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Make cookie dough a day ahead for stress-free success!

Bring ingredients to room temperature before mixing dough and rest in fridge overnight. (Dough should always be ice cold before baking for best results – I prefer to let my dough rest overnight.) Roll, slice, bake and decorate the next day to avoid overwhelming messes. Cool cookies completely before decorating. Give your chocolate chips a makeover!

Use premium whole chocolate bars (like Ghirardelli) because the chocolate is better quality and more complex in flavor. Simply chop the chocolate bars into large pieces, or very tiny pieces, which creates ribbons of chocolate in every bite. Ice sugar cookies like a pro!

If you use “royal icing” (the confectioners’ sugar kind), make a thick and runny version of each color you intend to use. Put each icing color in its own squeeze bottle (old school ketchup and mustard bottles work great), which will make the icing easier to control. Line the outside of the cookie with the thicker border icing and let it dry. Flood the inside of the cookie with the thinner icing and it will stay inside the lines!