Santa’s Summer Vacation Beach Cookies

This Santa Beach Cookies tutorial is courtesy of our contributor Amy of BZ Bees Sweet Treats…Its finally summer, summer, SUMMERTIME, and that means plenty of lazy days at the beach. My family loves soaking up the sun and you’ll never hear us complain when the temperature starts creeping up. I know plenty of you that are already looking for ways to beat the heat and dreaming of snowflakes and mittens. Before we fast forward all the way to winter, why not cool down with some Christmas in July cookies? Even the jolliest North Pole resident finds time for a beach vacation!

Santa Beach Cookies – Supplies:

• Graham crackers (I used 4 full sheets and had plenty left over crumbs)
• Tan 20 second icing
• Flesh toned 20 second icing ( I used Wilton peach)
• Red 20 second icing
• Black 20 second icing
• White piping icing
• Green piping icing
• White nonpareils (optional)

First up, let’s make our sand. Place a few graham crackers into a food processor and pulse into you have fine crumbs. Voila! The perfect sandy texture and it smells and tastes amazing!

Now on to the actual cookies. Start by making an oval shape in the center of your cookie using tan icing. This will create some dimension for Santa’s notoriously chubby belly. Let this dry at least 1 hour to avoid crushing the icing.

Once Santa’s belly is nice and dry add a second layer of tan icing and then fill in the remainder of your cookie. See that nice little bump?

Immediately sprinkle graham cracker sand all over the wet cookie. Place each edge into the crumbs so the sand covers all the icing. Shake off the excess crumbs and let your cookie dry for 15 minutes.

Using the flesh colored icing make a circle directly above the belly oval.

Add 10 little toes toward the bottom of the cookie. I started with 3 evenly spaced dots and let those dry for a few minutes before adding two more in between.

No trip to the beach is complete without a pair of trusty flip flops. Using your red icing pipe a medium sized dot on one side of Santa’s body. Pipe a slightly smaller dot directly below. Repeat for the second shoe.

Let the red dry and then add the straps using green piping icing.

Using your white piping icing, add Santa’s beard by creating a row of spirals around the bottom of the flesh tone icing. Add a second row directly above and slightly overlapping the first row.

Next, add two small semi circles using black piping icing. Pipe a line directly across the face to make the stems and nose bridge.

Add a red hat above Santa’s face. Once dry, go back and add the pom-pom and brim in white. I sprinkled some white nonpareils for some extra texture but that’s completely optional.

Using your flesh toned icing, add a tiny dot for Santa’s nose between the lenses. Go back and add a little moustache.

I decided to add a green cup and candy cane straw for an extra pop of color. I used these adorable sprinkles for the straw, but you could always pipe one on using white or red icing.

And there you have it – Santa on vacation and buried in delicious graham cracker sand.

Have a fantastic summer everyone and happy baking!!

We’d like to extend a big THANK YOU to Amy for sharing this creative cookie tutorial with us. Be sure to follow her on Facebook & Instagram for adorable cookie decorating ideas. You can also order cookies from her! Check out the FAQ section of her website for more information.