Do you know how much information there is on the internet?!
TONS OF IT. And sometimes you come across untested information and use it when you're trying to accomplish a goal, like making dinner or making a layer cake you promised to take to a party tomorrow even though you haven't made that kind of cake before oops omg. But here, you'll find all of the best cookie decorating tips, from someone who isn't a professional cookie decorator, and still knows what it's like to not feel 100 percent confident in it.
Over the past few years I've dabbled in cookie decorating, like the high-dollar, fancily-iced, fun shaped cookies that people love to watch being frosted on Instagram.
For my own information later on, and for yours too, I'm going to share the recipes and resources that I've found to be the most helpful for decorating sugar cookies with royal icing. These only pertain to home bakers, not commercial operations, though maybe the tips scale up, but I can't say for sure.
The Sugar Cookie
You want a non-spreading sugar cookie recipe, lest you end up with uh, not the shape you intended, like one of my friends and her ill-fated palmetto trees.
This non-spreading cookie recipe from Baking a Moment is THE best I've found. It ditches baking soda and/or powder, (which makes baked goods rise and poof up when heat is applied) and adds in cornstarch to keep the cookies from taking on a life of their own once they hit the oven. These animal cookies here are made using this exact recipe. All of the little details like the snail's antennae and the hedgehog's spikes are kept intact. And of course, they still taste great.
One problem I had until just this past week has been rolling the proper dough thickness for... anything. How am I supposed to know what a ¼" looks like in dough? There's a solution for that, and it's called evendough bands! The thicker ones are a little tough to get on a larger rolling pin, but they work great.
Finally, dunk your cookie cutter in flour before you start cutting out shapes. It'll help keep dough from sticking into the nooks and crannies of your cookie cutter. Repeat flour dunking every few cuts per shape.
Icing Musts
We have to start with equipment. Learn to make the easiest tool by watching this video on how to roll parchment paper cones. Her video is the best I've found, and she fully admits in it that you're gonna ruin a few squares. But once you get going, you could roll enough cones to last you a few cookie decorating sessions.
As for what icing to put into those cones, I have used and had great success with the royal icing recipe from Sweet Sugar Belle. It uses meringue powder, which I find to be way easier than messing around with egg whites. If you can't or don't eat eggs, I don't have a solution here on this blog, but others may. I am all for using meringue powder to create royal icing for cookies and that's what I recommend.
But I'll admit, with these woodland creature cookies, which I wanted to remain single colors, I dipped them into the icing, which worked out amazingly. It was a bit tedious, but so is piping and flooding. If you too, want to dip, I used the royal icing recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction. To dip cookies, just spread a layer of icing on a larger surface like a plate, and hold the back edges of your cookie while dipping the front in the icing. Pick it up, let extra icing drip back onto the plate, and flip it over quickly. Place on a waiting cookie sheet or cutting board to dry. If using sprinkles, put those on while the icing is still wet.
Fair warning, I had to add a lot more powdered sugar due to the humidity that day. That brings me to a great point, your icing proportions will never, ever be the same, because you'll never make cookies in the same temperature/humidity combination unless you live in a climate controlled weirdo bubble place. So as you're beginning your cookie journey, watch this video on royal icing consistencies and pay attention to the seconds rule. It's the number one thing to keep in mind to create good-looking cookies, so don't try to skip out here. I usually watch a video on it each time to brush up before I make cookies since I don't do it too often.
Other Cookie Decorating Tips
- Use pint glasses or other cups to store your cones of icing while you're using other colors.
- Start simple, with one or two color cookies, or you'll just get frustrated.
- Have a place to store the cookies. The icing doesn't try instantly, so have a place you can store these, single layer, to dry. My recommendation is this cookie sheet with a lid. Or two or three of them.
- Between making the dough, cutting the cookies, baking the cookies, making the icing, getting the icing into the cones, and actually icing the cookies, it's a LOT of work and mess for one day. Try baking the cookies on one day, and icing them the next.
- Let the icing dry completely between colors, unless you want the colors to blend or bleed together.
- The more you do this, the better you'll get!
- It's not a tip, really, but get yourself a middle finger cookie cutter because it's hilarious.
Things to Buy for Cookie Decorating
Because there's a LOT of information in this post, especially on sources to buy things, let me round it all up here for you:
- Parchment paper (or find pre-cut parchment paper triangles for cone-rolling)
- Evendough bands
- Marble rolling pin
- Cookie cutters
- Meringue powder
- Clear vanilla extract
- Food coloring or food gel
- Mise en place bowls for mixing multiple icing colors
- Cookie sheet with lid for storage and transporting
So are you ready to make cookies, or what?! It can be frustrating at first, but if you begin by making cookie for yourself, with no pressure and no timeframe, you'll get better over time. Learning how things feel to the touch is the one part of cooking and baking that no blog can ever truly help anyone with. Take the time to learn for yourself and you'll have a skill that you can use forever!
