How To Use Royal Icing Transfers For Awesome Cookie Designs

Hey Besties! I know I’m always excited to share with you, but this is BIG! There are a few things we do differently around here, and it really goes back to the mission of this site. At the heart of it all, I’m all about encouraging, helping and inspiring you to try the things you’ve always wanted. Want to learn how to decorate cookies? Let’s go! Want to start a cake decorating biz? I’m cheering you on all the way! Want to start a home bakery? Let’s do this! But a huge part of this is providing tools and resources for you to bake amazing treats without needing years of training. With passion, patience and practice, anyone can learn the skills I showcase here. And I am here to make your bakery journey as easy, fun and successful as possible!

Which is why I’m thrilled to be unveiling our royal icing transfer sheet collection! If you already receive our weekly newsletter, you’ve been receiving new designs for the last month. And newsletter subscribers will continue to receive early access to all new designs! But now everyone can access all of our royal icing transfer sheets HERE on the site, at your convenience. If you already use transfers in your cookie designs, I hope you’re excited for new designs! And if royal icing transfers are new to you, buckle up, because I’m breaking it all down for you here. Transfers are an incredibly useful tool, especially for newer decorators, to add awesome design elements to their cookies! Let’s dive in!

What Are Royal Icing Transfers?

Royal Icing transfer sheets provide a design template that you can use to trace over with royal icing, let dry and then simply add these elements to your cookies! For example, maybe you want to add a little pumpkin, ice cream cone, letter or number to your cookie but the idea of piping it directly on the cookie is scary! We’ve all been there!

This is where royal icing transfers come in extremely handy. Especially for newer decorators to be able to create design elements in a low-pressure way. They provide an opportunity to practice and make as few or as many of a design element as you want and add to your cookie later! No more panicking because you have ONE opportunity to perfectly pipe a pumpkin onto our cookie or it’s ruined! You can pipe 10 pumpkins when it’s convenient for you and add your favorite one onto your cookie!

Benefits of Transfers

Even the pros use transfers all the time; it’s a very common cookie decorating tool. Aside from the low-pressure decorating setting they offer, there are also several other benefits.

First, they can be a huge time saver. Do you know that I have a whole case of jersey number transfers ready to go? It’s true! I spent an hour just making these transfers months ago and when I had my next order for jersey cookies, I popped them right on my cookies. A little bit of royal icing on the back and BAM! The font looked perfect, and it saved me a ton of time! You can make them in advance and store them for months (some even say years)!

They are also great if you worry about color bleed. If you’ve been burned by color bleed in the past, using a royal icing transfer can be a safe way to add a design element without the bleed.

Also wonderful for when you want to add metallic-painted elements, letters or numbers for example, to your cookie. It’s much easier to create a transfer, paint it and then add to your cookie versus piping the design on and then having to paint it when it’s on the cookie.

There are many reasons why cookiers love using transfers. My favorite benefit is how simple it makes creating awesome cookie designs for cookiers of any level. Being able to practice and make cool design elements in a less stressful way is the best perk. No more wasted or ruined cookies. 🙌🏻

What YOU nEed To Make Royal Icing Transfers

Alright, so we’ve covered why transfers can be so helpful, so let’s get into how you can make them! You only need a few things to make transfers. First, a design template. Most cookiers purchase these design sheets or make their own. As I mentioned earlier, anyone can access our growing collection of royal icing transfer sheets HERE. I share these designs with you for free and new designs are added every week! Check back often for new designs or subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter to get all the new designs delivered to your inbox several weeks before they are available on the site.

Next, you need a surface to pipe on. I highly recommend using food-safe sheet protectors for a few reasons. While parchment or wax paper is more readily available, they curl from the moisture in your icing, so your transfers won’t dry with a flat bottom. Sheet protectors remain perfectly flat throughout the drying process, so your transfers will always have a flat, even bottom. Also, they make it super easy to just slip the transfer sheet into the protector sleeve to keep it perfectly in place while you work. If you use wax or parchment, you need to use tape to keep the design in place. THESE are the food-safe sheet protectors I use, and I use them over and over again.

Next, you’ll need your royal icing. If you need a recipe or don’t love the recipe you use, THIS details our exact recipe as well as how we make our icing. When making royal icing, the how part is critical so you can avoid color bleed and other issues.

So, you’ve got a transfer sheet, sheet protectors and royal icing. Now you just want to have your scribe handy and a safe place to work and let your transfers dry overnight!

Royal Icing Transfer Consistency

I wonder how much of a cookier’s time is spent talking about consistencies. 🤔 If you’re a cookier, you know royal icing consistencies is the hardest part of this whole cookie decorating game! And if you’re new to decorating, get ready to use the word “consistencies” a lot! The million-dollar question with every technique is “What consistency do you use?” And the reason this is the hardest part to learn is because it’s slightly different for every cookier and it really comes down to feel. There is no exact recipe for consistencies, however, I do have a whole post about the topic HERE in case you are looking to learn.

For royal icing transfers, I use a medium consistency. If you use the counting method, it’s about a 25-second icing. It needs to be thick enough to hold your design shape and dimension without pooling, yet thin enough to smooth/heal itself. It’s very similar to a writing consistency in which you want the same qualities. I also like puffy icing, so like to err on the thicker side for a good puff. Honestly, it’s easiest to try a couple consistencies and see what you like best. Every cookier is different but safe to say, you’ll want to be in that medium zone to hold your shapes.

Making Transfers In Action – Video

Besties, I hope this information has been helpful to set you up for success with making royal icing transfers. But I know seeing it in action is so valuable! I created THIS video for you to see all the steps as I made these cute apple transfers. You’ll see exactly how I made them, let them dry overnight and what they look like when dry! From there, I used a little royal icing on the backs of the transfers as glue and made these adorable cookies!

I should add, some cookiers prefer to add their transfers to a wet flooded cookie. You can certainly do that, but I advise to let the flood set up or begin to crust so the transfer doesn’t sink too much. I love the more raised look of the transfers which is why I almost always add them once the flood is dry. You’ve got options!

Get Your Transfer On!

I hope you’re as excited as I am about our royal icing transfer sheet collection that is made just for you! Remember to check back often for all the new designs or you can subscribe to receive the weekly newsletter below, so you never miss out! There is a LONG list of designs that I’ll be making available for you but feel free to drop me an email or connect in our Facebook group if you have design requests to be added to the queue!

My hope is that these will help you make beautiful designs for you and everyone around you to enjoy! If you know other bakers who could benefit from this new collection, please feel free to share!

Here is your changce to subscribe to receive the weekly newsletter! Never miss out on a new recipe, technique, product recommendation, Featured Baker and all the free printables! Happy Baking, Besties!