Hello, hello! Happy (almost) February! These are a little early for Valentine’s day but really are versatile in that they can be made for so many occasions. What set of cookies couldn’t use a floral wreath? 🙂  The swan and dress might be stretching it a bit more, and aren’t even necessarily Valentiney (A made-up word there I think?), but I honestly just loved decorating those shapes, as well as the wreath, and wanted to make them again. This time, I’ve made a video, which I hope you find helpful, especially if you’re new(er) to decorating.

Video – How to Decorate Simple Valentine Cookies with Royal Icing

Click here if you can’t see the video.

I’m including all the tutorials I refer to in video, as well as the tools and recipes, below.

Many thanks to Rosey of Rosey Confectionery Sugar Art, whose work I’ve admired a for quite some time now, for the adorable dress cutter and design. She created such a pretty dress, I didn’t want to change a thing! Also want to share my thanks to Anna of The Sweetest Tiers for her beautiful swan design (cutter bought at How Sweet is That?), Delarose of  Sword’s Sugars, for the bow cookie inspiration, and to LilaLoa for sharing Delarose’s tutorial on her site! So pretty!

Decorating Cookies

Find the cookie cutters I used here by clicking on each individual cutter below (Any links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links. There is no extra cost to you).

Cookie Cutters:

• Circle Cookie Cutters
• Dress Cutter
• Swan with Crown Cutter
• Heart Cutter
• Ann Clark Bow Cutter
• Tea Pot Cutter
• Dress Cookie Cutter (Also similar ones are here).

Sugar Cookie Recipe

The sugar cookie recipe can be found here.

Royal Icing Recipe

The royal icing recipe can be found here.

Decorating Items

Tools you’ll need:

• Piping Tips –  PME #1.5, PME #1, #2, #3, PME #43, #59s, star #14
• Piping Bags
• Couplers
• Gel paste colors
• Scribe Tool or Toothpicks
• Rose Silicon Molds
• Dahlia Mold (only one left). Here are some other flower molds
• Fondant
• Edible Ink Marker
• Paintbrushes (only used for food purposes)
• Gold Luster Dust (sold out at the link here, but that is the product I use)

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.

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.

Let me also mention that the beautiful thing about cookies, is that they freeze really well. If you’d like to start baking and decorating early for any event, click on the links to find posts on freezing cookies, thawing cookies and the shelf life of cookies.

Have fun playing around with your cookie designs!

xo,

Marian

p.s. Below are also few videos/posts on different techniques and commonly asked questions, especially for new cookie decorators, in case you’d like to check them out. Click on each link to find the post and video:

Piping Royal Icing Lines

Royal Icing Decorating Tips

More Royal Icing Tips – Top 10

Cookie Decorating Schedule

Detailed Cookie Decorating Tutorial

Storing Royal Icing

How to Dry Decorated Cookies

And here is the FAQ section in case I haven’t covered a question you have. Please feel free to leave a comment below as well!