Cookie Decorating Made Easy

Transform simple cookies for any occasion with decorations ranging from easy to intricate. We'll guide you through basic techniques, including frosting and icing tips. Once you master the fundamentals, you can refine your skills and take your cookie designs to new heights.

Discover More: Find recipes for cut-out cookies to decorate and learn how to bake cut-out cookies using these easy techniques.

Essential Cookie-Decorating Tools

Tip: Ensure your cookies are completely cool before decorating, as frosting and icing will only set properly on cool cookies. Baking the cookies one day and decorating them the next can make the process easier.

What You'll Need:

• Cookies
• Squeeze bottles or piping bags and tips
• Funnel (if you use squeeze bottles)
• Small bowls
• Spoons for mixing
• Small paint brushes and toothpicks for spreading icing
• Food coloring
• Sprinkles, sugars, other decorations

Cookie Frostings and Icing Options

Although the terms frosting and icing are often used interchangeably, many bakers consider frosting to be thick and fluffy, while icing is thinner and glossier. For more details on this debate and how to make both, visit How to Make Frostings and Icings.

The most basic frostings and icings are made with just a few ingredients: confectioners' sugar, butter or shortening, and milk or water.

• Decorator Frosting is an example of a basic frosting. It will stay fairly soft even after drying and is the easiest to apply, but it's not your best choice if you want to do elaborate smudge-proof designs.
• Sugar Cookie Icing is an example of a basic frosting with corn syrup added to the mix, which results in an icing that dries to a harder finish. You can use this kind of icing to make smudge-proof designs on cookies.
• Royal Icing is made with confectioners' sugar, water, and meringue powder or egg whites. It dries to a hard, crunchy finish and is the icing of choice for gluing gingerbread houses together, but it tends to be flavorless unless you add a little vanilla extract.

Watch the video to learn how to make sugar cookie icing.

How Thick Should Your Cookie Icing and Frosting Be?

You can adjust the thickness of your frostings and icings depending on their intended use. To thin your icing, simply divide it into bowls and add a few drops of liquid at a time until you reach the desired consistency.

• Thick icing is best for adding fine details with a piping bag usually after an iced cookie has completely dried to a hard finish.
• Thin icing is best for "flooding" a cookie with a smooth layer of color, for dipping cookies, or for drizzling a thin thread of icing over a cookie. You can use a piping bag or squeeze bottle, and a small paintbrush or toothpick to help coax thinned icing into areas if needed.
• In-between thick and thin is the medium consistency of icing you'll use to outline areas of the cookie you're going to flood with thin icing. Use a piping bag or squeeze bottle.

How to Apply Cookie Frostings and Icings

For Basic Cookie Decorating:

• Make a bowl of Decorator Frosting and apply it to cooled cookies with a pastry brush, blunt knife, or small spatula. Add your choice of sprinkles and call it a day.
• Or dip the front of a cookie in thinned icing and put it on a cooling rack or plate. Add sprinkles and let dry.

For Designs That Dry to a Hard Finish:

1. Prepare a batch of Sugar Cookie Icing or Royal Icing and divide it into separate bowls.
2. Add food coloring and/or adjust the consistency by thinning with liquid.
3. You can outline cookies with your medium-thickness icing, flood them with a thinner icing, let it set, then add details with thicker icing.
4. Alternatively, use a small paintbrush or toothpick to add details while the icing is still wet.

Simple Cookie Decorations That Wow

Decorating cookies doesn't have to be complicated to make them impressive. A simple touch can elevate basic frosted cookies into stunning party treats. Try spreading a thin layer of frosting or icing and topping with colored sugar or contrasting decorations.

Here's a simple yet elegant example: a basic sugar cookie becomes extra-special with minimal effort. Fill a piping bag with soft Sugar Cookie Frosting, swirl it on top, and finish with sprinkles for a quick and beautiful decoration that even young children can help with.

Chocolate-Dipped Cookies

Dipping cookies in chocolate is a simple and effective way to add both visual appeal and delicious flavor to any cookie. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Start by baking and cooling your cookies (or use store-bought ones—no judgment here!).
2. Follow these easy tips to melt chocolate.
3. Dip each cookie halfway into the melted chocolate, scraping off the excess using a small spatula or the edge of the bowl. Give the cookie a little shake to remove any remaining chocolate, then scrape again. This helps prevent the chocolate from pooling around the cookie as it sets.
4. Place the cookies on wax paper, starting from the farthest end and working inward to avoid drips. Before the chocolate hardens, press candy pieces into it or sprinkle the cookies with colored sugars or edible glitter for a fun finishing touch.

Video Tutorial: Melting Chocolate the Right Way

How to Dip Your Cookies in Chocolate

• Dip one end of each cookie into ground pistachios, hazelnuts, pecans or other nuts while the chocolate is still wet.
• When the first coat has set, apply another color of chocolate. Try dipping one half of each cookie in dark chocolate, and the other half in white. You can even color white chocolate a nice pastel color: use candy coloring pastes from craft stores or kitchen supply stores.
• Use a pastry bag (or a plastic sandwich bag with a tiny hole cut in the corner) to drizzle stripes on cookies for an elegant touch.

Decorations Baked Into the Cookies

For cookies that are both beautiful and quick to make, try adding a garnish before baking. You can roll cookies into logs, chill them, slice, and bake. Roll the logs in colored sugar, finely chopped nuts, coconut, sesame seeds, or sprinkles for a festive touch. A light dusting of powdered sugar or cocoa powder can also give your cookies a sophisticated finish. If you want something a bit more intricate, try creating pinwheel or checkerboard designs.

More: Explore our full collection of cookie recipes.