How To Decorate Sugar Cookies Like The Pros

Calling all aspiring cookie decorators! Today I am breaking down everything you need to know to learn how to decorate sugar cookies like the pros! Full transparency here! I have been in your shoes and remember having NO CLUE how these stunning cookies were decorated. Like, I couldn’t even wrap my mind around how they were made! I’ve been a baker my whole life but had spent many more years decorating cakes, cupcakes and cake pops amongst other things. Decorated sugar cookies intimidated me, mostly because I thought they required natural artistic ability…which I don’t feel I have, honestly. If you ask me to draw something, it’s going to be a stick person…I can’t draw to save my life.

But there is something important you need to know! Anyone can learn to make stunning decorated cookies, with the right guidance, tips, tools and practice! Seriously, once you understand the process, it’s not nearly as intimidating. And the best part is, I’m spilling the best tips and guidance to accelerate your success and have you well on your way to creating stunning cookies you will be proud of! A lot of the guidance I will share is captured in many different posts, but I am putting everything together here for you to serve as your ultimate guide on how to decorate sugar cookies! Bookmark it, save it, come back to it because this will save you so much time in the long run. I wish I had this when I started! 😜

Did We Just Become Besties?

If you haven’t been here before, please let me share a few things! This blog was started as a distraction for me while my son was battling Leukemia. I needed something uplifting but also wanted to be able to help others. Combining my love for baking and helping others, I became Your Baking Bestie, with a focus on celebrating and promoting home bakers.

The talent and passion in the home baking industry blows my mind and I love being a part of it. I love encouraging people to follow their passion, try new things, challenge themselves and then celebrate with them when they achieve what they didn’t think was possible. If you want to be inspired or hear amazing stories of home bakers who are living their dreams, check out our Featured Bakers. I would love to be a part of your journey, and I hope you follow along so we can celebrate you too!

But enough about what we do here…let’s get into the decorating!

Where Do We Start? Cookie Recipes!

I know it can be super overwhelming at first, but we’re going to break this all down into bite-sized chunks to set you up for success!

Before we can think about decorating, we need to start with a cookie recipe you LOVE! As you know, there are a million sugar cookie recipes out there and you’re welcome to experiment! But if you’re like me, you want a tried-and-true cookie recipe you can count on and not waste any time.

You can find my go-to vanilla sugar cookie recipe HERE. There are several things I LOVE about this recipe. First, it’s no-chill. Yes, you read that right, you don’t have to chill this dough at all, which is such a time saver! Secondly, it is no spread. Meaning, when you cut your cookies in all kinds of fun shapes and then bake them, they are going to come out of the oven in the exact same shape. Third, and most importantly, it’s delicious! I firmly believe cookies need to taste just as good as they look, and this recipe does not disappoint. Our customers, family and friends LOVE these cookies. When baked as directed, they are soft and chewy, but you can bake them longer if you prefer a crispy cookie.

I will point out that THIS recipe uses vanilla for the flavor. However, the recipe I personally use for all my vanilla cutout cookies can be found HERE, which includes Butter Vanilla Emulsion which really takes a delicious vanilla cookie to the next level. That recipe post also includes a video so you can see exactly how the dough and cookies are made.

Now I will tell you, as much as I LOVE a delicious vanilla sugar cookie, I also love making fun flavored cutout cookies too! If you ever want to try other flavors, such as chocolate, salted caramel, lemon, strawberry, chocolate chip, M&M, gingerbread, chocolate mint and many more, you find our cutout cookie recipe collection HERE. Offering a flavor other than vanilla cutout cookies is a fun way to set your cookies apart from the rest!

Bring On The Icing

Now that you’re set with your cookies, let’s talk about icing! I decorate all my cookies with royal icing, which is what most cookiers decorate with too. There is a small population of cookiers who prefer glaze which does not contain meringue powder. But I prefer royal icing for the bold colors, versatility, stability and flavor with my cookies.

