Decorating cookies may seem intimidating at first, but it can be fun and easy! Whether you want to start decorating cookies as a hobby or start a cookie business, this cookie decorating beginners guide will teach you how to start decorating cookies.
Get access to exclusive cookie decorating tutorials, my cookie and royal icing recipes, and individualized cookie decorating advice by joining my Cookie Art Club!
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You don’t need to be an expert baker to decorate cookies. In the video below, I’ll show you five easy designs that any novice baker can do!
What You Need To Get Started
You don’t really need a whole bunch of special equipment to start decorating cookies. Just find the right cookie and icing recipes (we’ll get into that below), some decorating bags (or sandwich bags!), food coloring, and a toothpick. Even if you don’t have cookie cutters, you can cut your own cookies using a paper template and a knife!
Your Cookie Of Choice
The first thing you’ll need are cookies, of course! There are hundreds (if not thousands) of cookie recipes online, but many of them might not be right for making a decorated cookie. The cookie needs to hold its shape and have a flat surface so that the icing doesn’t run off of the edges.
It might take some trial and error to find a cookie recipe that works right for you. Look for recipes called “roll out cookies” or “cut-out cookies”. I recommend starting with trusted cookie decorating bloggers like Haniela’s, LilaLoa, or Sweet Sugarbelle. Or, if you’d like to try my orange vanilla cardamom recipe, you can join my Cookie Art Club.
Whichever cookie recipe you decide to use, this post on how to bake perfect cookies can help you adjust a recipe to help the cookies keep their shape.
Choosing the right icing recipe
Just like with the cookie recipe, you might have to go through some trial and error to find a royal icing recipe that you love. By nature royal icing is super sweet and the icing hardens, so it’s not right for everyone. But, its versatility makes it the best icing for making intricate designs on cookies. My royal icing recipe comes with my cookie recipe and you can also try recipes from my cookie friends that I mentioned above.
If you’re looking for a vegan cookie and royal icing recipe, check out my friend Haniela’s vegan royal icing and cookie recipes here.
Tools For Decorating Cookies
To start out decorating cookies, all you need is a pastry bag (or sandwich bags!), food coloring, and a toothpick. Once you feel more comfortable with cookie decorating and you want to invest a little more in your new venture, get yourself some supplies like decorating tips, luster dusts, brushes, and edible markers just to name a few.
When you’re ready to upgrade your tools, take a look at this post to see my favorite cookie decorating supplies.
What else do you need to decorate cookies?
When you’re ready to step outside of your comfort zone (something I’m still working on!), you can get into airbrushing, stenciling, and even adding molded fondant or modeling chocolate decorations to your cookies.
While all of these tools are helpful, you don’t need them to start out decorating cookies. Even if you don’t have cookie cutters at home, you can have fun creating your own paper templates to cut the cookies by hand (something I have done many, many times!).
Getting The Right Icing Consistency
Getting your royal icing to be just the right consistency – not to thick and not too thin – is one of the most challenging things about cookie decorating. My ultimate guide to royal icing has tips on how to get it right.
Read my Ultimate Guide To Royal Icing to learn all about royal icing consistencies.
Tips Before You Get Started
While cookie decorating can be so fun and easy, you will inevitably encounter some issues along the way.
Butter bleed, color bleed, fragile icing, air bubbles are just a few of the problems that plague us cookie decorators. This post has my tips that you can read before you get started so you’ll be ready to tackle these issues!
Icing consistencies
Whether you are making your icing from scratch or using a royal icing mix, the most challenging part of decorating cookies is getting the right icing consistency. For icing the base layer of the cookie (aka “flooding”) you want it thin enough so that it will smooth out on its own, but not so thin that it runs off the edge of the cookie. This post has my tips on getting the consistency just right!
Cookie Designs To Start With
It may be tempting to try out one of the elaborate cookie designs you see on social media, but it’s a good idea to start with a simple design so that you don’t get overwhelmed and frustrated. Here are 5 cookie designs that are perfect for beginners!
Then, once you get comfortable with icing consistency and holding a piping bag, you can move on to more advanced designs, like these garden cookies.
Cookie Design Ideas
Once of the questions I’m asked most often is, where do I find inspiration for my cookie designs? The short answer is everywhere!
Cookie Decorating Tutorials and Classes
Just do a quick google search and you will find thousands of helpful cookie decorating tutorials. There are so many talented cookie decorators out there teaching what they know, and, just like the cookie and icing recipes, it’s going to take some trial and error to find a teacher that you love.
You can take a look at my YouTube channel here where I have hundreds of free cookie decorating tutorials. Other YouTube channels to check out are Haniela’s and Montreal Confections.
If you want to get more detailed instruction on cookie decorating with royal icing, take a look at my online class, Royal Icing 101 (available in the Cookie Art Club). The class includes a printable PDF of my royal icing recipe and my signature orange cardamom cookie recipe.
How to store decorated cookies
Once you’ve finished your edible masterpieces, you’ll want to make sure they stay fresh for the recipient! This post on how to pack decorated cookies for shipping shows you how to package your cookies and it lists my favorite cookie packaging supplies.
You can even freeze decorated cookies for up to 3 months! Take a look at my tutorial on how to freeze decorated cookies here.
Can you sell cookies from home?
Many of us cookie decorators started out by baking cookies in our home kitchen to sell to friends and neighbors. As your business grows, you’ll want to look into the licensing rules in your area to find out whether or not you can sell cookies from your home kitchen.
My friend Mimi Fix of Baking Fix got me started with all of the proper permits for my cookie business. She has books, teaches classes, and does consulting for those who want to bake for profit. Take a look at Mimi’s website here to find out more.
