Full Tutorial: Sugar Cookies w/ Royal Icing

I have made a lot of sugar cookies for different occasions. I’ve made autumn leaves, conversation hearts, bunnies and carrots, graduation hats, shoes, spooky Halloween cookies, cute Halloween cookies, Mummy Cookies, baby onesie cookies, ice cream shop cookies, love letter cookies, Christmas ornaments, stamped thank you cookies, baby elephant cookies, dinosaur baby shower cookies, mustaches and hairbow cookies, and lots others. You can see my catalog HERE. I try to keep it updated with my latest projects. I think each time I make them, they get easier and I figure out new tricks and techniques to make things easier. And each time I usually have at least one thing go wrong (like dropping the cookies in the dirt).  I have lots of different posts for lots of different versions of my cookies, but I don’t have a really detailed tutorial with all my tips, tricks, and Do’s and Don’ts in one place. A few days ago, I hosted a baby shower for my friend Kelli and I made rain “shower” themed cookies (which was appropriate because it rained last night and melted all the snow and it felt like April all day!) Click here to see pictures from that shower.

This post is a tutorial using pictures and ideas from all of my sugar cookies from the past. Also, I am going to try to be very thorough and detailed, telling why I do what I do, so don’t cringe at the length of this post. Just because it’s long, doesn’t mean it’s hard. Although, do plan a full day for baking, cooling, decorating, and icing. Read through it completely and just pin it for the next time you are making sugar cookies.

THE SUGAR COOKIE:
The sugar cookie is just as important as the decorations on top. In the end, they are going to get eaten and it doesn’t matter how cute it is if it doesn’t taste good. I know everyone has their own favorite sugar cookie dough recipe. That’s fine. Use what ever recipe you want. Some sugar cookie dough is better at holding it’s shape than other’s, though, so choose wisely. My absolute favorite sugar cookie recipe is a brown sugar and spice sugar cookie. Its from Bake at 350, a blog completely dedicated to sugar cookies. It’s amazing and you should really check it out! At every event I make these cookies for, I get compliments on how the cookie is different from the basic sugar cookie, but really tasty. It’s rich and buttery, but not too rich. And the subtle hint of spices is my favorite part. My husband is always hovering, wishing I would break one so he can eat it. Here is the recipe (if you don’t want the brown sugar and spice, try this recipe):
Ingredients:

• 1 C. butter (2 sticks), softened
• 1/2 C. white sugar
• 1/2 C. brown sugar, packed
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 C. flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp. grated nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. allspice

Directions:
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Once combined and slightly fluffy, add the egg and vanilla.

2. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and spices.

3. With the electric mixer on low, gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Once it is combined enough for the flour not to spray all over the kitchen, you can turn up the mixing speed. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated well. Scrape with rubber spatula as needed. (NOTE: At this point, my dough is usually completely crumbly, but can be squished back together.)

4. Spread out a sheet of plastic wrap. Turn out the dough onto the plastic wrap. Wrap it up in a ball and stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. I used to roll it out between parchment paper and then freeze it, but I like rolling it into a ball now. Here is why: I usually find that I end up having to roll it into a ball again and roll it out again, anyway. Also, the idea is to just get it cold enough to stay firm while you are working with it, so I had the tendency to leave it in the freezer a few minutes to long and it would get too cold and brittle when it was that thin. The thickness of a ball lets it get cold, without freezing it all the way through. If you plan on freezing the dough and coming back to it another day, freezing it thin is the way to go. Or if you want to let it chill in the fridge (thirty  minutes), roll it out thin because it wont take so long. No matter what you do, cutting out shapes will be easier and way less messy with a chilled dough.

5. Starting from a smooth ball of dough, roll the dough on a lightly floured surface or between two pieces of parchment paper (my favorite way) with a marble rolling pin. It should be the same thickness everywhere, about 1/4”. I have started using two paint stirs from The Home Depot taped on top of each other on each side of the dough I am rolling. The rolling pin wont press it thinner than the stacked paint stirs and its even everywhere. Its free and its perfect!  Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Transfer to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a baking mat (if you don’t have either, just cook them straight on the pan. Don’t grease it.) Re-roll the dough scraps and continue to cut out cookies. Repeat until the dough is gone. The best part is that little bit of leftover dough that doesn’t quite fit into a cookie cutter. Bake it and eat it straight from the oven, just to make sure it tastes good (but be careful, because if you give a cookie maker a scrap cookie, chances are she’s going to want to eat one of her pretty shaped cookies, too).

