How To Make Flavored Sanding Sugar (A delicious DIY)

Hey Bestie! If you’ve been here before, you may already know I love to use sanding sugar on my decorated cookie designs for added texture and sparkle. But I’ve kicked this up a notch by adding fun flavors to my sanding sugar and I’m obsessed! Why I didn’t start doing this years ago, we’ll never know, but here we are. And I’ve been so excited to share it with you, so I’m spilling all the tea today. I most commonly use my vanilla royal icing on my decorated cookies, so adding a flavored sanding sugar is a fun and unexpected way to bring more flavors to my cookies! It’s so simple and such a great way to add a touch of fun flavor to your cookies, disguised in sparkle! And also, much cheaper to make yourself in any flavor you’d like compared to buying flavored sugars. Let’s do this.

Start with sanding sugar

Now remember that sanding sugar, or finishing sugar, is different than regular granulated sugar. If you add liquid to regular granulated sugar, it’s just going to dissolve and get all clumpy. Sanding sugar is not the same and doesn’t simply dissolve when liquid is added. This is why we can add sanding sugar on top of our wet royal icing, and it doesn’t dissolve into the icing. So make sure you’re starting with sanding sugar or finishing sugar. I use Walmart Great Value sanding sugar for beautiful results!

Flavoring for sanding sugar

You’ll be using very small amounts, in drops, for making your flavored sanding sugar. So super strength flavors work beautifully for flavoring sanding sugar. Depending on how much sugar you’re flavoring, you may only be using a few drops of flavoring. A few of my favorites for my sanding sugar are like marshmallow, cake batter and caramel. But there are MANY flavors you can choose from. And in case you didn’t know, those 1 oz flavoring bottles are the same product as THESE little dram bottles, just a different size. You can also use extracts to flavor your sugars, again, using only a few drops.

Let’s make our flavored sanding sugar

This is ridiculously simple bestie! I usually flavor about 1/4 cup of sanding sugar at a time. A little sanding sugar sparkle goes a long way when decorating cookies. If you’re using a lot of sanding sugar, scale your amounts accordingly.

Put your sanding sugar into a bowl and add a few drops of your flavoring. Stir well, to make sure there aren’t any clumps. You’ll be able to smell the heavenly sugar! Remember that these flavorings are concentrated so you’re literally only going to need a few drops. Resist the urge to overdo it since too much liquid will ruin your sugar.

Once your sugar is mixed well, we’re going to dry it so it’s nice and fine again. I use my dehydrator for this to speed up the process. Just put the bowl into your dehydrator for a few hours, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is fully dry again. If I’m working on cookies at the same time, the bowl just goes in with my cookies at 95F. If I wasn’t decorating at the same time, you could put it in at a little higher heat to dry it even faster.

What if you don’t have a dehydrator? No worries, you can still make delicious sanding sugar, it will just take longer. Spread out your sanding sugar on a plate or cookie sheet and simply let air dry for 24 hours, stirring it up occasionally. You can use a fan nearby to help circulate more air, but definitely don’t aim it right at the sugar, or you’ll have a home with added sparkle.

It’s really as simple as that! Once your sanding sugar is dry again, it’s ready to use!

Storing flavored sanding sugar

You can absolutely make flavored sanding sugar in advance and store for future use! I use THESE small deli containers like for my sanding sugars. I actually use them for storing most of my sprinkles and sugars. Just make sure your sugar is fully dry before storing.

Flavored sugar video tutorial

See how simply this is to make yourself! It’s so fun, delicious and makes your decorating area smell heavenly! You can watch the video HERE or by clicking on the image below!

Ready to make yourt own?

I hope this post all about making your own flavored sanding sugar has been helpful for you. That’s always my number one goal. If you need any more help, you can find me and thousands of fellow Besties HERE. It’s the happiest corner of the internet where you’ll find endless help, support, inspiration and celebration of beautiful bakes. And I’d LOVE to see your cookies there too!

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