Wet-On-Wet Royal Icing Christmas Cookies With Natural Food Coloring

In this week’s tutorial, I’ll show you how to make these wet-on-wet royal icing Christmas cookies with natural food coloring from The Sugar Art. This is my first time using these colors and I’m so pleased with how they turned out!

The video tutorial, instructions, and recipes to make these plaid Christmas cookies are in the Cookie Art Club!

A close-up shot of a white platter filled with elaborately decorated Christmas cookies, illuminated by warm string lights. The cookies are cut into festive shapes like gingerbread men, Christmas trees, hearts, and mittens. Many are decorated with a vibrant, multicolored, wet-on-wet royal icing pattern resembling a festive plaid or tartan. A hand wearing a gray sweater reaches for a Christmas tree-shaped cookie, which is decorated with delicate white royal icing details that look like snowy branches. Pine sprigs and pinecones decorate the background.

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A close-up of a decorated gingerbread man cookie sitting on a white platter with other Christmas cookies. The gingerbread man features a multicolored, wet-on-wet royal icing plaid pattern and a creamy white royal icing scarf with a fluffy texture. A plaid Christmas tree cookie with white swirled icing is visible next to it. The cookies are surrounded by string lights and pine boughs, suggesting a festive holiday setting.

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I used a variety of cookie cutter shapes to make these gingerbread cookies. The tree is from NY Cake and the sweater is from Ann Clark Cookie Cutters. I’m not sure where the other shapes came from as I’ve collected them over the years, but in my opinion, any cookie cutter shape can be a Christmas cookie!

To make this wet-on-wet royal icing plaid design, you have to move quickly so that you can pipe all of the details before the icing crusts over. With my royal icing recipe (available in the Cookie Art Club), I get up to 10 minutes to work with the icing, which was just about what I needed to make one of these cookies. Each one took me anywhere from 7 to 9 minutes.

A close-up, overhead shot of festive gingerbread cookies on a white platter with a cable-knit texture. The cookies are shaped like Christmas sweaters, mittens, and stockings. They are decorated with a vibrant, multicolored, wet-on-wet royal icing plaid pattern, and finished with fluffy white royal icing trim on the cuffs, collars, and tops. The sweater cookie has a small white Christmas tree design in the center.

When using natural food coloring, you’ll have to use more than what you would use when working with artificial food coloring. In the tutorial in the Cookie Art club, I show how I mixed these colors and I share the quantities of icing and natural food coloring that you’ll need to make each of these beautiful shades.

Here’s what you’ll need to make these wet-on-wet royal icing Christmas cookies

These supplies are available in my Amazon store unless otherwise noted

Chilled sheet of cookie dough (I used my gingerbread cookie recipe)
Assorted Christmas cookie cutters
Royal icing
The Sugar Art natural food coloring in Ruby, Garden Sage, Slate, Ivory, and Driftwood
5 12” decorating bags
Couplers and bag ties
Decorating tips 1 and 3
Scribe tool
Granulated sugar for texture
Decorator brush (I used Sweet Sticks brand) or empty squeeze bottle

Relevant tutorials: Royal Icing 101 (available in the Cookie Art Club!)

A close-up view of a Christmas ornament-shaped gingerbread cookie resting on a white serving platter. The cookie is decorated with a vibrant, multicolored wet-on-wet royal icing plaid pattern, and a horizontal line of white swirled piping runs across the center. The top of the ornament features a ribbed white royal icing cap. Other plaid cookies and string lights are visible around it, emphasizing a festive setting.

Want to make these Christmas cookies yourself? The video tutorial and recipes to recreate them are available to Cookie Art Club members and you can try it free for 7 days.

Let me know if you make them and share your photos with me in the Cookie Art Club!