6. Once you fill one pan of cookies, place the whole pan into the freezer and preheat the oven to 350 F. Continue to work on cutting out the rest of the cookies. I usually fill two pans, depending on the shapes of the cookies. Once the oven is preheated (5-10 minutes). Bake the cookies straight from the freezer for 10-12 minutes (I usually do 10). As soon as you put them in oven, put the next batch into the freezer. Freezing them helps them keep their shape. Do not over cook the cookies! I overcooked one pan of them for the baby shower, and they just weren’t the same (sorry for all you ladies who got an over cooked one.) A softer cookie will also keep the icing softer for longer (still hard enough to stack, just not brittle)! When in doubt, take them out. That’s my motto. Unless, you move them directly to a cooling rack, they will continue to cook a little on the pan, so err on the side of caution when accessing doneness.

You can also use a non-traditional cookie recipe, like this chocolate peanut butter recipe or these chocolate Nutella cookies from THIS book, or THIS chocolate chip roll out cookie:

TIPS FOR GETTING THE PERFECT CUT OUT COOKIE:

• Chill dough before rolling and cutting.
• Chill cut out shapes before baking to avoid spreading and puffy, shapeless cookies.
• Roll between two parchment papers for ease and cleanliness. Peel off the top layer of parchment and leave the dough on the bottom sheet the whole time. No flour, counter washing, or rolling pin washing necessary.
• Roll dough between stacked paint stirs to get even, flat dough. I get mine at Home Depot for free and stack two on top of each other and secure them with tape.
• Roll out the dough, then flip it over and run the rolling pin over it again to smooth out bumps and curves.
• Don’t roll the dough too thin or it will be brittle and burn easier.
• Squish any skinny extensions ( graduation tassels, skull cross bones, umbrella handles) into the main body of the cookie  a little bit to avoid breakage. There is nothing worse than having beautiful graduation hats with broken tassels! Or just avoid shapes with lots of skinny extensions all together.
• Use a razor and a stencil to etch on complex patterns, lines, and shapes that you normally wouldn’t be able to free hand with frosting. Make your own stencil out of a piece of paper and a craft razor. 
• Let cookies cool completely before frosting.
• You can freeze the cookie dough/cookies at any point in the process. You can freeze the dough before cutting, after cutting, after baking, and even after icing. Just make sure they are in an air tight container or baggie. If I know I have an event to make cookies for, I usually make them in steps so I am not stuck with all the work for one day.

ROYAL ICING:
I love royal icing because its easy to make and it dries smooth and hard. I love this for stacking and packaging. Once you know how to work with it, it is not that hard to get professional looking results. With each cookie you will pipe on an outline, thin the icing and “flood” inside the outline, and pipe on texture and details.  I’ll first teach you how to make it, then I’ll teach you how to prep it for piping and flooding. Royal icing dries hard, so make sure you cover it in an airtight container when you are not using it. You do not need to refrigerate this icing. There are different combinations of meringue powder and water measurements. Here is the recipe I used to always use:

(NOTE: I have updated this post once {10-29-14} and since I wrote the original post, I have started using a different icing recipe. Its from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle. I still like my old recipe, but I mostly started using Sugarbelle’s recipe because it makes more icing and I can just dump a whole bag of powdered sugar into the bowl instead of measuring it out. I hate measuring powdered sugar! Quite frankly, there isn’t much difference between all the royal icing recipes out there and this one still works great. I’m leaving my old recipe up just incase you use it still. It’s the one below. CLICK HERE for Sugarbelle’s recipe.)

Ingredients:

• 3 TBSP. meringue powder (I buy mine at Walmart in the cake decorating isle)
• 6-7 TBSP. water
• 4 C. powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp. light corn syrup (optional, but I think it makes it a little shinier)
• 1-2 tsp. clear extract (not oil based), like clear vanilla, lemon, almond, or coconut

Directions:
1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the meringue powder and water until combined.

