Easy Icing for Decorating Cookies - Sally's Baking Addiction (2024)

If you need a cookie decorating alternative to traditional royal icing, this easy cookie icing is a great choice. It’s like a very thick opaque glaze and comes together with a fork, whisk, and mixing bowl. This cookie icing takes about 24 hours to completely dry and you can’t pipe intricate detail as you could with royal icing, but if you want EASY cookie icing, this is it! All of the pictured cookies in this post use this icing.

Yes, you can create gourmet-looking decorated cookies without royal icing!

Skip All the Fuss & Use This Easy Cookie Icing

If you’re looking for professional icing with a picture-perfect finish and the ability for lovely piped detail, use royal icing. I love this royal icing and use it often for decorating sugar cookies, but it can be finicky. You need a very precise consistency in order for the royal icing to pipe, set, and dry appropriately—it definitely requires practice and patience. Before I began working with royal icing, however, I used today’s easy cookie icing. It’s still one of my favorite ways to decorate sugar cookies because it’s low maintenance, but still delivers pretty (and delicious) results. Plus, it’s great for making ahead and manageable for kids and beginners.

You Will Love This Cookie Icing:

• Easy to make with a fork, whisk, and bowl
• No special equipment
• 5 basic ingredients
• Can use squeeze bottle or piping tips to decorate
• Manageable for young bakers and/or beginners
• Doesn’t dry into hard cement texture
• After it dries, you can stack, freeze, and transport cookies

You can use this icing on cookie cutter cookies such as these sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, and chocolate sugar cookies. You could even use it on shortbread cookies or drizzled on spritz cookies. I even used it on some of these pictured Halloween cookies and these Christmas sugar cookies. You could use it to make Valentine’s Day cookies, Easter cookies, and fireworks celebration cookies, too. (Note that the photos in those recipes show royal icing, but this cookie icing will work for less intricate designs.)

5 Simple Ingredients

For the icing, you need confectioners’ sugar, water, vanilla extract (replace with water to keep the icing stark white, or use clear vanilla extract), a touch of corn syrup, and a little salt. The icing dries firm with a very slight crisp, so you can easily stack your decorated sugar cookies and travel with them.

• Why corn syrup? You only need 2 teaspoons. Corn syrup gives the icing sticking power and creates a beautiful sheen on the dried icing. I don’t recommend skipping it, but you can if absolutely needed.

The Right Consistency

The ratio of confectioners’ sugar to water keeps the icing thick. If you drizzle a little icing off the whisk into the bowl, the ribbon of icing will hold for a few seconds before melting back into the icing. That’s when you know it’s the right consistency.

Use a Squeeze Bottle or Piping Bags/Tips

Here’s what I recommend for piping tips:

1. Disposable Piping Bags or Reusable Piping Bags
2. Use Wilton piping tip #4 for outlining and flooding the cookies with icing. This is the same tip I usually use for royal icing, too. (And great for piping spider webs on Halloween cupcakes!)
3. Couplers:Couplers are needed if you’re switching around your piping tips and icing colors. For example, if you only have one piping tip #4 but want to use this tip for multiple colors of icing. A coupler makes it easy to switch tips between bags of icing.
4. Optional: Bag clips, bag ties, or rubber bands to keep piping bags closed.

Or instead, use a squeeze bottle!

• To make decorating a breeze, use a squeeze bottle. They’re less intimidating than piping tips and very easy for young bakers to use. Or… just dip your cooled cookies into the icing. No tools needed.

For even more of my favorite tools, you can see this full list of my top recommendedcookie decorating supplies.

Tinting the Icing Different Colors

You can keep the icing white or tint it your desired color. Use gel food coloring because liquid food coloring can change the consistency. I like the brand AmeriColor; you can find their gel colors in the baking aisle of craft stores or give it a quick search online. I use and recommend (affiliate links) this set of 6 colors or this set of 12 colors.

• As Icing Dries, It Darkens: As icing sits in a piping bag/squeeze bottle before using AND as it dries on a cookie, the color darkens. This is the case with most colors, particularly red and black. When I make black icing, it’s usually blue-ish gray in the bowl and piping bag and then as it dries, it darkens into a black shade. Don’t go overboard on food coloring because the color will deepen as the icing dries.
• Can I Use Natural Food Coloring For Cookie Icing? Yes, absolutely! I’ve used the brand Supernatural and they have a line of natural powdered food coloring that’s available in a few colors. You need to dissolve the coloring in a little water before using, so make sure that you very slightly reduce the amount of water needed in the icing recipe. (Note: If you ever need to thicken the icing back up after adding the coloring, you can whisk in a little more confectioners’ sugar.)

This Cookie Icing Requires Planning Ahead

The icing needs at least 24 hours to dry, but you can certainly eat them prior to the icing drying. This is much longer than royal icing, which usually dries in 2 hours.

PS: If you want to decorate cookies with buttercream frosting instead, use this vanilla buttercream. Feel free to keep it on the thicker side by reducing 1 Tablespoon of milk/cream.

Looking for more holiday baking inspiration? Here are 75+ Christmas cookies with all my best success guides & tips.

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