Remember a couple months ago when I posted a recipe for spiced cutout cookies? After reading the post, a co-worker walked over to ask exactly how I decorated those cookies so festively. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I should explain my techniques, but after she mentioned it, I could see how it would have been helpful.
So, let me try this again, Valentine’s Day-style.
This post isn’t so much a recipe as it is some tips for decorating cookies that aren’t totally spazzy looking. I’m definitely not a cookie-decorating expert, but I’ve figured out that some decorating methods are decidedly easier to master than others. So here are two pretty easy ways to make cute cutout cookies: the sprinkles method, and my patented dots-and-lines method.
The sprinkles method
The easiest way to decorate cookies and have them not look goofy is to cover them with sprinkles. Your best bet is to pour colored sugar over the cookies before they’re baked. It takes like 30 seconds, and that extra layer of sugar means your cookies will turn out extra delicious. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)
You can make the cookies different sizes or shapes with the same color sugar, the same size or shape with different colors of sugar, or a combination of both, which is what I did. I also mixed two of the colored sugars together to get that white-and-pink-speckled sugar action.
You can also spread some frosting on your cookies and cover it with sprinkles. I usually only do this with tiny cookies, because an inch of haphazardly spread icing is less noticeable than three or five inches.
(The cookies in that photo are tinier than they appear.)
You can buy sprinkles pretty much anywhere they sell baking supplies, from Vons to Target to Bed Bath and Beyond. But I usually go to Michael’s to get Wilton sprinkles, because they’re generally better quality than random-brand grocery store sprinkles. I also pick up sprinkles if I’m at a Crate and Barrel or Williams-Sonoma and something strikes my fancy. Which happens a lot. I have a large portion of a kitchen cupboard devoted to sprinkles. I’m kind of crazy.
The dots-and-lines method
Piping icing on cookies is more involved than just sprinkling sugar over them, but it also looks much more impressive.
My trick for coming away with cookies that aren’t a decoration abomination is to keep it simple: dots and lines. Seriously. Just stick to those basic shapes, and your cookies will look great. When people see them, they’ll coo over how adorable they look, and how hard it must have been to decorate them. Only you will know the truth! (Because you’re probably the only person who’s read this far.)
Here’s an overly in-depth explanation of how to pipe icing onto your cookies. Feel free to skip to the photos at the end of the post if you get bored.
Have the right tools
First, you’ll need a pastry bag with decorating tips and a coupler. Or, if you don’t have any of that, a plastic baggie with a corner cut off will work just fine. I use disposable pastry bags, because I’m lazy, and also because I’m not sure where my couplers ran off to.
Make sure that when you snip off a corner of the pastry bag, you cut off just the tiniest little triangle — ranging from maybe a quarter of an inch to an eighth of an inch wide — so that the icing doesn’t glob all over the place when you squeeze the bag.
Also, you’ll need food coloring. If you’re serious about this cookie decorating thing, you probably already know about gel colors. If not, let me assure you they’re awesome. The gel is super concentrated, so you get a lot of color with just a little dab, and it’s not all liquidy so it doesn’t make your icing too runny. And you have way more colors to choose from than what comes in that four-pack you get at the grocery store. I use Wilton gel colors because that’s what they have at Michael’s, but you can buy other brands online.
Oh, and you’ll need cookies. For this post, I just used store-bought sugar cookie mix — I really like Betty Crocker’s. And I bought some graduated heart-shaped cookie cutters for maximum cookie cuteness.
Choose your colors
Choosing a good color scheme for your frosting is super important. Vividly colored icing will do a lot to hide the fact that you can’t pipe in a straight line to save your life. Because everyone will be too blinded by your fluorescent frosting to notice!
Picking colors for major holidays is pretty easy, since they all have their own traditional color schemes. But it’s fun to mix it up. I like to throw a couple nontraditional colors in there for variety.
For my Christmas cookie icing, for example, I wanted to use red and green, but I didn’t want it to look too corny. So I went with a cherry red and a bright green, and then added bright pink, yellow and teal. See how fun these cookies look?
For my Valentine’s Day icing, I chose bright red and two shades of pink, one bright and one pastel. I also chose yellow and a chartreuse-ish green. If you aren’t sure what colors would look good together, look around (real life or the Internet) for examples of color combinations that you like and try to match them.
Prepare the icing
Here’s the recipe I used, same one from the Christmas cookies post:
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 6 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- food coloring
Put the sugar in a bowl, add the milk and vanilla, and stir it with a spatula until the icing is, well, icing. Try to get it as lump-free as possible. If you still see a few lumps, it’s OK — they’ll be obliterated after you start mixing the colors.
Once the icing is ready, divvy it up into small bowls (the number of bowls depends on the number of colors you want; I usually do five). If you’re using gel colors, add just a tiny bit at a time until you get the shade you want. I usually use a toothpick to add color to the frosting, especially if I want a pastel shade. More saturated hues will need more gel; if you’re trying to get a bright red, you’ll probably want to use a butter knife or a shovel or something.
In case you want to create the same colors I did, here are the specific Wilton gel colors I used:
- For the pastel pink icing, I used a tiny bit of Pink gel color.
- For the bright pink icing, I used Rose gel color.
- For the red icing, I used a lot of Red Red gel color.
- For the yellow icing, I used Lemon Yellow gel color.
- For the green icing, I used mostly Lemon Yellow and a little Kelly Green.
When you’re happy with the colors, scoop the icing into your pastry bags/plastic baggies. Make sure to fold down the top of the bag (so it looks like a cuff) before you fill it with the icing. That’s so you don’t accidentally smear icing near the open edge of the bag, which would then squeeze out and make a mess while you’re trying to pipe. Oh, and only fill the bag about halfway, for the same reason.
(I’m kind of assuming you’ve used a pastry bag before, but if you haven’t, here’s a nifty video from Everyday with Rachael Ray that might be helpful.)
Start piping!
Like I said before, to ensure my cookies don’t look like the work of a kindergartner, I generally stick to dots and lines. Sometimes I go crazy and do dots AND lines. I’m unpredictable like that.
For lines, you don’t necessarily have to pipe straight stripes all in a row; zigzags are also easy to do, and intentionally overlapping lines can be artistic. Whatever you decide to do, move fast; the quicker you pipe, the cleaner your lines will look.
For dots, you might want to practice squeezing the icing on a napkin or something, just to see how much pressure you need to get the size spots you want. Also, getting totally round dots isn’t easy if your icing isn’t exactly the right consistency. You can tell from the photos that my icing could have used a teensy bit more milk; I had to make kind of a swirl motion as I stopped squeezing to wrap the little icing “tail” around the body of the dot. Even then, a lot of my dots were kind of odd-shaped. The cookies are still pretty cute, though, right?
Disclaimer: Even if you use my techniques, there’s a very good chance you’ll still end up with a few goofy-looking cookies. Don’t despair! Just do what I do: Eat the ugly ones. No one will be the wiser!
Spiced cutout cookies
Sugar cookies
Turkey sugar cookies
