How to Make Autumn Lantern Cookies

When the autumn season comes around and it's time to decorate the house with fall decor, one of the staples I bring out of storage are large metal lanterns.

There's just something about candlelight and lanterns that creates a cozy element to rooms and gets me so ready for fall.

That's why I love these autumn lantern cookies so much. They are great place settings for Thanksgiving dinners, and they also pair nicely with other autumn-themed cookies.

Here's how I made them.

Autumn Lantern Cookie Cutter

New for the fall season is this autumn lantern cookie cutter design.

It's available in multiple sizes. For this tutorial, I'll be decorating the LARGE size.

Template for the Autumn Lantern Cookies

To help with the decorating process, I made a PDF template available for all the new autumn designs, including this lantern, as a guideline.

You can download the all the 2021 Fall cookie templates HERE.

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are good to go. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Decorating Process

To decorate these lantern cookies, you will need the following suggested colors:

• Off-White icing (I used a touch of Americolor Ivory.)
• Dark Brown icing (I mixed Americolor Chocolate Brown with Americolor Super Black.)
• Burnt Orange icing (I mixed Americolor Orange with a touch of Warm Brown.)
• Autumn Green icing (I mixed Americolor Moss with Warm Brown.)

Step 1

Begin by filling the center lantern and leaves areas with off-white icing. Let that icing set, then fill in the dark brown sections of the lantern.

Step 2

Next, add the bottom details like the side sections of the pumpkin, and the beginnings of the laurel leave detail.

Once that icing sets up, add the center of the pumpkin, add a few more leaves, and then add the top bar details of the lantern.

Step 3

Finish off the final details by completing all the remaining leaves, adding the pumpkin stem, and adding the cross detail on the lantern.

Video Tutorial

The steps above are summarized in this time-lapsed video I put together below.

Here's the completed lantern, along with the acorn plaque cookies I made to accompany them.

For gift packaging ideas, I played around with different size options to see what would work out best. Here's a few that I think looked pretty great together.

Below is a LARGE Lantern with a REGULAR Acorn Circle Plaque design.

It's displayed in these 7 1/2″ x 5 3/8” boxes from ClearBags.

Another alternative is this duo.

Below is a REGULAR Lantern cookie with a LARGE Acorn Hexagon Plaque cookie. I just switched the sizes from the set above. This gives more room for the message cookie.

This set is also displayed in these 7 1/2″ x 5 3/8” boxes from ClearBags.