5 Tips For Making Professional Looking Sugar Cookies
Peacock and Floral Bridal Shower Sugar Cookies
Iced Sugar cookies have been taking the social media world by storm! Have you ever wanted to include a batch of totally adorable party themed cookies to your latest celebration? Did you go searching for a local cookie artist? And did your totally-adorable-party-themed-cookie bubble burst like a balloon arch on a windy day because you’d have to sell your left kidney in order to afford just one dozen?
Well, I’m here to tell you as a living and breathing self-taught cookie artist that you can have your cookie dreams come true for that next celebratory event you are planning!
I’m going to share my top 5 tips for achieving professional iced sugar cookies that will leave your party guests jaw-dropped and drooling.
COOKIES: It starts with the proper canvas. We will cover how to achieve the perfect cookies for icing.
TOOLS: Next we will go over some essential tools that will instantly take your cookies to the next level.
ICING: We will touch on what icing recipe to use and why consistency matters.
DRYING: I’ll share some drying techniques to achieve a nice shine and prevent icing craters (little holes that can appear on details with small surface areas).
TECHNIQUES: Finally, I’ll list a couple texturing and transfer techniques to add some fun dimension to your designs.
COOKIES
[TOP]Example of an unevenly rolled out sugar cookie.
[BOTTOM]Example of an evenly rolled out cookie.
It all begins with the cookies. You can’t have bumpy or distorted cookies when you’re trying to flood icing on them. They need to be flat, and with crisp edges. There are hundreds of sugar cookie recipes out there, so here is what you’re looking for:
A recipe that is specifically for “cut-out” sugar cookies, not drop cookies.
A recipe that has little to no leavening, it’s not necessary for cut-out cookies and will only promote spreading—which we want to avoid in order to achieve beautiful crisp edges.
When rolling out your cookies try your best to roll out evenly. If not, you risk having a slanted cookie and your icing will drip (See picture of unevenly rolled sugar cookie above.) Use a very lightly floured surface, or my personal fave, sandwiched between two pieces of parchment paper.
Once your cookies are rolled, now it’s time to cut them out. If your dough is too soft, and you can easily make a finger imprint in it, I recommend chilling the rolled out dough for 15 min before cutting out your cookies. By doing this, you will be able to achieve super clean, crisp cuts.
Once all your cuts are made, carefully strip away the excess dough. Next, rather than using a spatula to lift the cookies off the parchment paper, which can easily distort the shape, I recommend lifting the parchment paper to flip each cookie onto a flat hand, peeling the parchment away from the bottom of the cookie, and then without manhandling the freed cookie, carefully flip it back over onto your other flat hand, and gently lower it to a parchment or silpat-lined baking sheet.
Once all your cookies are on the baking sheet, pop it back into the fridge for 15 min, or the freezer for 10 min, before baking. This will promote, once again, those crisp edges we are going for!
TOOLS
You don’t need all the expensive tools on the market to make your cookies look professional. Isn’t that great news?! You can achieve optimal results with little to no tools in fact. There are just three main tools I’d highly recommend to upscale your cookies.
Tipless Piping Bags. These are gonna be one of the main game changers in taking your cookies from crafty to couture. You want the ability to make the details clean, controlled, and intricate. The smaller the hole on your bag, the more crisp details you can achieve, and tipless piping bags are how you can acquire that control. You can get the ones I use, here.
Scribe. You will need something to pop air bubbles that rise to the surface of your icing, as well as, move the icing around to ensure full, even and smooth coverage. Icing consistency will also help with this, which I will get to in the next tip. The scribe also helps me move icing to small corners on tiny details in order to achieve sharp angles instead of rounded ones. It’s subtle, but the difference is profound. Any cookie scribe will do, or a toothpick works well also.
Edible Markers/Tissue Paper. A tiny tipped edible marker is so incredibly helpful for transferring designs. Whether it be lettering, flowers, or linear patterns, it’s best to draw these out ahead of time, perfecting the design on paper. Once the design is exactly how you want it, trace it with an edible marker onto tissue paper and transfer it to your flooded cookie. This way, the design can be repeated with consistency over many cookies, and you will not have to worry about free handing the design with a drag of icing. These are the edible markers I use.
Dehydrator or Fan. Ok the dehydrator is definitely an investment. If you’re not quite ready to buy a dehydrator or don’t intend on making this cookie hobby anything more than just an occasional thing, then a simple fan will also help. The reason drying is important will be mentioned in the Drying tip if you read on.
That’s it! No need for a projector, edible printer, or any other major device.
Next let’s get into the reason why icing consistency and drying are also huge factors in how your cookies turn out.
