Hello, hello and happy camping! Kind of mishmash of themes; camping, the outdoors, cottage, lumberjack, I wasn’t sure what to call these cookies. They were for my father’s 70th birthday party, so I included cookies which somewhat represent him. He’s a hard worker, having built the wood cabin my parents live in up north in the forest and he’s also a professional chef and teacher, so you may notice some cooking-themed cookies here and there in the photos and video – those will be for another time.

As for the royal icing recipe, I did some experimenting with flavor oils to see if it would affect how the royal icing acted and dried on the cookie, and I’m happy to share that it works well and I love the added rich flavor! I added LorAnn Oils Caramel Flavoring to my favorite royal icing recipe and loved it! I can’t vouch for other brands but imagine it’s fine to use others as well, so if you can’t find LorAnn’s, here are some options. This isn’t a sponsored post, I only share things I love with you, although you should know I am an Amazon affiliate so I do get a small commission from Amazon sales. Another note about the caramel royal icing, it didn’t tint my icing a brownish color at all, and I colored my icing as I usually do.

The royal icing recipe is below, feel free to try it out and add more or less caramel flavoring according to your preference!

Caramel Royal Icing Recipe

And now onto the cookies, I’ll share the basics, a how to video and all the tools for each cookie, below. Please feel free to leave me a comment below if you have any questions.

Hope you enjoy making these, they were a lot of fun to decorate!

Video Tutorial on Decorating Camping Cookies with Royal Icing

If you can’t see the video click here.

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 Dough

The cookie recipes used in this post are roll out sugar cookies and cookies n’ cream roll out cookies. You can find more roll out cookie recipes here.

Cookie Cutters

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

• circle cutters
• scallopped cutters
• cabin
• tree 1
• tree 2
• tree 3
• loon
• maple syrup bottle

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 have shared each consistency in the Decorating Camping Cookies Video.

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:

• Piping Tips –  PME #1.5, PME #2, PME #2.5 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.

For most of these cookies, the video will show all the details you’ll need to know, otherwise I have shared a few notes, as well as the tools used for each.

Cross Section of Stump Cookies

To make the cross section of a stump cookies, outline your circle with brown icing and a #2.5 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.

For the edible moss, 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.

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.

Other items used:

• Wilton paintbrush
• Necco wafer, grey
• pretzel stick

Lumberjack Cookie

For the lumberjack, I used the Pico projector. It’s a small, hand-held size projector that I use to project an image onto my cookie. It’s plugged into my iPad and mounted on this Arkon mount below.  The mount is called the Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand, is $139.99 and you can get it on Arkon’s site here. You can get 20% off with the coupon code sweetopia. You should know I am an affiliate of Arkon and Amazon, but only share products I use and love with you.

To use it, I just load the image in an app on my iPad called Camera-Lucida, rotate it 180 degrees (the image projects upside down), and I’m ready to go.

If you’re interested in trying them out, here is what I use:

Pico Projector

Arkon Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand (20% off with coupon code sweetopia)

iPad

Mini HDMI to HDMI cable  (doesn’t come with the Pico projector)

Lightning to HDMI Adapter (Adapter for HDMI cable to attach to iPad)

The projector comes on it’s own, and it’s key to have a good mount to hold it up. I love the Arkon mount… it’s sturdy with a solid base so I don’t need to clamp it to a table and can move it anywhere, it can easily be adjusted to project at any angle and the clamps which hold the projector and iPad are adjustable, snug and tight.

Other Items:

• Lumberjack Template pdf (printable link)
• Nesco Gardenmaster Dehydrator
• Buffalo Plaid Stencil (If sold out at How Sweet is That?  Amazon has stencils here).
• Stencil Genie
• Dinkydoodle Airbrush
• Black Airbrush Food Coloring
• Sanding Sugar

Cabin Cookies

For the cabins, I used the Pico projector.  I mentioned this earlier, but in case you missed it, it’s a small, hand-held size projector that I use to project an image onto my cookie. It’s plugged into my iPad and mounted on this Arkon mount below.  The mount is called the Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand, is $139.99 and you can get it on Arkon’s site here. You can get 20% off with the coupon code sweetopia. You should know I am an affiliate of Arkon and Amazon, but only share products I use and love with you.

Please see above in Lumberjack cookies for more detail on the projector.

Other Items:

• ruler
• brown edible pen
• black sugar pearls
• long tweezers
• cabin image (I bought the images, I’m not sure I can share the file here though)

Tree Cookies

No other tools etc. for the trees, although I did do some different designs than what is shown in the video. Please let me know in the comment section below if you have any questions.

Birch Tree Cookies

For the birch trees, I used the Pico projector.  I mentioned this earlier, but in case you missed it, it’s a small, hand-held size projector that I use to project an image onto my cookie. It’s plugged into my iPad and mounted on this Arkon mount below.  The mount is called the Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand, is $139.99 and you can get it on Arkon’s site here. You can get 20% off with the coupon code sweetopia. You should know I am an affiliate of Arkon and Amazon, but only share products I use and love with you.

Please see above in Lumberjack cookies for more detail on the projector.

Other Items:

• black Food Art pen
• green Food Art pen
• grey food powder coloring
• Wilton paintbrush
• birch tree pattern

Lantern Cookies

For the lanterns, I used the Pico projector.  I mentioned this earlier, but in case you missed it, it’s a small, hand-held size projector that I use to project an image onto my cookie. It’s plugged into my iPad and mounted on this Arkon mount below.  The mount is called the Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand, is $139.99 and you can get it on Arkon’s site here. You can get 20% off with the coupon code sweetopia. You should know I am an affiliate of Arkon and Amazon, but only share products I use and love with you.

Please see above in Lumberjack cookies for more detail on the projector.

Other Items:

• lantern image (I bought the images, I’m not sure I can share the file here though)
• Wilton paintbrush
• paint palette
• edible gold

Compass Cookies

The “glass” for the compass cookies is made with isomalt, which is a sugar substitute that has little impact on insulin levels, however, please be warned, it can cause flatulence so should be consumed in small quantities. Eat the compass cookie in small amounts; save for later or share!

Other items:

• PME pearl edible lustre spray
• frosting sheets
• edible ink printer (never use with real ink cartridges)
• edible ink cartridges
• compass rose template 1 (printable pdf)
• compass rose template 2 (printable pdf)
• exacto knife
• compass stencil
• gum paste or fondant  (you will likely need to color by hand with gel food coloring)
• small fondant rolling pin
• glass precision cutting mat
• pocket watch silicone mold
• long tweezers
• barbeque skewer
• isomalt crystals
• stainless steel circle cutters
• clear corn syrup
• paper towel
• sponge brush

Compass Rose Template 1

Compass Rose Template 2

Loon Cookies

• White Chalk Edible Pen
• Design inspiration from here.

Maple Syrup Jar Cookies

• frosting sheets
• edible ink printer (never use with real ink cartridges)
• edible ink cartridges
• maple leaf clip art and inspiration from iStock
• red food art pen

If  you have any questions or comments please feel free to drop me a line below in the comment section or on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube.

I also have a FAQ section here and a glossary of terms here in case you’re new to decorating. I may have 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