Hey Besties! Welcome to How to Decorate Cookies: Flooding 101! Today, I’m hitting publish on a topic that is always relevant in the cookie decorating world! Whether you are already a cookie decorator, just starting out, still watching cookie decorating videos or looking to up your holiday cookie game, I’ve got you! Speaking of cookie decorating videos…doesn’t it look so easy?! If you’ve attempted to decorate a cookie, you know it’s a lot harder than it looks! I get it, we all started at the same place! But I’m confident that with today’s tips and instructional video, you will nail outlining and flooding your cookies! Soon, it will all feel natural, I promise! Let’s get into it!
Royal Icing Recipe
First things first! If you want to have a perfectly flooded cookie, you MUST have a great royal icing recipe. Besties, I can’t stress this enough and I’m a bit of a broken record on this topic, but it is so important. Successfully decorating beautiful cookies is an art and the royal icing is your medium. If you take the time to learn to make your royal icing correctly, you will be so much more successful in this journey. It’s not as simple as throwing the few ingredients in the bowl and mixing for a few minutes. There’s a lot of bad information out there and then those same people are asking why they have color bleed, why they have craters, flat icing and other issues. Makes me nuts!
Royal icing MUST be made properly to have the correct structure from the beginning. It is simple to do, but please, I beg of you, take the time to learn it. I explain exactly how to make perfect royal icing HERE. This includes our recipe and every step to make it. If you follow this recipe and each step in the method to make it, you will have beautiful royal icing.
Conversely, if you overlook steps in the process, you’re not going to get the same result. This really all comes down to science. It literally takes me 6 minutes to prepare and make a fresh batch of royal icing. It’s very simple, but you need to do it correctly for the results you want.
What You Need To Flood Cookies
You don’t need much to successfully outline and flood cookies! You need a cookie (duh), royal icing, a decorating bag and a scribe. That’s all folks, it’s very simple. At some point, you may want to get a turntable, but I decorated cookies for a long time before even having a turntable.
You may also be wondering if you need to use a decorating tip. I, as well as most cookiers, use tipless bags. And to be clear, you can actually use a tipless bag with or without a decorating tip! I find tipless bags to be much more versatile so that I can cut my hole as small or as large as I’d like. I also don’t need to deal with the added mess of cleaning tips. For today’s instructional purposes, I will be using THESE tipless bags. After trying many different brands and kinds, these are by far my favorite, and I’ve never had one bust either! However, if you are more comfortable using a decorating tip, I’d suggest a #2 tip.
If you don’t have a scribe, you can use a toothpick to start. Although, you’ll find a sharp metal scribe is ideal. And THESE tipless bags I use come with one every time! I’ve accumulated quite the stash!
Flooding 101: Consistency
Consistencies are the hardest part of this whole cookie decorating game, seriously. Fortunately, finding the flooding consistency you like best is pretty easy. And I have a whole post dedicated to royal icing consistencies, HERE. Bookmark that baby because you’ll want to come back to it later in your journey!
One of the most common questions asked when people start decorating cookies is, “Do you use one consistency or two?” Because new decorators have the fear of going over the edge, they tend to want to use a thicker consistency to outline and then use a thinner consistency to flood the cookie. Bestie, here me out. It’s so much easier to learn outlining and flooding with one consistency from the start. It’s much faster and will accelerate your cookie decorating skills that much faster.
I’m here to set you up for success, so let’s learn the best way from the start! We will use one consistency to outline and then flood your cookies. It is quick, simple and gives a perfectly seamless finish to your cookie.
Now this is where some personal preference can come into play. I prefer about a 15 second icing consistency to outline and flood my cookies. If you don’t know what that means, it’s a counting method used in cookie decorating for learning consistencies. If I have a bowl of icing in front of me and cut the icing with a knife, it will take approximately 15 seconds to settle back to smooth. That is the consistency I love best for flooding. If it’s much thicker, it won’t settle out completely smooth on your cookie. And if it’s much thinner, you’ll fight your icing want to spill over the edge. Plus, I find a 15-second consistency gives me a great puffy flood layer.
As you start working with your icing and practicing, you may decide you prefer it a little thinner or thicker, and that’s okay! Every cookier has their own preference and it really comes down to feel. You’ll find what works best for you. But a 15-second consistency is a great place to start…you won’t fall off the edge easily!
Flooding 101: Technique
The biggest mistake that everyone makes when they first start decorating cookies is holding the tip of the bag to the cookie. It’s natural to want to do this since it feels like you have more control over the icing. However, you’ll never get the clean, smooth lines you want by doing so. The key is to touch down to start your line and then immediately lift your bag and let the icing flow naturally. You’ll see this in the video and while it feels scary at first, like you’re out of control of the icing, it will quickly become natural. This is how you can achieve those perfect lines!
Another common mistake that again comes from the fear of spilling over the edge, it underfilling your cookie. If you are using your scribe to drag icing around, you haven’t added enough icing. This will result in a bumpy cookie with indents, which is not what you want. Make sure you are adding enough icing that you have a smooth coat. Admittedly, this was something I struggled with for a while when I first started!
Flooding 101: Demo Video
Alright, I’m going to stop talking now and you can see it all in action! You’ll see some of the above points emphasized in the video and some additional tips as well. You can view the demo video HERE! Feel free to add comments or questions there or in our FB group! I won’t rest until everyone is seamlessly flooding, so feel free to connect with me if you need any help!
I will also add that once I’ve flooded my cookies, they immediately go into my dehydrator to lock in that perfectly smooth, shiny surface. If you have any questions about using a dehydrator for cookie decorating, THIS will answer everything. If you’re not using a dehydrator, I recommend using a table fan to blow air over your cookies which will also help with the finish. Any airflow is better than none.
Flooding 101: Closing Thoughts
We all know the decorating videos make it look super easy and a big part of that is because they are greatly sped up! Outlining and flooding cookies is much slower than what you see in most videos. Go as slow as you need to and as you develop your skills, you will naturally get faster. Don’t worry about speed at this point, just practice and you’ll get there!
I hope this post featuring our Flooding 101 details and video has been helpful for you! As I said earlier, feel free to connect with any further questions. I’m always happy to help! Or you can engage with our Besties HERE!
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