Decorating Cookies

1. Start with a flat, smooth cookie, usually the kind you roll out. Sugar cookies are the most popular, followed by gingerbread.

2. Cut out cookies in desired shapes.

3. Add decorative sugars, sprinkles, nonpariels, dragees, etc. before you bake for a simple and fast decorated cookie.

4. If you want to frost the cookies bake them "naked" and let cool completely.

5. Add frosting, icing, glaze, or fondant in any colors you want.

6. You can then paint on the icing or fondant with food coloring once it's dried and has a hard, smooth finish.

7. Add sprinkles, sugars, etc., to accent the frostings, etc.

Sugar Cookie Recipes

Gingerbread Cookie Dough Recipe

I found these unusual cookie cutters on the Fancy Flours website. This is just a taste of what they have available. Click on the image to go to their online store.

1/2 cup butter
or
1/4 cup butter & 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
or
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (*see note below)
1 lb powdered sugar (sifting optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons of cream or milk

Cream butter and/or shortening until fluffy. Beat in sugar one cup at a time. As you get towards the end you may find the mixture gets very granulated. Add vanilla, and then cream, 1 tablespoon at a time. Beat until fluffy. This is not an exact recipe. If you have a little less sugar, that's okay. You can change the amount of cream/milk to make the frosting stiffer or more of a glaze. This amount will cover a two layer cake so I think it will easily frost 5 dozen cookies.

*If you want very white frosting, use all white shortening.

Martha Stewart's Cream Cheese Buttercream

Better Homes & Gardens Color Cream Dough

This isn't really a frosting, but rather a thick dough that you color and pipe onto cut out cookies to make designs which are baked in.

Martha Stewart's Royal Icing

Royal icing is the very smooth icing you see on professional cakes and cookies. You have to keep it from drying out while you work, then let it dry to harden when you're finished.

Sugar Cookie Icing

Another smooth icing that uses corn syrup and is almond flavored.

The link below will take you to another Squidoo lens that is all about fondant with recipes, techniques, etc. Most of the information there also applies to cookie decorating.

Fondant Cake Decorating: It's Play-Doh for Grownups!

The only thing that is missing is the very cool technique of
embossing fondant with rubber stamps.
I found an excellent blog entry that shows exactly how to do this, step by step (see below). I would suggest using the clear unmounted stamps as they are the easiest to clean with soap and water. Also, never use them for anything than food.

Embossed Valentine's Day Cupcakes at My Sweet and Saucy

You can also use candy or cookie molds to shape the fondant.

Cookie Presses, Molds and Stamps

Image courtesy of sugarcrushmiami on Flickr.

I tried hand painting cookies one Christmas. It was really time consuming but my dad and I both enjoyed the painting process. I iced (not frosted) the cookies and let the icing harden. Then I mixed a little bit of food coloring paste with water. It was very similar to working with tube watercolors. Then we painted directly on the icing using fine art brushes that were only used for food.

I found a blog with some beautiful examples of hand painted cookies. Check it out here: Once Upon a Plate

While making this lens I found a wonderful organization called

Drop In & Decorate®

The idea is that you host a cookie decorating party and then donate what you make to a local food pantry, senior center, or other community agency. After you host an event you can send in pictures and they will be posted on the website. There is even a printable guide with details about how to host a party! You can choose to host a party during a specific time (such as a holiday) or just invent your own event. How fun is that?