Hello, hello! Happy November! Already into the swing of holiday baking, I’ve been in the mood to experiment with recipes. I love using different extracts to change the flavor of my royal icing, but I’ve always wanted to have a chocolate royal icing made using cocoa powder, especially to pair with these peanut butter cut-out cookies. So finally, after batches of experimentation, I’m ready to share this chocolaty royal icing recipe.

I’ll be sharing how to make the cookies pictured here after the recipe as well. Please feel free to leave me a comment below if you have any questions.

A few notes to share with you about the icing. It’s quite thick once mixed for 10 minutes, but can be thinned out the same way you’d thin out regular royal icing. Here is a video on icing consistency if you like.

The quality of cocoa powder makes a difference with the flavor. Use your favorite brand but rest assured it still tastes nice with the cheapest cocoa powder I could find.

After the icing has been mixed, the shade of brown is quite light, so add brown food coloring to darken it or change the shade if you like.

You can still end up seeing some of the cocoa powder granules…

…but it’s barely noticeable once the icing dries.

I also tried using more cocoa powder than 1/3 of a cup but I found the larger amount of cocoa affected how the icing dried. It looked like this:

I still ended up using the cookies by covering them with lines.

Now onto the recipe!

Chocolate Royal Icing Recipe

How to Decorate These Cookies

I’ll be sharing the cookie cutters, tools, and basic decorating tips first, and then will explain how I made the individual designs below.

Cookie Cutters

Find the cookie cutters by clicking on each individual cutter below (Any links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links):

Wreath Cookies (Scalloped Circle Cutters)

Squares

Hexagons (I have Oggibox cutters)

Mittens

Leaf (with evergreen design)

Heart

Sweater

Whimsical Tree

Plaque Cutters

Buck Cutter – From How Sweet is That’s shop

Royal Icing Consistency

The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating. Click here to see a YouTube video on finding the right icing thickness for basic flooding and decorating. I used different consistencies for some of the details of the cookies, and will explain according to each cookie below.

Cookie Decorating Basics

This video on outlining and flooding is a good place to start if you’re new to decorating cookies with royal icing. These cookie decorating basics YouTube videos may also be helpful to get you started.

Decorating Items

What you’ll need (these are affiliate links):

• Piping Tips –  PME #1.5, PME #2 and PME #3 (I used a few more tips and will explain in individual cookie descriptions. Please leave me a comment below if you have questions)
• Piping Bags
• Couplers
• Gel paste colors
• Scribe Tool or Toothpicks
• I’ll be sharing more tools needed to make some of these cookies, in the corresponding cookie how-to descriptions below.

Before I get down to sharing the details on each cookie, let me mention that it may seem strange to be sharing holiday cookies this early, but the beautiful thing about cookies, is that they freeze really well. If you’d like to start baking and decorating early, click on the links to find posts on freezing cookies, thawing cookies and the shelf life of cookies.

Cookies Decorated with Lines

Outline and flood your cookie base and let dry for at least an hour. The consistency of the icing for piping lines should be like toothpaste. Somewhat thick so the line holds its shape, but not too thick so that the icing becomes brittle and breaks easily.

If you dip a spoon into the icing there should be a peak… The tip of it will flop over, but it’ll be a fairly thick icing.

If I had to choose I would err on the side of making the icing thicker.

Here is a video for you on how to pipe icing lines if you like.

Mongram Cookies

The J is a royal icing transfer. Also known as run outs, flood work, Color Flow (by Wilton), or run sugar, is basically the piping of a runny royal icing onto parchment paper or acetate paper into an outlined shape.

When the shape dries, you have an icing design which you can use for a multitude of decorating purposes; on cakes, cookies, gingerbread houses, cupcakes etc.   You can also pipe onto wires, toothpicks, skewers etc. so that your design can be ‘free-standing’. Click here to see a tutorial on royal icing transfers. I used this J as my template and dusted the dry J with silver shimmer dust.

Large Deer Cookies

The deer are also royal icing transfers (See description under Monogram Cookies and click here for a tutorial on how to make royal icing transfers).

The design came from a gift bag I bought a few years ago at Chapters Indigo.

Note that the icing transfers are fragile and can break easily, to I make sure I let mine dry for a few days at least and always make extra shapes than I need.

Besides the basic royal icing transfer tutorial here, these are the steps I took to make these deer:

Pipe the outline of the head and flood with 10 second icing. Pipe the white inside of the ear immediately on top of the brown icing and drag a toothpick or scribe tool from the brown to the white to create the furry look.

Once the deer head has set (at least one hour), pipe the red scarf. Pipe the eyes and nose using 10 second icing and a tip #1.5 or #2. Draw the lines around the perimeter of  the deer head using an edible ink black pen.

You could draw the buffalo plaid print on at this stage, but I ended up drawing them on at the end.

Pipe the antlers and let them dry at least one day before you remove the icing transfer. I left some deer without antlers for variety and because I knew the antlers would be quite breakable.

Using a scribe tool draw the grid pattern on the scarf and then color the buffalo pattern in with an edible ink marker.

When removing the icing transfer from the acetate paper or transparency peel the paper away from icing, rather than trying to pull the icing away from the paper.  Adhere to your cookie with dabs of royal icing.