2. Add the powdered sugar while the mixer is on low. Once powdered sugar isn’t spraying all over the kitchen, increase the speed to a nice medium-high. Beat until powdered sugar is combined, stiff peaks form, and it has a slight shine to it.

3. Access the thickness. This is sometimes tricky and comes with experience and trial and error. After making it a few times, you will just know when it’s right. Kind of like adding flour to bread dough. If your icing is too thick, it will be difficult to pipe and your hands and arms will get very tired. To thin, add a little bit more water and beat again. I usually end up adding one more tablespoon of water at the end. You want it to easily squeeze out of the piping tip. If you don’t notice that it’s too thick until you have it in a squeeze bottle or piping bag, you can always add a few drops of water and stir. If it’s in a piping bag, just take the frosting out, mix in some water, and start over.

NOTE: You can also make royal icing using 3 oz. pasteurized egg whites and 4 cups of powdered sugar. Beat the egg whites until foamy, then add the powdered sugar. Beat until you get stiff, glossy peaks (5-7 minutes). Thin with water as needed.

DECORATION PREP:
This may be one of the most important parts of decorating the cookies. I have found that when I am lazy and skip some of these prep steps, I pay for it in the end. These tips and tricks will save you from a catastrophe later! I know! Most of these tips are on this blog because I learned the hard way! Like I always say, “I’m here to make the mistakes, so you don’t have to!” (This is all important to me because I am usually making cookies for a specific event. If you just want to doodle on a cookie, then go for it! Be creative!)

1. Decide exactly which cookie cutters you are going to use and draw out a game plan. I start by getting a blank piece of paper and tracing the cookie cutters onto the paper (unless I can do a close freehand). Label each cookie with the colors you are going to use. Decide in advance for which colors you will need piping icing and flooding icing. Decide in advance what colors get squeeze bottles and bags, which tips you are going to use with each color, and how much of each color you will need. Decide in advance the order of decorating. Write all that on the paper. This game plan will save you tons of time.
Below is my game plan for my rain shower cookies.

It’s messy and I have a couple different versions of the cloud and umbrella that I was considering. I have a list of what colors I need and a list of what order to do everything. I knew right off the bat that it was going to be fastest if I started by outlining everything that needed a white border, the reason being that I knew it would take the longest for the clouds to dry and I wanted to get them filled first because I wanted to pipe on detail and needed a dry surface. I also knew I would only need a small amount of the colors purple, pink, and yellow for the umbrellas and a lot of blue and white for the clouds and rain drops.

Here is my messy game plan for my Halloween cookies:

2. Color the frosting. Have a container with a lid for each color. I like to get them all out and set their assigned color on top, like this:

Scoop out the icing into each container according to the amount you will need for each color. It’s sometimes hard to guess how much you need. This skill will come with experience. Just in case, ALWAYS KEEP ASIDE EXTRA WHITE FROSTING! This has saved me so many times when I needed just a little bit more of a color. There is nothing worse than running out of a color that you need. I always have enough frosting for the cookies, I just sometime don’t have it divided correctly. If you are really worried, divide out the frosting and dye it as you are ready for each color, instead of all at once.

A NOTE ABOUT FOOD COLORING: Americolor is the way to go! I used to use Winston gel color, which produces fine colors, but I HATE the containers it comes in. Americolor gel food coloring comes in little squeezy bottles, making it easier to add a squirt of color. Click here to see my Americolor color set on Amazon (although, a couple of my colors ended up being different than what is shown in the picture on Amazon). I also have the Electric Color Set. You can buy them at baking shops and online. Either way, stay away from those cheap liquid box of four food coloring packs. Not only do they make dull colors, they ruin the consistency the icing.  Gel is the way to go because if produces more vibrant colors, using less coloring.

