How To Decorate Sugar Cookies Like A Professional

Much like cake decorating, cookie decorating is a form of edible art. The canvas may be quite small, but the results are often breathtaking. You've likely seen examples of delicately piped cookies in bakery windows or as personalized favors at birthday parties or weddings. They're a favorite choice amongst party hosts because they're highly customizable and detailed; decorated cookies can be tailored to any occasion or holiday (like these Marbled Heart Cookies), with an endless palette of festive shapes and colors.

With so much potential for customization, cookie decorating is an art worth mastering. I worked as the head cookie decorator at a bakery for three years, and I'm here to help you learn the basics of cookie decorating, from the techniques to the vocabulary. Soon enough, you'll be making cookies like a pro in your own home.

Tips For Making Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are a favorite medium for decorating because they're solid and hold their shape well when baked. For decorated cookies, you'll want to use a sugar cookie recipe that resembles shortbread rather than a soft and chewy sugar cookie.

That said, the dough shouldn't be so short that it crumbles and easily falls apart. It should be solid enough to hold its shape. Our Easy Sugar Cookies recipe is a good base to start with.

1. Chill the dough

Once you've made your dough, let it chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. You'll want to keep the dough as cold as possible throughout the rolling process to keep the butter inside the dough from melting. You'll also want to chill the cut out cookies before baking to avoid the cookies spreading and losing their shape in the oven.

2. Roll the dough to an even thickness

When you roll out the dough, the thickness should be even all around (we recommend rolling to 1/4-inch thickness—don't be afraid to use a ruler). If your dough's thickness is uneven, the cookies' bake times will vary and the surfaces will slope, causing difficulty when piping.

3. Use cookie cutters or a sharp knife

Not only do these simple, buttery cookies taste great, but they also can be cut into circles, hearts, stars, snowflakes, or pumpkins—the opportunities are endless. We always recommend using cookie cutters, as they help you achieve a sharp edge and even thickness.

If you don't have a cutter in the shape you want to bake, you can also cut cookies using homemade stencils and a small paring knife. Simply cut a stencil of the desired cookie shape out of thick paper, then use a paring knife to trace the stencil and cut the shape out of the cookie dough. Use your fingers to smooth any rough edges. This process is more time-consuming than using cookie cutters, but works in a pinch.

3. Cool the cookies completely

Ensure that your sugar cookies are completely cool before decorating; otherwise the royal icing will simply melt off the cookies.

Tips For Making Royal Icing

Powdered sugar forms the base of royal icings. In many of our recipes, we combine the sugar with meringue powder to add structure structure and shine, but other royal icing recipes may call for egg whites instead.

You can add vanilla or other extracts to the simple icing for flavor, and then use water to thin it to your desired texture. Although this seems fairly straightforward, there are lots of ways to go wrong with royal icing. Here's our advice for working with the icing.

WATCH: How To Make Royal Icing

1. Sift the powdered sugar

It's important to sift the powdered sugar to prevent lumps in your icing that can clog up your piping bags or create uneven designs.

2. Add the water gradually

The most common mistake when making royal icing is adding too much water, which results in an icing that's too loose to pipe. It's crucial to add the water slowly and let it fully incorporate before adding more. If you add too much water, you can thicken the icing by adding more powdered sugar and meringue powder.

Our Easy Royal Icing for Cookies is a tried-and-true formula perfect for all sorts of designs, and a great beginner recipe for those who are new to this kind of cookie decorating.

3. Use the right royal icing consistency

There are two types of royal icing that you can use to decorate cookies: piping-consistency icing and flooding-consistency icing.

You'll use piping-consistency icing to outline the cookies and add intricate details, while you'll use the looser flooding-consistency icing to fill the surface of the cookie and cover large areas. The only difference between the two icings is the amount of water added. (Piping-consistency icing will require less water.)

• For Piping-Consistency Icing: Look for a glossy icing that pulls back in soft peaks from the mixer attachment. If you run a knife through the center of the icing to form a line, it should return to its shape in approximately 20 to 30 seconds.
• For Flooding-Consistency Icing: Look for a more liquid icing that falls quickly from the spoon (looser than soft peaks, but still able to hold its shape). If you run a knife through the center of the icing to form a line, it should return to its shape in approximately 10 seconds.

WATCH: How To Flood Icing on Sugar Cookies

How To Prepare Piping Bags

It's good practice to prepare all of your desired icing colors and consistencies before starting to decorate. There are two types of piping bags that you can use: tipless piping bags or piping bags with metal tips.

With tipless piping bags, you simply need to snip the tip to the size you want and pipe away. These come in handy when you want to get super-small lines, but piping bags with metal tips are helpful in standardizing your piping size.

For cookie decorating, you'll likely use round tips that range in size from #1 (the smallest opening, which creates the thinnest lines) to #5 (a larger opening, creating thicker lines). Metal tips also come in a variety of shapes (the open star shape is useful in making flowers, while other tips make designs like basket-weave or leaves).

While some shapes can be helpful for decorative flair, for cookie decorating, you'll use a round tip the majority of the time. We recommend using a size 1 or 2 tip for most piping to achieve the cleanest thin lines.

How To Decorate Cookies

Once your cookies are cooled and your piping bags are loaded, it's time to decorate.

For most standard cookie designs, you'll start with a base outline and flood, then let it dry for 2 to 3 hours before piping additional decorations on top. (The exception to this rule is the wet-on-wet icing technique, which I discuss below.)

When it comes to decorating cookies, it's important to let the elements dry completely before stacking colors or layers of decoration. This helps prevent the colors from bleeding into each other and creates the appearance of distinct layers or sections.

For example, if you're making our Conversation Heart Cookies, you want to pipe and flood the base layer, then wait for that to dry before piping on your message. It may take some time, but it's worth it to achieve clean lines and a layered, three-dimensional design.

WATCH: How To Frost Holiday Sugar Cookies

How To Decorate Cookies Using Royal Icing

1. Start by outlining the cookie with piping-consistency icing in any color you choose.
2. Then, use flooding-consistency icing to fill the outlined area, starting by flooding around the edges and working your way towards the center. If the flooding is inconsistent in thickness, redistribute the wet icing with a toothpick.
3. This forms a base flooded layer for your cookie design that, once dry, you can pipe details on top of it.

The Wet-on-Wet Icing Technique

Although you'll typically want to allow your flooded icing to dry completely before piping on top of it, there are times when you'll want to pipe immediately on top of the wet icing. This is called the wet-on-wet icing technique, and it's used when you want to create one single layer where the colors often bleed together. This technique is used to create a multi-color marbled base layer or running lines, like in our Spider Web Cookies.

WATCH: Wet-on-Wet Cookie Icing Technique

Once you've mastered the basic technique of cookie decorating, the possibilities are endless. Decorated cookies can be tailored to any and every occasion, from Halloween to Christmas to Easter.

Know These Cookie Decorating Terms

• Piping: drawing lines or shapes in icing, often for outlines or details.
• Flooding: covering and filling large surfaces with looser icing.
• Piping-Consistency Icing: Slightly thicker, glossy icing that pulls back in soft peaks from the mixer attachment; used for piping outlines or details.
• Flooding-Consistency Icing: More liquid icing that is looser than soft peaks, but still able to hold its shape; used for filling larger surfaces or sections.