Gingerbread Sugar Cookies With Buttercream – 7 Cookie Decorating Tutorials
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Tis the season for gingerbread cookies! If you are looking to mix it up this year, you won’t be disappointed with these gingerbread sugar cookies.
These gingerbread sugar cookies are made of a soft vanilla sugar cookie and topped with a creamy buttercream frosting.
I’ve included seven total designs for your gingerbread sugar cookies but the possibilities seem limitless. Use your favorite Christmas cookie cutters and definitely don’t forget the gingerbread man!
Speaking of Christmas sugar cookies, you don’t want to miss out on my online Christmas sugar cookie class.
This class is so popular this time of year for a reason! You’ll get recipes, professional tips, and tutorials for over 27 Christmas sugar cookies. Find out more about this jam-packed Christmas sugar cookie class here.
Follow along to see the full step-by-step video and photo series tutorials for these seven Christmas sugar cookies:
- gingerbread man sugar cookie
- gingerbread candy cane cookie
- gingerbread light bulb cookie
- gingerbread Christmas tree cookie
- gingerbread mitten cookie
- gingerbread snowflake cookie
- gingerbread barn cookie
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Skip to
- Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies
- Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up the Icing Bags
- Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
- Part 3: Decorating the Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies
- How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Man Sugar Cookies
- How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Candy Cane Cookies
- How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Light Bulb Cookies
- How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Christmas Tree Cookies
- How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Mitten Cookies
- How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Snowflake Cookies
- How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Barn Sugar Cookies
- Save the Tutorial for These Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies
Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies
To decorate these soft gingerbread sugar cookies with buttercream frosting, you will want to gather:
- 2 Icing bags
- One Wilton #2 tip, one Wilton #5 tip, one PME 1.5 tip, and one Wilton #44 tip
- 2 couplers
- Christmas tree cookie cutter, gingerbread man cookie cutter, candy cane cookie cutter, mitten cookie cutter, barn cookie cutter, snowflake cookie cutter, and Christmas light bulb cookie cutter
- Brown gel food dye
- Palette knife (I love this one for cookies!)
- Ingredients for a crusting buttercream & sugar cookie dough – found below in recipe card
Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up the Icing Bags
Use the recipe card below for the sugar cookie and buttercream frosting recipe.
Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies with Buttercream Frosting
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- Rubber Spatula
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Medium Sized Mixing Bowl
- Lined aluminum cookie sheet parchment paper or silicone lined baking sheet
- Rolling Pin
- Cookie cutters and tools see part 1 on this post for the specific tools needed
Ingredients
Buttercream Frosting
- ½ cup room temperature unsalted butter 4 ounces
- ½ cup room temperature salted butter 4 ounces
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
- 1-3 tbsp. whole milk
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup cold salted butter cubed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 cups all purpose flour measured with the scoop & level method
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 egg
- 1.5 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Remove all of the butter from the refrigerator. You will make the sugar cookies first but the butter for the frosting needs to come to room temperature before mixing.
Sugar Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and prepare an aluminum cookie sheet by placing either parchment paper or a silicone baking mat on it.
- In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the flour and baking powder and mix together. Set this aside.
- Cube a cup of salted butter and then, in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the cubed butter with the granulated sugar. Mix until creamed together well.
- To the stand mixer, add in the egg and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
- Slowly add in the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl to the stand mixer.
- Roll the dough out to 3/8" thick and use the cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. Place the cookies onto the prepared baking sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes or until the tops of the cookies no longer look wet. When baking the cookies, only bake 6-8 cookies at a time to leave proper space between each cookie to cook without spreading. Overcrowding the cookie sheet will cause spread.
Buttercream Frosting
- In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add the room temperature salted and unsalted butter and mix on high until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the powdered sugar little by little. Add in the vanilla extract and milk about halfway through adding the sugar to help the frosting come together. Start with one tablespoon of milk and work up to three if needed, depending on the consistency you want. I like to aim for a peanut butter consistency or thinner.
- Follow the directions in Part 2 for the specific way you will divide the buttercream and set up the icing bags.
