Ultimate Guide to Cookie Decorating

It’s been a few years since I started decorating sugar cookies for fun. From finding the best sugar cookie recipe to the best royal icing coloring gels, all my tips are scattered over a bunch of posts spanning different holidays. I’m always coming back to my own posts for recipes and tips, so I thought, “Why not put this all in one place?” So here’s my ultimate guide to cookie decorating for the holidays.

And by holidays, I mean any holiday. For a while, I was focused on Halloween, then I dabbled in Christmas cookies, and my first non-holiday was my son’s fourth birthday. These are so time-consuming, so I try to decorate cookies sparingly.

Guide to Cookie Decorating

Below you’ll find my favorite cookie and royal icing recipes, the tools I use each season, and a round up of all my cookie posts so you can check out more mouthwatering photos.

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Cookie Recipes

• Sugar cookies – cut cookies keep their shape, and they’re still soft!
• Gingerbread cookies – I love soft gingerbread cookies. Don’t @ me.

Royal Icing Recipes

• My go-to royal icing recipe

Coloring Gels

When coloring royal icing, use gel coloring. Do not use that watery stuff you might put in frosting! I have been using Wilton gel coloring, but lately, I’ve been drawn to Americolor. There are pros and cons for both, but I’m finding Americolor gels have a better (no taste) in the royal icing.

Tools and Gadgets

• Flooding bottles
• Outline bottles
• Halloween cookie cutters
• Christmas Cookie cutters

Cookie Blog Posts

Take a look down memory lane at some of my more successful cookie decorating adventures. Search the blog for all the not-so-successful attempts…

• Halloween 2019
• Halloween 2020
• Christmas 2018
• Christmas 2019 – using Gingerbread Cookies on a cake
• Christmas 2020
• Spider-Man Cookies