A NOTE ABOUT ACHIEVING A DARK RED OR A TRUE BLACK: Have you ever noticed that sometime red looks pink and black looks grey? You can fix it without adding so much coloring that it tastes bitter! First of all, a good gel food coloring may be enough, so invest in good food coloring ( Americolor!). A fellow blogger, The Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle, says that Americolor Tulip Red is the way to go for a great tasting red. If you need it even deeper, add a little bit of cocoa powder to the frosting. I never really notice a chocolate taste in my final cookie. It works like a charm! I always add cocoa powder to my black icing. Keep in mind, as the icing dries, the color will deepen. So, don’t worry if your icing is a lighter black at first because it will dry darker. Note: Purple can sometimes be tricky, too. Don’t add too much purple or it will taste bitter.

A NOTE ABOUT MIXING THE COLORS INTO THE ICING: I have discovered that I really like to mix the color and frosting together with a butter knife. Why? 1)It fits into a squeeze bottle for stirring later on. 2) Its thick enough and sturdy enough that it cuts through the frosting easily. 3) It is easier to scrape off on the sides of things than a spoon. I like to have a knife for each color and set them on a plate for future use.

3. Fill your piping bags and squeeze bottles. Which are you using? Or a combination of both? For awhile, I only used piping bags because that was all I had. After I collected a few squeeze bottles with the attachment for piping tips, I found that I prefer the straight squeeze bottles for most jobs.
Here’s why I like squeeze bottles:

• It’s really easy to switch to a different piping tip.
• It’s really easy to add more frosting or water.
• It’s really easy to stir the frosting after adding more water.
• It’s really easy to guide the frosting when you are flooding the cookie .
• You cant squirt frosting out the filling end and make a mess, like in a piping bag.

Here’s when I still prefer a piping bag:

• For colors that I only need small amounts of the thicker piping frosting. I find the squeeze bottles work better, the fuller they are. I only have two squeeze bottles, so I save them for the colors I will be using a lot for both piping and flooding.

You only really need a squeeze bottle if you want to make a design with wet icing on a wet base color. Otherwise, piping bags work fine for everything else. Here is a quick tutorial on how to get a piping bag ready (or a ziplock baggie in this case):

1. Place your coupler base into the corner of the bag. Cut the extra tip off the bag. Do not cut too far down or your frosting will gush out all over your hands. I usually cut right up to the coupler, but not any further.

2. Place the piping tip over the coupler on the outside of the bag and secure with the coupler ring.


3. Place tip down into a tall glass and invert sides of bag over the sides of the cup. Fill with frosting and pull the bag out of the cup, turning it inside-out.

NOTE ON BAGGIES: If you are using a Ziploc baggie, make sure it’s heavy duty or double bagged. It’s a pain when the baggie breaks!

NOTE ON CHOOSING YOUR TIP: For outlining, I like to use a fairly small round tip (I like a Wilton #1, 2, or 3 round tip). Don’t go too small for outlining, though, or it will be really difficult to squeeze out the frosting. I have multiple Wilton #3 tips so that I can have many piping bags equipped at once instead of changing the tip out all the time.  If you are going to use a squeeze bottle for flooding, use a larger tip. It doesn’t really matter what size, just big enough that you can squeeze quite a bit out quickly. You can even use a regular old dollar store condiment bottle for this, if you like.

NOTE ON STORING UNUSED PIPING BAGS AND SQUEEZE BOTTLES FOR LATER USE: Place your piping bag, tip down, into a glass with a small amount of water at the bottom. Having the tip of the tip submerged keeps the frosting from drying out while you are using another color. Just make sure you squeeze a little frosting out onto a paper towel or plate to get out the moisture before frosting the cookie again.

Keep lids on unused squeeze bottles at all times. Keep the icing near the tip by turning them upside down in a cup:

4. Set up a decorating station with everything you will need: I really find it helpful (especially 8 months pregnant) to have everything I might need spread out near me as I decorate so I don’t have to constantly get up to get something. It just saves time. Here is a picture of my most recent layout:

DECORATE YOUR COOKIES:
1. Outline the cookie with the thicker piping frosting: You can’t flood the cookie and get that nice smooth look without having a boundary to keep in the runny frosting. I like to pipe with the color I will be flooding with, but some people like to outline everything in black. Either one looks great!