How to Decorate the Christmas Sugar Cookies
- Please refer to Part 3 of this blog post for all seven cookie decorating tutorials.
Notes
Make your buttercream icing according to the recipe and separate it into two bowls:
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- One bowl will contain 2/3 of the frosting, dye this bowl brown.
- The remaining bowl (approximately 1/3 of the frosting) will stay undyed or use white liquid food coloring
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Place a coupler into each icing bag and fill each bag with a frosting color. You can leave the decorating tips off of the couplers/bags for now.
Part 3: Decorating the Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies
Check out the video tutorial showing all seven decorated Christmas gingerbread sugar cookies then follow the step-by-step photo series tutorials below.
How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Man Sugar Cookies
- Attach the tip #5 to the brown bag of icing and outline and fill in the gingerbread cookies.
- Use the palette knife to smooth the frosting smooth.
- Use the brown frosting with tip #5 to outline the gingerbread man again to create a border.
- Attach the tip #2 and/or the tip #1.5 to the white/undyed buttercream to pipe some details onto the gingerbread man cookie. I used the 2 for the majority of the decorations and the 1.5 for the smile and the dots on his hands and feet.
How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Candy Cane Cookies
- Attach the tip #5 to the brown bag of icing and outline and fill in the candy cane cookies, smooth with the palette knife, and outline the candy cane again.
- Use the tip #2 on the white frosting to pipe swirls along the length of the candy cane cookies.
How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Light Bulb Cookies
- Attach the tip #5 to the brown bag of icing and outline and fill in the light bulb cookies, smooth with the palette knife, and outline again.
- Use the tip #2 on the white frosting to pipe a back & forth line over the socket and two light reflections on the bulb.
How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Christmas Tree Cookies
- Attach the tip #5 to the brown bag of icing and outline and fill in the tree cookies, smooth with the palette knife, and outline again.
- Use the tip #2 on the white frosting to pipe a back & forth line over the trunk and then some zig zags onto the tree branches.
How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Mitten Cookies
- Attach the tip #5 to the brown bag of icing and outline and fill in the mitten cookies and smooth with the palette knife. Then, outline the top part of the mitten (where the hand goes) with the brown buttercream.
- Use the tip #5 on the white frosting to outline the bottom part of the mitten.
- Use the tip #2 on the white frosting to pipe straight lines onto the top part of the mitten.
- Use the tip #2 to pipe “V” shapes from top to bottom of every other row. Then, pipe some wavy lines onto the bottom part of the mitten.
How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Snowflake Cookies
- Attach the tip #5 to the brown bag of icing and outline and fill in the snowflake cookies. Then, smooth with the palette knife and outline the edges again.
- Use the tip #2 on the white frosting to pipe lines onto the snowflake. Use the tip #1.5 to pipe small dots.
How to Decorate the Buttercream Gingerbread Barn Sugar Cookies
- Attach the tip #5 to the brown bag of icing and pipe out a small amount of frosting onto the cookie. Smooth the frosting with a palette knife until a thin layer is left.
- Remove/rinse/dry the tip #5 from the brown frosting and attach it to the white frosting to outline and fill in the roof. Then, smooth it with a palette knife.
- Use the same tip #5 to outline the barn doors and the window.
- Attach the tip #44 onto the brown frosting and pipe vertical boards onto the barn. Get as close as you can to the roof, you will clean it up with a palette knife.
- Outline the roof with the white frosting and add in some lines for more detail.
- Remove/rinse/dry the tip #5 from the white frosting and attach it to the brown to outline the barn.
- Use the tip #1.5 on the white frosting to add detail onto the barn door, some shutters for the window, and a star above the window.
That’s all of them! I really love how these gingerbread sugar cookies turned out. Plus, only needing two shades of frosting makes these so easy to do at home.
I’d love to know in the comments below, are you more a fan of gingerbread cookies or buttercream Christmas sugar cookies?
Save the Tutorial for These Christmas Gingerbread Sugar Cookies
Use the image below to pin this tutorial for decorated Christmas gingerbread sugar cookies to your holiday board on Pinterest. Alternatively, use any of the social share icons on the top of the page to share it to your favorite social media site.
