COOKIE DECORATING

There are endless icing recipes to choose from to decorate your cakes and cookies.  Some harden and are glossy while others are softer and fluffy.   

I tried both types on my baseball cookies.  I decided to experiment! Which explains my smudges and not-so-perfect cookie decorating!  The glossy royal icing I put down first to create a hard shell to decorate on top of.  I mixed different food coloringsd in small bowls with the white icing, then put colored icing in separate plastic bags and snipped off one corner. So its a home-made piping bag and SO much easier to use and you just throw it away when you are done!  I am a huge fan of a simple clean-up.  :)  You can control how big you want the piping by how much you cut off of the plastic bag’s corner.

Sugar Cookie Royal Icing

• 1 (1 lb. box) powdered sugar
• 5 tablespoons meringue powder or 2 large egg whites
• ½ cup water

-In an electric mixer, combine sugar and powder.  Gradually add water until the consistency that you would like.  The more water you add, the thinner the icing will be. (less water will create a thick icing that you can use to outline the cookies with)

-TIP: When  you use this icing. Outline the cookie with a thicker icing. Then put a spoonful of the royal icing in the middle of the cookie and spread it around to cover and let it flood the inner circle.  Let harden.

I also made a softer icing that I like to use when I am creating objects.  I divide the icing up in small bowls and make each bowl a different color.  Then I put them in bags, snip the corner, and decorate cookies!  This icing does not harden so you cannot stack cookies or it will smudge.  This recipe is my favorite and I love using it when I decorate christmas cookies!

This is a richer and thicker icing than the one featured above.

BASIC SUGAR COOKIE ICING

• 4 cups (about 1 lb. box) powdered sugar
• ½ cup shortening
• 5 tablespoons milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• any food colorings you would like

-Cream together ingredients until smooth and stiff (about 5 minutes)

-Divide up, add food colorings and decorate cookies!