How to Decorate Santa Mail Cookies with Buttercream Frosting

These Santa mail cookies are so delicious and cute, you must try to make them this year for your Christmas cookie decorating!

We were featured in a Redfin article! Check it out here: Getting Into the Holiday Spirit: How to Make Christmas Feel Like Christmas Again

Included in the Santa mail cookies are a Christmas stamp sugar cookie, Santa’s mailbox sugar cookie, and a letter to Santa sugar cookie.

I have been experimenting with artificial dye free food coloring so I used that for these cookies! I think they turned out well and the red dried looking red, despite looking like a dark pink in the piping bag.

You can read about what natural dyes I have been experimenting with here!

All three of these designs are beginner friendly and only use a few decorating tips.

Follow along for the full step-by-step photo series and video cookie decorating tutorials PLUS the recipes!

Let’s get started!

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Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Decorated Santa Mail Cookies

To decorate these Christmas sugar cookies, you will want to gather:

• 5 Icing bags
• One PME 1.5 tip, one Wilton #1 tip, one Wilton #4 tip, one Wilton #10 tip, and one Wilton #349 tip
• 5 Couplers
• Christmas mail cookie cutter (a rectangle), Santa’s mailbox cookie cutter (I hand cut mine), and Christmas stamp cookie cutter
• Pink, red, green, and gray gel food coloring (I used natural dyes)
• Projector and projector stand – here are mine plus a review/tutorial for how to use
• Palette knife (I use this one for these cookies!)
• Ingredients for a crusting buttercream & sugar cookie dough – found below in recipe card

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Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up the Icing Bags

Use the recipe card below for the sugar cookie and buttercream frosting recipes.

Decorated Christmas Cookies with Buttercream Frosting

These sugar cookies are buttery and soft as they are topped with a vanilla buttercream frosting. Show them off as a party decoration and or gift them to a loved one this holiday season!

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Buttercream Sugar Cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Decorating Time: 3 hours hours

Total Time: 3 hours hours 40 minutes minutes

Servings: 18 cookies, depending on the size of the cookie cutter

Author: Leah Buehler

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
• Gel food dye I used TruColor natural food dyes

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 Cookies

• Please refer to Part 3 of this blog post for all of the cookie decorating tutorials.

Notes

These buttercream sugar cookies are room stable for a few days on the counter. Otherwise, store in the freezer in an airtight container until ready to use, or for up to three months. You can also freeze the undecorated cookies and buttercream frosting three months in advance to decorating.

 

Make your buttercream icing according to the recipe and separate it into five bowls:

• • • scoop 1/3 cup of buttercream into a bowl and dye this frosting gray
    • scoop 1/3 cup of buttercream into another bowl and dye this green
    • divide the remaining frosting up into three equal-ish amounts and dye them pink, red, and white (or undyed)

To set up the piping bags:

• Place couplers into each icing bag and then add the frosting. You do not need to add the tips yet.

Part 3: Decorating the Christmas Mail Cookies with Buttercream Frosting

Check out the video tutorial showing the overall process for decorating these Christmas sugar cookies then follow the step-by-step photo series tutorial below.

How to Decorate the Santa Mail Cookies with Buttercream

1. Attach the Wilton tip #4 to the red buttercream. Outline and fill in the mailbox portion of the cookie. Then, use the palette knife to smooth the frosting and clean up the edges.
2. Attach the Wilton tip #10 to the white buttercream. Pipe a straight line for the pole, then snow at the bottom and top of the cookie. I swirled the frosting at the bottom for a more snow-like appearance.
3. Attach the Wilton #1 tip to the pink buttercream. Pipe the words “Santa Mail” onto the red mailbox. I used a projector but you can also freehand.
4. Attach the PME 1.5 tip to the gray frosting to draw a line for the mail slot.

How to Decorate the Christmas Stamp Cookies with Buttercream

1. Attach the Wilton tip #4 to the pink buttercream. Outline and fill in the entire cookie and then smooth it with the palette knife.
2. Attach the PME 1.5 tip to the green buttercream and pipe the leaves. Remove the PME tip and replace it with the Wilton #349 tip to pipe the other leaves.
3. Attach the Wilton #10 tip to the red buttercream and pipe the berries.
4. Remove/rinse/dry the Wilton #10 tip from the red buttercream and attach it to the white. Pipe the candy cane shape.
5. Attach the Wilton #4 tip to the red buttercream to pipe the candy cane lines. Use a palette knife to clean up the edges of the lines if needed.

How to Decorate the Christmas Letter to Santa Cookies with Buttercream

1. Attach the Wilton #10 tip to the white buttercream and fill in the rectangle cookie. Then, smooth it with the palette knife and clean up the edges as needed.
2. Attach the PME 1.5 tip to the gray frosting and pipe the lines on the ruled paper. I used a projector for the rest of the tutorial but you can definitely free-hand! I teach how to pipe straight lines in my online cookie decorating class, Merry Cookies.
3. Remove/rinse/dry the PME 1.5 tip from the gray frosting and attach it to the pink frosting to pipe the pink line on the ruled paper (also shown in photo above.)
4. Remove/rinse/dry the PME 1.5 tip from the pink frosting and attach it to the red frosting to write “Dear Santa” and the wavy lines.

How cute are these? I think the artificial dye free frosting turned out really well. I am still trying to learn about it; I did notice some minor color bleed after the cookies crusted.

I’m wondering if the liquid TruColor would be better for buttercream? If you have experimented with dye free colors let me know in the comments below – what’s been the best you’ve used? I still am totally impressed with the TruColor powders, though!

This set is so fun and great for beginner cookie decorators.

Don’t forget to check out my online Christmas sugar cookie class, Merry Cookies where you can learn all these techniques plus WAY more, just in time for Christmas!

Save the Tutorial for These Santa Mail Christmas Cookies

Use the image below to pin this tutorial for buttercream Christmas sugar cookies to your holiday party 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.