All Hearts Come Home For Christmas Cookies We Love

Hey Besties! As of this writing, Christmas is right around the corner and so all of us home bakers are in the thick of it right now, right?! 🤪 Listen, I’ve got so many tabs open in my brain right now, it may just shut down unexpectedly. So, this post will likely be more brief than usual but I’m so excited to share these All Hearts Come Home for Christmas cookies. My daughter and I made these together for a special friend. This friend has four boys, two of which are living out-of-state now. And she’s SO excited to have all her babies under her roof for Christmas. So, these were made for her. You’re actually seeing them before she even knows about them. And more than anything, these cookies represent how simple, classic cookie decorating can be stunning, especially when infused with love. You don’t need years of decorating experience to make meaningful cookies! Let’s dive in!

Recipes

Cookie Recipes

Every set starts with deciding which delicious canvas we’re going to work with! And today we’ve chosen what we call our classic bake shop flavor. It’s one of our all-time favorites and we’ve never met anyone who doesn’t fall in love with it. When you’re unsure what flavor someone might like, this is our go-to because everyone loves it. We use our vanilla cutout cookie recipe but instead of 1.5 tsp of vanilla extract, we split it with almond baking emulsion. And specifically, THIS almond baking emulsion. It’s completely nut-free so we don’t have to worry about anyone with allergies and the flavor is SO amazing. You may be tempted to use almond extract, which you can, but you aren’t getting the same amazing flavor. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.

But hey, you’ve always got options here, Bestie! You have this entire collection of delicious, no-chill, no-spread cutout cookie recipes at your fingertips. Knock yourself out, have fun, fall in love with a new flavor you haven’t tried!

Royal Icing Recipe

And if you need an amazing royal icing recipe, THIS walks you through exactly how we make our icing. It’s very simple to make but the magic is in the method, so make sure to follow the steps. In about 6 minutes from start-to-finish, we’ve got beautiful royal icing to work with!

I will also say that how your royal icing tastes is dependent on two things. The first being the meringue powder you use. We only use Genie’s Dream meringue powder which smells and tastes heavenly but also gives us the best results. If you’d like to see how Genei’s Dream compares to Wilton, you can check out the meringue powder showdown HERE! The second variable that impacts your icing flavor is which flavorings you use in your icing. We almost always use clear vanilla extract, as we love to let our cookie flavors shine. But you have an endless world of flavoring options available to you, so I encourage you to try different flavors to create what you love most. It’s so easy to create your own signature flavor! And if you need any help in the world of flavorings, THIS post will explain everything.

All Hearts Come Home For Christmas Cookies

I’m so excited to gift these to my friend and I know she’s going to LOVE them. When I was kicking around design ideas in my head, there is just something about white-on-white at Christmas time. It’s classic, simply, stunning. Especially when you add in different textures and sanding sugar for great sparkle.

I used THIS house cutter and snowflake cutters from THIS set. I seriously use all these cutters on repeat for so many months out of the year. They are likely some of my most used cutters!

My daughter and I used basic flooding and piping to create these designs and added sanding sugar to areas when the icing was wet. We always use Walmart’s Great Value sanding sugar because it’s super fine and extra sparkly.

I also created and used this royal icing transfer sheet for the hearts on this set. You can download the linked heart royal icing transfer sheet HERE. And if royal icing transfers are new to you, you can find a full tutorial HERE!

I adore how these cookies turned out and think they are so beautiful. And the meaning behind them makes them so special. The striking pops of red make all the difference and I know this special family will enjoy them, together.

Maybe this set really hit home because our oldest leaves for college, across the country, next year. I know I’ll be the mom giddy with excitement for my baby to come home. I hope you are all surrounded by those you love this holiday season. And I know it’s not always possible that all hearts come home for Christmas, but I hope you feel the love from those who can’t be with you. Sending all my love and light to all my Besties!