Edible Moss Cookies

Thank you to Lisa of The Bear Foot Baker and  Mike of Semi Sweet Designs for their tutorials on how to make edible moss. I thought coconut might work but wasn’t sure so did a google search and found their tutorials – both excellent! I ended up pulsing graham cracker crumbs in a food processor and adding food coloring to the mix without diluting it, and then baked the green crumbs in oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes to dry them out a bit. Just a note that the moss food coloring I tried at first ended up making the crumbs too dark, so went with Wilton’s leaf green, which is what you see pictured here. I just added food coloring until I was happy with the shade. Sorry the information is not precise, it was the first time I’d tried it so just experimented a bit. I’ve linked to the other tutorials above if you’d like to check them out.

Another note, I really enjoyed decorating with this “edible moss”… Satisfying to see it come together. The extra “moss” is ready to go in a ziplock bag for the next time. It’s easy to apply by the way – Just ice your cookie, sprinkle the moss onto the icing and let it dry. I placed my cookie on a coffee filter to catch the excess crumbs and pour back into the ziplock bag for the next cookie.

Sweater Decorated Cookie

For the sweater cookie, outline and flood the base of the cookie with 10 second, slightly ivory, royal icing. To pipe the sweater pattern, use tip #1.5 to outline the neck, cuffs and around the perimeter of the cookie and pipe the “knit” using tip #2. I have a similar video here if you’d like to check it out.

Buffalo Plaid Cookies

To make your buffalo plaid cookie, ice your cookie with red royal icing (10 second consistency). Once the icing has dried (I waited until the next day), use an airbrush to stencil the pattern on. I definitely don’t feel qualified to share a how-to on airbrushing as I’m so new to it, but I can share a few things I learned. First, here’s what I used:

Buffalo Plaid Stencil (Sold out at How Sweet is That? but Amazon has stencils here).

Dinkydoodle Airbrush

Black Airbrush Food Coloring

Stencil Genie (Helped hold the stencil in place, loved this tool).

A few things I learned:

Definitely place your cookie inside a cardboard box (I cut one side open to make it easier to spray) to catch the tiny food coloring spray particles. Even so, I still found some escaped onto the surfaces I was near, so next time I’ll be doing it in the garage or outside, weather permitting.

Wear a mask! Now I know why people who airbrush do! Let’s just say I found food coloring in interesting places. Sorry. 

The details seemed to be more precise the closer I went to the stencil, but again, I don’t think I should be sharing airbrushing information as I’m a beginner. Maybe more some day.

Cross Section of Stump Cookies

To make the cross section of a stump cookies, outline your circle with brown icing and a #3 tip. While the icing is wet sprinkle brown graham cracker crumbs or brown sanding sugar on the edges. (To make the brown graham cracker crumbs, pulse graham cracker crumbs or crackers in a food processor and add brown food paste coloring and mix. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes to dry crumbs out).

Once the outline has set flood the cookie with light brown icing and a slightly darker brown near the center and immediately pipe brown circles on top. Run a toothpick or scribe tool through the circles to make them a little uneven. Sprinkle some edible moss (see explanation above, under Edible Moss Cookies) on the edges. Once the base icing has dried adhere a pretzel stick for an ax handle and broken, grey, Necco Wafer for the ax head.

He is Risen Cookies

Usually, “He is Risen” is shared around Easter time, referring to Jesus’ resurrection, and Christmas time is a celebration of His birth, but because I made these for a church event last week, and the He is Risen stencil is the only one I had relating to Jesus, I used it. It’s a good reminder any time, I thought. For these cookies, flood your base with 10 second royal icing and once the icing has dried, sprinkle silver shimmer dust mixed with vodka (I used raspberry vodka, but you can also use any clear extract) onto the cookies with a paintbrush only used for this purpose. I kind of flick the paint brush over the cookies to get that splatter look. Once that has set, airbrush your cookies using the following tools:

He is Risen Stencil (Sold out at How Sweet is That? but a similar one can be found on Amazon here).

Dinkydoodle Airbrush

Dark Green Airbrush Food Coloring

Evergreen Cookies

Thanks to Lorena of Lorena’s Sweets for the idea for the evergreens on a leaf cookie cutter. I piped ivory 10 second royal icing as a base and once that was dry piped the brown stem with a #3 tip and added forest green needles with a #3 tip as well. The pine cone was made using fondant colored brown and pressed into this mold.  I placed the mold in the freezer for 5 minutes and then the fondant popped out easily. Each pine cone was dusted with a little bit of silver shimmer dust and adhered to the cookie with a little royal icing.

Wreath Decorated Cookies

For the wreath cookies, flood your base with 10 second royal icing and once the icing has dried, sprinkle silver shimmer dust mixed with vodka (I used raspberry vodka, but you can also use any clear extract) onto the cookies with a paintbrush only used for this purpose. I kind of flick the paint brush over the cookies to get that splatter look. Once that has set, pipe thick icing in layered and overlapping circles, using tip #1.5.

To make the flowers, I used:

Rose Silicon Mold

Rose Silicon Mold 2

Dahlia Mold

For the roses, I colored fondant red with paste food coloring and pressed it into the molds, let them set in the freezer for 5 minutes, popped them out and adhered them to the wreath with small dabs of royal icing.

For the dahlia, I followed the same process except I didn’t color the fondant red, dusted it with pale shimmer dust and adhered to the cookie with icing.

The leaves were piped with leaf tip 65S, using Wilton leaf green food paste coloring, and the tiny star tip #362 and small rosettes star tip #14 were made using Americolor Avocado and Lime Green. The daisies I piped on parchment using a #2 tip for the petals and centers.

I’m sure I’ve missed some details, there was so much to share in this post, so please feel free to ask any questions below and thanks for visiting me here!

Happy decorating!

xo,

Marian