TIPS FOR GETTING A FLAWLESS OUTLINE:

• Make sure your frosting is the right thickness. If it is too thick your hand will shake because you will have to squeeze to hard. If it’s too thin, you wont have the control you need.
• Make sure your piping tip is the right size. If the opening is too small, you will have to squeeze to hard. If it’s too big, you won’t have control.
• Make sure there are no air bubbles in your piping bag or squeeze bottle so you can have a constant stream of frosting.
• Make sure you apply consistent pressure as you squeeze.
• Don’t stop and start. Make one continuous stream until you finish the section.
• Lift the piping tip above the cookie and guide the stream of frosting while keeping your tip slightly ahead of the frosting. Touch down only at the start and finish or if you want sharper corners.

 
I made a video of how to do this technique to help you visualize. (P.S. The music on this video is a recording of my husband’s Jazz Combo back when we were in undergrad. He is the bass player!)  I also included how NOT to do it so you can see the difference:

Here is a picture of one cookie done with the tip above the cookie and one with the tip pressed against the cookie. Can you see the difference? Once you get the hang of it, it is so much easier and faster.


2. Make the Flooding Frosting: Once you have finished piping your outline, let it dry. This doesn’t take very long and usually by the time I am finished with piping for all the cookies of one kind, the first one that I outlined is dry and ready for flooding. Make your flooding frosting by adding a couple drops of water at a time to your frosting. You can add this to the original frosting container or straight to a squeeze bottle (just make sure you are completely finished with the thicker frosting in the squeeze bottle). Stir the water in and test the thickness by raising your knife or spoon up out of the frosting. If it runs off the knife, it’s not too thick. If it is still too thick, just add a bit more water.

TEN SECOND RULE: If you run your knife through the frosting and it flows back together smooth in 10 seconds, you have a good consistency. If it is faster than that, your icing is too runny and will be harder to control. I have also noticed the runnier it is the more air bubbles there are. This is why it is important to add a few drops at a time. Give the flooding icing a few minutes to settle, then give it a gentle stir to get rid of some of the air bubbles.

You can also make a thicker 15-20 second frosting for a more puffy, bubbly look. Click here to read more about it. It’s a little harder to be precise with it, but it can eliminate the need for two icing consistencies. I use it more for rounder shapes and I stick to the piping and flooding maneuver when I need sharper edges.

3. Flood inside the piping: It’s as simple as pouring the thin frosting inside the lines you created when you outlined the cookie. You can use a spoon the icing into the outline or you can use a squeeze bottle to squeeze on the runny frosting. Start in the middle and use the tip of the squeeze bottle, spoon, or a toothpick to guide the icing into the corners. As long as you don’t fill it too full, you can make it as thin or thick as you like. Give the cookie a few minutes, then pop the remaining air bubbles with a toothpick or a pushpin.

4. Use a knife, piping tip, or spatula to smooth out where the outline and flooding meet:  I usually use the piping tip in combination with a clean finger to smooth the edges together a bit.

5. Add details to the cookie: Now that you have flooded the cookie, you have a couple options.

• Add another color of icing straight to the wet icing to make a design that will dry flat. I did a little white shine mark in my rain drops like this:

Or you can drop wet icing into the wet base color to make flat polka-dots like these:

• Marble the cookie by making a line or circle with another color using a squeeze bottle. With the umbrellas, I made rows of horizontal lines of thin white frosting straight into the still wet umbrella. Then I used a toothpick and drug it through the lines from top to bottom, so it looked like this:

Sometimes its fun to just go crazy and swirl a toothpick around like this:

Or you can drag a toothpick through polka dots while they are wet to make hearts.

