Royal Icing Easter Cookies

Two Christmases ago, my mom and I took a cookie decorating class at a local bakeshop. Our cookies were bumpy and our lines weren’t even but we had a ball and we were both instantly hooked. We rushed out to Michaels to buy all the tools to make royal icing cookies. I set out to make cookies for Christmas Day and had my heart set on making little Santas. It took HOURS but I pulled it off and have made them every Christmas since. I always joke that I’m a one trick pony and they’re the only ones I’m any good at.

But since we’re on quarantine, I decided there was no time like the present to try a different cookie and I wanted to show y’all all the tips and tricks I’ve learned thus far. I hear people say all the time that royal icing cookies are impossible. They definitely take some practice, but if I can do it, I promise you can too.

Even though we’ll be spending Easter on lock down, I decided to make some Easter cookies. I have been planning on making these little chicks for some time now and I’m pretty happy with how they came out!

I use this cookie recipe from Sweet Sugarbelle and have had great luck with it. It’s super easy and the cookies hold their shape wonderfully. They also freeze great which is an essential because I never decorate my cookies the same day I bake them. Made that mistake once or twice! For one, cookies are easier to decorate when they’re cold and dry. Decorating a warm cookie will result in a goopy drippy mess. Plus… it’s too much work.

I also use Sweet Sugarbelle’s royal icing recipe which can be found here. Royal icing is an art not a science and the key is achieving the right texture. Too thick and your hand will be on fire trying to squeeze it out of the tube and you’ll be left with lumpy cookies. Too thin and you’ll have icing dripping off the sides. You want it to have a sort of honey consistency. Add your water in a tiiiiiny bit at a time. You can always add more but it’s harder to fix icing that’s gotten too thin. There’s no weird ingredients in this icing- it’s basically just a whole 2 lb bag of powdered sugar, water, vanilla extract (or almond is really good too), and merengue powder. The recipe only calls for 5 tablespoons of merengue powder, so a 4 oz bucket of it will last you forever. This is the one I use. I’ve read that you can use a hand mixer for making royal icing but that you may get a few clogs in your tips as it doesn’t get it as smooth. My stand mixer is currently on a pretty good sale and I just think it’s pretty on the counter haha.

To color your icing, you want to use a gel color (not the kind that comes in the little tubes at the grocery store.) I got this pack of 12 Wilton Gel colors for $13 which was a great deal. A little goes a LONG way with these. I literally just dipped a toothpick into the gel and swirled it into the frosting to get these colors.

creating and filling piping bags

I use piping bags for outlining and squeeze bottles for fill…although usually after 3 or 4 cookies, I get lazy and just exclusively use the squeeze bottles for both and use the icing in the piping bags for decorating. Here’s a quick guide for creating and filling the bags:

I buy these piping bags- they’re disposable (trust me, the non disposable ones are a pain in the butt to clean) and they come in a pack of 100. Start by cutting the tip off and sticking in the coupler (see first photo above). If the coupler doesn’t stick out the bottom, trim a little extra off the tip of the bag. Next, stick the tip on - I recommend these #2 Wilton tips that come with the coupler and then screw the little screw top on to secure.

To fill the piping bags, i stick them in a wide mouth cup and roll it over the sides and then just use a spoon to scoop it in. Easy peezy.

filling squeeze bottles

Trying to scoop icing directly into a squeeze bottle inevitably ends in a goopy sticky mess. My trick, is to use a piping bag with the tip cut off, but without the coupler and tip attached. I fill the bag using the cup (see above) and then just squeeze the bag’s contents into the bottle. Ta-Da!

I like these squeeze bottles because they have a tip on them.

now the fun part…

icing cookies

To start, you want to outline your cookie’s shape. In this case, I started with outlining the “cracked egg” bottom part, let that dry a bit, and then outlined the top of the chick. You don’t want to get too close to the edge or you risk getting drips. Let the outline dry a bit before filling. The outline will act as a sort of corral for the fill icing.

Filling the outline is really more of an art than a science. I kinda haphazardly squeeze the icing in a swirl pattern and then use the tip of the squeeze bottle to move the icing where I want it. If the icing is made in the right consistency, it should dry smooth.

You want to wait until the icing is totally dry before you start decorating. Using the colors in the pipe bag, Pipe the feet- they’re just two lines with a V towards the top and then the beak which is just an upside down triangle. I added a little pouf of hair on the tops of their heads too. For the eyes, I used these food safe markers. This should be your very last step. Sometimes the icing can be dry on top but still wet beneath the surface and trying to draw the eyes could make the top collapse. If you can, wait an hour or so to be safe.