How to Decorate Adorable Veggie Cookies with Royal Icing Transfers!

Hey Besties! Veggie cookies are all the rage right now across all kinds of occasions! From “freshly picked” baby shower sets to “she’s off the market bridal showers,” I’m seeing veggies everywhere! And with spring upon us and gardening season starting I needed to make some veggie cookies for some people in my life. So I thought I’d create these adorable veggie royal icing transfer sheets for you to use as well! Makes decorating day so much faster and creating these sweet designs can be achieved by all skill levels! Let’s get our veggies on with these transfer making tips, video and free downloads!

Royal icing Recipe

If you already have a royal icing recipe you love, I love that for you! But if you need a fabulous royal icing recipe or if your current recipe is giving you any grief, I encourage you to try THIS recipe. It’s the only recipe I use every day and gives me delicious and beautiful results every time. It’s also worth mentioning that not all royal icing is the same. In fact, different recipes actually yield very different results and flavors. I’m a firm believer that it’s not good enough to have a pretty cookie, it needs to taste just as good as it looks! If you need any guidance on creating different royal icing flavors, THIS post breaks it all down for you with endless flavoring options.

Royal Icing Transfer Consistency

Just about everything in the cookie decorating world comes down to consistencies! While you’ll use the same batch of icing for all of your decorating, you’ll create different consistencies based on what you’re doing – flooding, piping, florals, etc. For making royal icing transfers, I use my puffy icing consistency, which is a thicker consistency, which makes for sturdy, strong transfers that have great dimension and shape. You can see exactly what that consistency looks like in the mixing bowl, in this royal icing consistency guide.

New to Making royal icing transfers?

If transfers are new to you, THIS is a great introductory tutorial to get started! Royal icing transfers are like creating and using giant sprinkles that you create in any design you’d like. It’s kind of like using a coloring page but with icing! You probably don’t even realize that so many of the decorated cookies you see, include royal icing transfers. They can be the centerpiece of your design or simply an added accent. Your options are quite literally, endless.

And while royal icing transfers are fabulous for new decorators, they are a common technique for decorators of all skill levels. They provide a great opportunity for piping practice, creating designs without a projector and add design elements to your cookies with no risk of messing up an actual cookie! Many cookiers love to use leftover icing to make transfers that they can store and use on their cookies in the future. It really helps to speed up decorating day or be able to whip up a batch of decorated cookies quickly. Let’s cover some of my most helpful tips for making transfers!

Royal Icing Transfer Tips

• What consistency is best for make royal icing transfers? You want to use a thicker consistency when making transfers for several reasons. First, thicker icing is going to make the transfer much more sturdy and less prone to breaking. I use a consistency that globs into the bowl off of the spoon with little to no ribboning off of it. It requires light scribing once I pipe it to perfect the icing. It’s pretty thick! In THIS royal icing consistency guide, you’ll see the exact consistency I use for making transfers!
• What royal icing recipe do you use for transfers? We use the same royal icing recipe for all of our cookie decorating. We never struggle with craters, color bleed or other issues. The magic is in the METHOD of making royal icing. It’s simple but important to follow the instructions. You can find exactly how we make our royal icing HERE.
• What surface is best to make transfers on? I make all my transfers on sheet protectors which allow your transfers to dry in under 24 hours with perfectly flat backs that will sit flush on a flat cookie. Parchment and wax paper will curl from the moisture. And cookiers who use thicker acetate or laminated sheets can sometimes struggle with drying times. If you’re going to use acetate or laminate the sheets, choose the thinnest weight available. THESE are the sheet protectors I use, which are made from Polypropylene, which is a food safe material. Then get wiped clean in-between uses as well. TIP: Companies don’t always use their marketing dollars to promote products as food safe if they aren’t marketing to a demographic that is using their product for food-contacting purposes. I always encourage bakers to familiarize yourself with the most common food-safe materials so you can make informed decisions about the products you use.

Drying your royal icing transfers

• Can sheet protectors go in the dehydrator to speed up drying? Yes, as long as you are using a food-safe material. When using a dehydrator for cookie decorating, it is used on the lowest temp (mine is 95) so contents hardly even get warm to the touch.
• How long does it take for transfers to fully dry? The answer to this will depend on your icing, your climate and if you use anything to speed up drying, like a dehydrator. Royal icing transfer should always be completely dry within 24 hours. The only time it may take longer than that is if your home is very humid. Otherwise, you may want to consider using a dehydrator or reconsider the surface you’re using to make your transfers on. Our transfers are always completely dry within 18 hours.
• What is the best way to remove transfers to avoid breakage? Royal icing transfer don’t have any flex, so if you try to peel them off the sheet, they will break. It’s always best to curl the sheet away from the back of the transfer to release it. If your transfers are fully dry, they’ll pop right off. If they are sticking, they may not be full dry yet.

Storing Transfers

• The best way to store royal icing transfers? You want to store at room temperature. I use organizers like THESE to store my transfers. Again, these are made from food-safe material.
• How long are royal icing transfers good for? Basically, forever when stored properly. Although, we almost always use ours within a few months and are constantly replenishing.

Using Transfers

• The best way to attach royal icing transfers to cookies? You can add your transfers to dried flood, using tiny dabs of royal icing as glue. Not too much or the transfer won’t be able to sit flush. You can also add to wet flood for a slightly different look. I always recommend letting your wet flood set up for a couple minutes, so the transfers don’t sink too much. In THIS post, I compared what these different options look like so you can decide which you prefer!
• Will transfers bleed? When added to dried flood, there is no chance of color bleed. There is a chance of bleed when added to wet flood. If you are struggling with color bleed in your royal icing, THIS post will help.

Veggie transfer making video!

I commonly receive requests for videos showing HOW to make transfers, so I put together this quick video to show you exactly how I made these! You can find the video HERE or by clicking on the image below.

As explained in the tips above, you can add your transfers to wet or dry flood. I prefer adding to dried flood so I can arrange and rearrange them on my cookies to create my designs before gluing them on with royal icing. But it’s really personal preference!

Veggie Royal Icing Transfer Set

Let’s get growing with these adorable veggie sheets! I opted to create some veggie seed packet cookies, but there are endless options to use these transfer sheets! Several popular themes are celebrating veggies these days, so I know you’ll be able to put them to good use! And as always, I made each design in multiple sizes so you can customize for your baked art!

You can download the 6-page vegetable royal icing transfer sheets HERE or by clicking on the image below.

Ready to create your own?!

I hope you can put these free royal icing transfer sheets to good use, Besties! And if you’re not already in our Facebook group, I urge you to join so you can all enjoy your baked art! It’s also a fabulous place, with thousands of Besties, to bounce questions off of each other and a judgment free group to get support for all things baking!

Lastly, if you’re not already receiving my weekly newsletter, you are missing out! Every Friday, you’ll receive the best email of the week with new recipes, tutorials, techniques, free transfer sheets, labels and so much more! You can subscribe here! Happy Baking, Bestie!