How to Decorate Cookies with Royal Icing

Number 20 on my list of 20 wishes for 2013 was “Learn how to do really cool icing on cookies.” So with a couple of cookie exchanges on my calendar I decided to use the opportunity to learn how to decorate cookies with royal icing frosting.Decorating cookies with royal icing takes a lot of time and preparation. Let me just start by saying that. Basically, you have to mix all the colors by hand – there’s separate icing for the outlines then for the filling, plus there’s the embellishment icing – it’s a lot more work than I had thought. So I decided to keep it simple for my first time around and just make one type of cookie: Christmas trees.
I found this really great tutorial from Brown Eyed Baker that I’m not even going to try to duplicate, but I do have a few of my own tips if you decide to try making royal icing cookies.
  • First and foremost, read the directions, read the directions again, and then read them one more time. Once you start making the frosting it can dry out, so you want to make sure you have a thorough understanding of everything before you start. I even went ahead and read all the comments on the post too, just so I knew all the tips and tricks.
  • Only use metal bowls. I don’t think this was in the main tutorial, but plastic bowls will absorb the fats from the frosting and alter the structure of it, making it hard to work with. So only use metal bowls when you’re mixing up all your royal icing frosting.
  • KISS – Keep It Simple, Silly! I’m really glad I followed this old marketing trick and just stuck with making one color to start with. Even with just the green frosting the trees still turned out looking really good (one person at my cookie exchange even told me she thought they were store bought!).
  • You can always adjust along the way. When I started filling in the cookies, the frosting was still a bit too thick, so I just added a bit more water and kept going. Although royal icing cookies may look “perfect,” it’s not a perfect science, you can always change things up as you go along.
  • Just do it! A lot of times I have trouble starting a craft project because I’m really afraid it’s going to turn out bad and then I’ll have ruined all my supplies. But really, you just have to go ahead and do it – it’s the only way you’ll ever learn or get better at crafting/baking/cooking/sewing/etc. I was really afraid I was going to start doing this and end up messing up 4 dozen cookies, but I really think they turned out well.




12 Comments on How to Decorate Cookies with Royal Icing

  2. Judy K
    at (12 years ago)

    Great tutorial. I tried to frost with multiple colors last year and to say the least it was a disaster (not even blog worthy). Lol. Your cookies look beautiful! Thanks for sharing at DIYbyDesign.

    Reply
  3. Lolly Linens
    at (12 years ago)

    Wow, you did a great job! Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
  6. Julianne
    at (12 years ago)

    They look yummy…and you made it look easy to do.

    Reply
  7. Stephanie Michaels
    at (12 years ago)

    They turned out really cute! Sugar cookies are the best. Thanks so much for sharing on Super Sweet Saturday.
    Steph
    swtboutique.com

    Reply
  8. Tammy
    at (12 years ago)

    These turned out great. I’ve never used Royal Icing. The next time I’m making cookies, I’ll have to consider these. Thanks for posting this!! I hope you’re having a Merry Christmastime so far 🙂

    Reply
  11. Jocie@TheBetterHalf
    at (12 years ago)

    Hey Sarah, These look great. It has always been on my bucket list too but I’ve been deterred bc it looks like soooo much work. lol!

    Loved seeing this at the special link party supporting Sandy Hook last week. Hope you’ll come to The Humble Brag link party today to see some features from last week and link up some more cool projects. Happy Friday!

    http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/the-humble-brag-link-party-13/

    Reply

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  1. 20 Wishes – September Update | Sarah SaturDIY says:
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