Something to know is that all royal icing recipes are essentially made from the same small group of ingredients. Meringue powder, water, vanilla extract, powdered sugar and corn syrup. Not every recipe includes corn syrup but I highly suggest it to give your icing a soft bite, nice sheen and an elasticity to your icing while decorating. But while the key ingredients are the same, there are many different variations and methods people use to make it. You can find my go-to royal icing recipe HERE along with the exact method to make it. I use this recipe for every single set of cookies and firmly stand by it. While I commonly see other cookiers struggle with air bubbles, butter bleed and other issues, I never have those challenges, and I attribute that to this recipe. It’s easy to make, easy to work with, has great flavor and helps me create beautiful cookies.

Meringue Powder

Something you should be aware of is that not all meringue powders are created equal. You’ll find that there are MANY different brands of meringue powder at different price points. I’ve done extensive testing over the year, comparing different meringue powders and the results they provide. If you’d like to see up-close results of how these stack up to each other in categories like flavor, sheen, color saturation and more, you can find it HERE.

I personally use Judee’s or Genie’s Dream for all my cookie decorating to achieve beautiful results and flavor.

What Do I Need To Get STarted Decorating Cookies?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed or carried away when starting out, but here’s the deal, you don’t need much to get started! Once you know you love decorating cookies, there are other tools and products you can consider based on how you want to grow your skills. But before you spend that money, start with just the essentials until you know you’re ready to build on your skills and up your game. Here is a short list of the true essentials I recommend for success. If you want to learn more about the most common tools used by cookiers, you can find some of them HERE.

Rolling Pin with Thickness Rings: Not gonna lie, I wouldn’t even attempt to make cutout cookies without this thing. It does the measuring for you, so all your cookies are the exact same thickness. It’s a must-have!

Perforated Baking Mats: I personally bake all of my cutout cookies on perforated baking mats for zero spread, even baking and pretty bottoms to my cookies. If you’d like to see the different your baking surface makes when making cutout cookies, you can find the cookie research HERE.

Tipless Decorating Bags: I love these bags, have never had one burst and always keep them in stock at our house. The majority of cookiers use tipless bags, which can actually be used with or without tips. You’ll find that using tipless bags saves a lot of time in clean up and gives you easy versatility. The only time I use tips is when I’m making flowers, in which case, I still use these bags! Bonus that these come with a scribe and little bag clips too!

Gel Colors: I’ve used several different brands of gel colors, but ChefMaster and Hobby Lobby brands have always given me the best results at the best price point. AmeriColor is also very popular amongst cookiers, but I’m not a fan of the paste-like consistency and it’s much more expensive. I’ve never been able to justify paying so much more when I can achieve better results with ChefMaster or Hobby Lobby for much less.

Scribes: Your scribe is going to be your best friend and is a must-have in cookie decorating! You can buy fancy, cute ones (especially on Etsy), but for the sake of just getting started, these are cheap and effective! Note that if you order the recommended tipless bags, they do come with one scribe.

Assuming you already have cookie sheets, cookie cutters and spatulas, this is all you really need to start decorating beautiful cookies. Start with the basics and don’t worry about the rest at this stage.

Royal Icing Consistencies

You have your cookie recipe, royal icing recipe and the bare essentials to jump in! The first thing you’re going to need to learn is about royal icing consistencies. You will quickly learn that this is arguably the hardest part of this whole cookie game! But don’t worry, you’ll catch on quickly and will learn so much with every set of cookies you make!

A common misconception when starting out is that there are different royal icing recipes for flooding, piping, etc. When in fact, all you need is your one icing recipe; you will use that to make all the different consistencies you need. When you first make your royal icing, it’s going to be thick, or stiff. You will then divide out quantities you need, color and thin with water to create the different consistencies. Let me be clear, you should always fully make the royal icing, as directed, and then thin (or thicken) to the consistencies you need. You should not mix your royal icing to a thin, flood consistency and stop because that is the consistency you want. If you do this, you haven’t actually fully made royal icing and you will struggle with color bleed and other issues.

