Announcing the Winners of Our Holiday Cookie Decorating Contest

The results are in, and we’re thrilled to announce the winners of Taste of Home‘s Holiday Cookie Decorating Contest!

In November, we launched a decorating contest (which happens to go along perfectly with this month’s Bakeable challenge: Gingerbread Cookie Cutouts). We invited bakers to submit photos and videos of their edible art, and they came through with dozens of designs, from gold-dusted holly leaves to 3-D snow globes.

Josh Rink, a Taste of Home food stylist and cookie decorator extraordinaire, led the judging. While it was tough to narrow down the submissions, we landed on four fun cookie designs.

Meet Our Winners

Taste of Home, Courtesy Contributor (4)

3rd Place: Mason Jar Snow Globe Cookie

Ericka Price from Huntsville, Missouri

Ericka’s Mason jar design really impressed us. The judges agreed that her use of the jar cutout shape, edible silver dust and royal icing were both innovative and unique.

“Even after all my years of working with cookies, I’ve never seen a design like this before, which is amazing,” says Josh. “Creating new designs can be challenging, but Ericka did it—her Mason jar cookies are so cute!”

2nd Place: Christmas Tree Tower

Elizabeth Boyd from San Rafael, California

From her individually hand-frosted cookies to the delicate and methodical assembly, Elizabeth’s Christmas cookie tree tower really stood out among the competitors. It was a creative and beautiful use of frosted gingerbread cookies.

“The cookie tree showcases talent, skill and patience which comes together to form beautiful finished product!” Josh says. “The level of detail is remarkable, right down to the tiny handmade candy canes.”

1st Place: Holly Cookie Wreath

Amy Schermetzler from Greendale, Wisconsin

Amy used royal icing, edible paint, a food pen and gold dust to make an elegant (and edible) holiday wreath.

“I really like the ‘hand painted’ method combined with the use of edible pen and gold flecks,” Josh says. “These methods are unique yet approachable and produce an impressive presentation with the finished wreath!”

Grand Prize: Snow Globe Cookies

Theresa Ravencraft from Marysville, Ohio

A blogger and Taste of Home Community Cook, Theresa combined multiple techniques and components—a sugar glass dome, a thin layer of royal icing with sanding sugar, a buttercream border and a large snowflake sprinkle—in her 3-D snow globe cookie design. In her video, Theresa told us how she’d received a snow globe as a gift when she was a child, which added a beautiful personal layer to her design. Theresa’s cookie will be considered for the cover of next year’s cookie issue!

“These snow globe cookies look stunning!” says Josh. “I love that she used a variety of fun ingredients to complete the cookie: sugar glass, royal icing and buttercream.”

Congratulations to all our winners! Watch our Contests page for more decorating contests, coming soon.