Hey Besties! I continue to receive more requests for royal icing flower tutorials so today we’re expanding our garden! And honestly, making hydrangea cookies with royal icing are one of the simplest, yet most beautiful floral designs, in my opinion! In today’s tutorial we’ll cover exactly how you can create two-toned royal icing for your florals as well as how to make these blooms. Large blooms or small, you’ve got options! It’s currently the perfect time of year to create these and delight those you bake for. Let’s go!
Cutout Cookie Recipes
We need a delicious cookie canvas to get started, Bestie! If you already have a recipe you love, move right on ahead. But if you need a delicious, no-chill cutout cookie recipe, THIS is my favorite vanilla cookie recipe. Super simple, quick and delicious, and includes a quick video to see exactly how to make them. Or if you want to try a different fun flavor, you’ll find MANY other options HERE. Strawberry? Lemon? Orange? Salted caramel? They are all there, plus many more.
The Only royal icing recipe I use
That’s right, I use this one recipe for ALL my cookie decorating. Super simple and quick to make and gives me consistent, beautiful and delicious results every day. THIS post walks you through exactly how to make the icing with just a few simple steps. This recipe is especially loved by many cookiers who create a lot of florals as it’s easy to pipe at even the stiffest consistencies. No hand cramps here!
Royal Icing Consistency for florals
Regardless of which recipe you’re using, when making flowers with royal icing, you’ll want a STIFF consistency. This will give you the best shape and definition in petals or details. There’s nothing worse than creating stunning flowers that just pool together and lose their shape. So if you notice your shape isn’t holding just like you created it, add a little more powdered sugar to your icing for a stiffer consistency.
When I make my icing on a daily basis, I never need a whole batch at a floral STIFF consistency. So I simply make icing, separate out and color the icing I want for my florals and add more powdered sugar to create the STIFF consistency I need. You can see exactly what a great floral consistency looks like in my royal icing consistency guide. I also show my consistencies today in our instructional video.
Making hydrangea cookies with royal icing
I have shared several floral tutorials previously which you can find HERE, but today, we’re focusing on these stunning hydrangeas! No flower nails needed, and these can be piped directly onto your cookies! You can also find a completely different technique to make a different hydrangea cookie look, HERE. In Bestie-land, you always have options!
For today’s hydrangea cookies with royal icing, we’re using a 2D tip for the large blooms and a 129 tip for the smaller cluster blooms. These are both really common tips used in decorating.
These tip numbers are Wilton tip numbers, and I have used THIS piping tip set for YEARS. There are many other piping tip sets that are far cheaper, like THIS one. Just know they are numbered differently, so you’ll need to determine the equivalent tips to Wilton’s. And the cheaper sets are well…cheaper quality. But sometimes a cheaper tip set is an okay place to start!
Hydrangea Cookies Video
Alright Besties, here’s the best part! In THIS short video, you’ll see the exact consistency needed, how to make two-toned icing and exactly how to pipe these beautiful blooms! I hope this excites and inspires you to create your own hydrangea cookies with royal icing!

We wanna see!!
Bestie, if you need any more help, guidance, or want to share your flowers, join thousands of fellow Besties HERE in our community! That’s literally what we’re there for…the happiest corner of the internet. I hope you’ll share your work with us!
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