing recipe here. The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating. Click here to see a post on basic royal icing consistency.
Cookie Recipe
These are sugar cookies; you can find the recipe here. There are other cut-out cookie recipes here.
Pico Projector
I’m not great at drawing, so use a Pico projector to help me trace my designs.
So, what is a Pico projector? It’s a small, hand held size projector that I use to project an image onto my cookie. It’s plugged into my iPad and mounted on this Arkon mount below. The mount is called the Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand, is $139.99 and you can get it on Arkon’s site here. You can get 20% off with the coupon code sweetopia. You should know I am an affiliate of Arkon and Amazon, but only share products I use and love with you.
You can find a full Pico Projector video tutorial here
Decorating Items
What you’ll need (These are affiliate links):
- Piping Tips – PME #1.5, PME #2.5, PME #3
- Tipless Piping Bags
- Piping Bags
- Couplers
- Gel Colors; Wilton Ivory, Wilton Pink, Wilton No-Taste Red, Wilton Black, Americolor Forest Green, Americolor Mint Green
- Scribe Tool or Toothpicks
- Dripcolor Edible Ink Pens, green and yellow
- Pink Powder Food Coloring
- Pico Projector (If you need a projector to help trace the design).
- Arkon Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand (20% off with coupon code sweetopia) (To hold the projector)
- iPad (Image for projector)
- Mini HDMI to HDMI cable (doesn’t come with the Pico projector)
- Lightning to HDMI Adapter (Adapter for HDMI cable to attach to iPad)
Decorating Steps
This video on outlining and flooding is a good place to start if you’re new to decorating cookies with royal icing. These cookie decorating basics YouTube videos may also be helpful to get you started.
Besides the video tutorial on YouTube which I’ve shared above, I’ve also shared a few how-to videos on Instagram, which you can see here.
Notes
- If you wanted the elf’s pants to look smoother you could do one or both of the following; make the icing a little thinner so it settles flatter (it just ends up looking less puffy), and pipe the whole body and legs as one section, and once that has crusted over, pipe the lighter green band.
- To make the skin shade for the elf, I used Wilton Ivory with a touch of pink.
- I like the tipless piping bags for piping tiny, thin lines, but prefer the PME tips for other piping.
- Here is video on piping lines if you’d like a tutorial.
- Thanks for your feedback on Instagram regarding the red or pink elf cheeks. Most people picked light pink, but I did just a few with the red cheeks too.
- You can find a tutorial for the peppermint candy, Christmas tree and candy cane in this digital download.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to drop me a line below in the comment section or on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube.
Happy decorating!
xo,
Marian
Maria says
HI Marian,
I, fellow your interesting subjects on your blog ! The elf cookie is very cute! Great Ideas and so many hints you share every time for so many of us!!! Happy decorating!
ML
marian says
Hi Maria,
Thanks so much, I very much appreciate your comments!
Robin Torres says
Hi Marian just absolutely love the elf , your link doesn’t take me to the cheap cookie cutter website. Can you please provide the right link?
I’m excited to try these cookies out. I learn so much from you.
marian says
Hi Robin,
Yes, the link isn’t ready on the Cheap Cookie Cutter site yet, but I should have it by the end of the day. Thanks for asking!
marian says
Hi Robin, sorry for the delay, the link is up now; https://www.cheapcookiecutters.com/collections/whats-new/products/red-christmas-elf-cookie-cutter
Maria says
hi again, forgot to say : your tutorial is amazing ,love the background music. You make it look soooo simple!
ML
marian says
Thanks so much, that’s so nice to hear!
Kim says
Also looking for the cutters – I don’t see them on Cheap Cookie Cutters website, will they be available or were they made just for you?
Super Cute cookies, love the Santa just as much!
marian says
Hi Kim,
Yes, the link isn’t ready on the Cheap Cookie Cutter site yet, but I should have it by the end of the day. Thanks for asking!
marian says
Hi Kim, the link is up now, here it is; https://www.cheapcookiecutters.com/collections/whats-new/products/red-christmas-elf-cookie-cutter
Kim says
Thanks you! I snagged both! Yay!
marian says
Yay! Glad you like them!
Beth says
I bought the elf cutter after seeing your great tutorial. I’m thinking I could use the same cutter to make a gnome!
marian says
I agree Beth, have fun decorating!