I have a whole post which goes more in-depth regarding royal icing consistencies. It is definitely worth the read and will expedite your learning. You can find the post all about consistencies HERE.

Best Place To Start Decorating COokies

You’ve made your cookies, you’ve made your icing, you have your essentials, you’ve read about consistencies! It’s time to start decorating! The first place to start is to practice outlining and flooding cookies. Resist the urge to just try to create some cookie design you’ve seen. Without learning the fundamentals of how your icing behaves and how to use different consistencies, you’ll set yourself up for disappointment. If you want to shorten the learning curve to creating beautiful, decorated cookies, start with the fundamentals and build your skills from there. So let’s start with how to flood cookies!

And you have options on which method works best for you to beautifully flood your cookies. In most of cookie decorating, you’ll find that there are different ways or methods to achieve the same result. I always give you options to find what works best for you. In THIS tutorial, you’ll learn and see different options, pros and cons along with the results.

I encourage you to try different methods to see what feels best for you. And if you run into any flooding challenges, THIS tutorial covers the most common pitfalls and how to fix them.

order of operations

Once you’ve gained some confidence on flooding your cookies, things will start making more sense as you learn about order of operations. Cookie decorating videos make decorating look like everything happens quickly in succession, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. There is actually downtime in between steps to allow icing to crust or dry completely before next steps.

The Step-By-Step Cookies section of my website includes tutorials and videos that break down each cookie design and exactly how to create them in real-time. They feature different techniques and skills which will help you learn HOW different designs are made.

Once you understand HOW royal icing behaves and how to use it to create the look you want, you’ll be able to look at any cookie and know how it was created.

Give yourself grace…you’re making art out of sugar

Here’s the deal…stunning cookies don’t need to be complicated. Some of the most beautiful cookies use very simple and classic designs and colors. One of my favorite techniques is marble dipped cookies which don’t even require a piping bag! So don’t get hung up on intricate, detailed designs or cookies others are making. Create your own edible art with the skills you are learning, and you will continue to develop and hone those skills. Find a decorating style that YOU love.

Next steps in Learning How To Decorate Sugar Cookies

So we’ve covered a lot here already. You’ve got your cookies, your icing, you’re flooding or maybe even dipping and you’re learning order of operations. Bravo, you’re well on your way already!

From here, I encourage you to start practicing cookies with different sections of colors. For example, in these gnome cookies, you would want to outline and flood a section, wait for it to crust over, and then outline and flood a neighboring section, so they don’t blend together.

Then, the Piping 101 tutorial is the next stop on your journey! Again, all of these different skills will bring you back to royal icing consistencies. Refer back to the consistency guide as frequently as you need to.

From here, keep challenging yourself with growing your skills. You may want to experiment with stencils or even trying writing with royal icing. It really all depends on what YOU want to create and your style. I have tutorials and support for nearly all cookie decorating skills.

royal icing transfers

I encourage you to consider playing around with royal icing transfers as well! Transfers are made and used by decorators of all skills levels but can be particularly helpful for newer decorators. It allows you a risk-free, no-pressure way to pipe design elements and learn consistencies without risking messing up an actual cookie. Many new decorators find transfers to be a great way to build confidence in their piping skills. You can learn all about making and using royal icing transfers HERE.

What’s next? I Can’t Wait To See YOur Edible Artwork!

You’ll find all my tutorials on my website along with detailed videos, tips and support through all my social media channels. I also have an amazing group of Besties HERE which is where we hang out to help decorators of all skill levels. I’m literally here to help you create beautiful cookies.

I could talk cookies for days, and I’m always here if you have any questions! I hope this post all about how to decorate sugar cookies is helpful to get you started on the right foot! Feel free to explore more posts for inspiration, techniques and troubleshooting! Remember, we all started at the same place. It takes practice, and trial and error but you will learn with every single set!

If you haven’t already, make sure you’ve subscribed to receive my weekly newsletter! Never miss out on a new recipe, technique, product recommendation, Featured Baker and free printables! Happy Baking, Bestie!