How to Decorate a Santa and Elf Christmas Cookie Platter with Royal Icing

Get ready to bring a little extra Christmas magic to your cookie trays! In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to decorate a festive Santa and Elf cookie platter using royal icing. With the help of the coordinating cookie cutters and stencil available in our shop, you’ll see just how easy it is to create cute character features, and a beautifully finished Christmas platter. Whether you’re decorating for customers, gifts, or just for fun, this sweet Christmas cookie platter comes together effortlessly with a little guided help.

Christmas Santa & Elf Platter Cookie Cutter Set

New to the shop is this Santa & Elf Platter Cookie Cutter set. This set includes 3 cookie cutters: a Santa cutter, an elf cutter, and a center circle. You can purchase all cookie cutters together, or as a 2-piece without the circle cutter.

(This is the same circle cutter used in all my platter sets, like this Pine Wreath Platter, Gingerbread Man & Hot Cocoa Platter, and Christmas String Lights Platter, etc.)

There are two sizes available. When arranged as a platter, as shown in the example picture, the platter measures:

LARGE- 12 inches in diameter.

SMALL- 9 inches in diameter.

For this tutorial, I'll be decorating the LARGE size.

Templates for the Santa & Elf Christmas Cookie Platter

To help with the decorating process, I made a PDF template available for this season's Christmas collection, including this Christmas cookie platter set.

You can download these cookie templates HERE.

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are good to go. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Decorating Process

For the colors used for these Christmas string light cookies, you will need the following suggested colors:

To decorate these cookies, my icing of choice is royal icing. Here's how to make royal icing for Christmas cookie decorating.

For the colors used for these Christmas cookies, you will need the following suggested colors:

• Red icing (I used Americolor Super Red.)
• White  icing. (I used Americolor Bright White.)
• Black icing (I used Americolor Super Black.)
• Tan icing (I used Americolor Ivory mixed with Americolor Copper.)
• Green icing (I mixed Americolor Laurel with Americolor Leaf Green and Super Black.)
• Brown icing (I mixed Americolor Ivory with Americolor Espresso.)

Step 1

For the Santa cookies, begin by filling in the top red cap section and the bottom white beard section, as shown. Let this icing set for about 20 minutes.

Then fill in the face section and white ball on the cap.

Step 2

Next, fill in the white cap band and add one side of the mustache. Let this icing crust over.

Then add the other side of the mustache, and add the two eyebrows, as shown.

Step 3

For the last details for this Santa cookie, add the black eyes and center nose.

Step 4

For the elf cookies, begin by filling in the bottom face section. Let that icing crust over.

Then fill in the remaining top cap section in green icing. Let this icing set for about 20 minutes.

Step 5

After the base layer had time to set, add the hair, nose, and eye details.

Then add the red cap details and the eyebrows.

Step 6

For the finishing touches, draw on the smile and ear lines with a brown food pen.

Step 7

For the final, center message cookie, begin by flooding the entire cookie with dark green icing. Let this icing dry completely.

Then I used the Jingle All the Way cookie stencil with super thick white icing. I used a Stencil Genie to hold the stencil in place while I swiped icing over the design.

Santa & Elf Cookie Platter Decorating Video Tutorial

The steps above are summarized in the time-lapsed video below

Here's the final Christmas Santa & Elf cookie platter all assembled. To create this entire platter required 11 cookies-- 5 Santa cookies, 5 Elf cookies, and 1 center circle cookie.

This is the large, 12" version. For the tray it's on, I like to use the 12" pizza pans from Dollar Tree. They are cheap and sturdy for transporting around.

I hope this step-by-step tutorial helps you feel confident creating your own Santa and Elf cookie platter this Christmas season. With the coordinating cookie cutters and stencil, plus a little royal icing practice, this cheerful duo comes together beautifully and is sure to be a hit with customers, friends, and family. If you’re looking for more festive designs to bake and decorate, be sure to check out the other Christmas cookie cutters and cookie stencils available in our shop for even more holiday inspiration.