With the spider webs, I used squeeze bottles to add alternating colored circles straight to the wet black icing and drug my toothpick from the center to the outside all around the cookie, like this:

• Add texture by piping on details: Simply let the flooded icing dry, then pipe on what ever details you want with the thicker outlining icing. Plan ahead before flooding, so you have enough thick icing left for this. You can really do anything you want here. Add eyes, polka dots, stripes, words, swirls, etc. Here are a few examples:

• Add texture using sprinkles: I love adding little finishing touches to a cookie, just to make it pop a little more. All you need to do is flood the section you want to add sprinkles to, then dip them in a pile of sprinkles on plate or parchment paper sheet. Just make sure the designated sprinkle area is the only part that is wet. If you decide to add sprinkles to the cookie after the flooded section is dry, just squeeze on a little bit of thicker frosting and dip it into the sprinkles. I did this to the tail and ears of my bunnies:

• Add raised embellishments: You can add isomalt to add clear or colored droplets, molded candies, chocolate chip eyes, or shapes made from extra cookie dough. I added little spiders to my webs by baking little balls of of cookie dough and decorating them like spiders, like this:

I also made cherries out of extra cookie dough for my ice cream sundaes:

Or pipe a raised embellishment out of icing onto a piece of wax paper and let it dry. Then glue it on with icing:

• Add writing or designs with an edible marker. I really like the Americolor Gourmet Food Writers.

I made a little stencil with a craft razor and card stock and used my black food marker to create the witch flying by the moon silhouette:

You can even use a food marker to ink a rubber stamp and stamp the icing. Click here to see my post of stamping cookies.

5. Let dry completely: I highly recommend letting the cookies dry over night before packaging them or stacking them. They may be hard enough to add details to and they may seem dry to the touch, but they are still fragile. Kind of like nail polish. You think its dry until you make a big smudge mark in it. I learned this the hard way. I made cute bunnies and carrots for a friend’s baby shower and stuck them in Ziploc baggies after I thought they were dry enough. The next morning, I pulled the baggie up and it pulled up a layer of the frosting with it. Although I was able to salvage (I’ll teach you how in the next section) them, I almost didn’t have enough time before the baby shower. I have never had a problem with the cookies going stale when I leave them out over night. The icing actually acts like a sealant and keeps the cookies soft, so don’t worry about a ziplock bag or container. Once the are truly dry, you can be pretty rough with them and the frosting wont smudge, crack, smear, or bleed.

Note: Use a fan to dry the cookies. It makes them have a little shine and prevents humidity from changing the color.

FIXING MISTAKES AND SALVAGING MESS UPS:
It’s easy to mess up while decorating. While some mistakes are irreversible (dang, you will just have to eat that one!), you can reverse a lot of mistakes. Here are a few tips:

1. Wipe off the frosting with a paper towel: A lot of the time, you can simply wipe off the mistake frosting. Thick outlining icing will often break right off after it is dry with a little pressure.

2. Flood on top of mistake: If you make a mistake flooding, you can simply let it dry and flood right on top of the mistake. Be careful to avoid flooding outside the lines. Make the new layer as thin as you can while still covering the mistake. This is how I fixed my bunnies and carrots that I mentioned above. I have also done this to fix cookies that I totally smudged in that half dry stage.

3. Use a toothpick to touch up messy lines: You can also use a push pin to pick away hard icing that gets in tricky places like armpits and cracks. My outline on the onesie cookies left a little gap so the icing flooded down into the armpits and hardened. I used a push pin to dig this out and it looked good as new!

4. Use a small, sharp serrated knife to saw away the problem area: I use a knife to saw off the icing that sometimes gets on the bottom or edge of the cookie. I have also completely sawed off all the icing from a cookie after if dried. To do this, very very carefully work the knife between the layer of frosting and the cookie and begin to separate it. Be very gentle as you saw through. This is a risk. It doesn’t always work and quite often the cookie will break. But if it is between scraping the cookie and trying this, then try to salvage it.

5. Dip the whole problem area in sanding sugar: One of my very favorite solutions. I messed up with a food marker on two of my baby onesie cookies. So I just flipped them over and gave them a nice dunk in the sugar.

Well, I hope I have instilled some cookie decorating confidence into you. It really isn’t that hard once you get the basics down and it’s a blast to do! If you have any questions or need help, contact me! There is a “contact me” button at the top of the page. The more you decorate with royal icing, the easier it will become and the more skilled you will become at judging thickness and doneness. I hope you have a blast making cookies of your own!

Here is a list of my very favorite sugar cookie blogs. They are full of tips and tricks:

• Bake at 350
• The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle
• Lila Loa
• The Bearfoot Baker
• Sweetopia

  By Edible Experiments