Gourmet Cookie Bouquets Recipe Blog

You can paint Christmas cookies this year that will make everyone marvel at how you did it. It looks like you took a course in fine art or spent hours carefully attending to each detail. But really, cookie painting is something you can do with kids and is fun for any holiday, especially Christmas.

Put on your favorite Christmas music and get ready for a fun-filled day of cookie painting. It’s a stress-free activity that you will probably want to start doing every year once you see how easy it is.

There are two kinds of cookie painting. One is the kind you do before the cookies go into the oven. These cookies will come out with a more muted finish and are lovely. The other type of cookie painting is done after you bake the cookies. This type of painting results in a shiner coating. Either is fine and tastes just the same, so see which one you prefer.

The first thing you will need is a set of good brushes. Don’t go all out and buy the finest quality artist’s brushes unless you have the money to spare and plan to do lots of cookie painting. You’ll need to keep them free of any paint that isn’t edible, so plan to store them in your pantry for cookie painting only. You can find inexpensive brushes that model makers use. The bristles on these brushes won’t fall out as easily as really cheap generic ones will. And that’s good because the last thing you want is stray bristles in your cookies.

Paint Before you Bake

For this type of paint, you’ll need food coloring, one egg yolk, and ¼ teaspoon of evaporated (not condensed) milk. Don’t use plain water as the results will be disappointing. Each color will need this same amount of ingredients. Mix them in separate bowls. After you have rolled out and cut out your cookies, paint them in the colors you have just made. Then bake the cookies in the oven according the recipe directions. The colors set once the cookies are baked and cooled. You don’t have to do anything else to set the color.

Paint After you Bake

The main thing with this recipe is allowing time for cookies to cook before you paint. If you have children who can’t wait, perhaps you can have them paint them before they go in the oven with the recipe above. But if you can stand the wait, get separate bowls for each color paint. For each color, mix 1 tablespoon of light corn syrup and a drop of food coloring. Mix and see if you like the hue. If it’s too light, add more food coloring one drop at a time. A little goes a long way. Then paint your cooled cookies. Because there is no raw egg in this recipe, they are fine to eat as soon as they dry.

You’ll love painting Christmas cookies in festive colors. And as your tradition grows each year, you’ll find more and more people on your list requesting your famous painted cookies. They’re a joy to look at and delicious to eat. And you can have just as much fun with store-bought rolled sugar cookie dough if you don’t have time to make it from scratch.

After you've decorated your cookies, read on for some great cookie exchange tips.

3 Responses to “How to Paint Christmas Cookies”