ICING
You might know this, or you may not. When I began my cookie decorating journey this news was life altering! You will need a total of three, maaaaybe even four, icing consistencies. To achieve these consistencies you will start by separating a portion out of the batch for the color you are mixing. Slowly add a half tsp at a time of warm water to the stiff icing to begin making the first consistency. After loosening the stiff consistency just a little bit, you’ll add your color. You may want to separate this extra stiff consistency right away if you want a consistency for piping realistic florals or leaves. If so pop a small amount into a piping bag fitted with a petal tip. This is why I mention maybe wanting four consistencies. However, if you’re not adding any “buttercream-looking” details, this is unnecessary and you’ll just move on to learning about the three main icing consistencies. After adding your color and mixing it thoroughly, keep adding water, ½ tsp at a time, until it’s the right consistency. Once you’ve made the first consistency, you’ll separate a tablespoon, or so, into a tipless bag, before moving onto the next consistency, and so on. Below is a description of each consistency:
Detail: This consistency is used for achieving any linear details, or the outlines for all other details. This is a “toothpaste” consistency. It will have a slight sheen to it, when it’s being mixed, and form soft peaks when you pull the spoon up and out of it.
Hybrid: This consistency is used for the coveted puffy details we all know and love. It’s a slightly-halfway point between detail and flood consistencies and referred to, sometimes, as a “15-18 second” consistency. Meaning it takes about 15-18 seconds to smooth out. This was the game changer for me. It’s not quite runny enough to go flat, it holds its dimension still, but not quite as stiff as detail, allowing for the dimension to take on a smooth, rounded shape within its borders, which are held firm by the detail consistency.
Flood: This consistency is for flooding the base of the cookie. You need it fairly runny to flood and settle smoothly, but not too runny it runs off the cookie. The experts say it’s a “10 second” consistency, meaning it takes about 10 seconds to settle into itself. If you were to drizzle a bit into a pile, it would take 10 seconds to settle into a smooth puddle with no “drizzle” marks left to be seen.
DRYING
Example of a an iced sugar cookie with craters in the icing.
Drying is an underestimated tip. Obviously you need your cookies dry before you move on from one detail to another. But why is this tip-worthy? Depending on how you dry will determine a few things. If you dry in a food dehydrator, or with a fan gently blowing a steady stream of air, not AT your cookies, but horizontally across the top of your cookies, you will achieve the following:
Obviously you will cut-down dry time.
You will notice your cookie icing has a beautiful shine to it, as opposed to a matte finish.
You will help avoid divots and icing craters. Divots are small imperfections that can be seen in the flood or larger filled areas, as dips or puckers. Craters are small holes that form on details that have a small surface area. They are, how do I put this…MADDENING. Especially if you do all the work to make absolutely stunning puffy letters and then once they are dry, and not until then, they develop awful holes! Sure you could try running a scribe through and pop any air bubbles you see, but at the end of the day, you will still find craters. I am speaking from experience! That said, I found the fan helped, but the dehydrator was the saving grace…to put it bluntly. So, while you don’t absolutely NEED a dehydrator, I strongly suggest at least a fan for elevating your sugar cookies to the professional level you and I are both here for.
TECHNIQUE
Lastly, and this one is just a bonus; you could actually run with the first four tips and be golden, but I thought it would be fun to add a couple fun techniques to the table. If you employ one or both of these techniques to your cookie arrangements, your cookies will instantly look chic.
Play With Textures: It’s important to have one or two “filler” designs. These are perhaps less intricate than the rest of the cookie designs, but they don’t have to be plain. Add a texture! When you flood your cookie, take a piece of crumpled parchment paper and gently lay it over the wet icing. Don’t smash the living daylights out of it, but press it down gently and slowly until you see the entire surface area of icing has adhered to the parchment. Let it dry. You will need this one to dry much longer than the rest because it’s not exposed to the air per usual, and you want it fully and completely dried before you gently peel the parchment away from the cookie. When you do, you will be left with a beautiful textured cookie to be left as is, or to add one or two simple design elements.
Have Fun With Transfers: Transfers are design elements that are created on a silpat or parchment paper and then transferred to the cookie once dry. This is a great way to add dimension! You can layer your transfers in fun artistic ways or flip them over to create a 3-D effect just to name a few ideas! I recommend keeping your transfers “sturdy” in their design, meaning, no intricate lettering or linear designs as they will break too easily when peeling and transferring. Stick to elements that have a good amount of surface area that will easily peel away from the parchment without breaking.
There you have it! All you need to take your cookies to the next level. If you’d like some design direction and step-by-step guidance, check-out my online cookie class or available in-person classes! You can always shoot me an email if you have questions, or let me know what other tips you’d like me to address. Thanks for being here!
Remember, you were created to create. Some people exercise creativity more than others, but we all have it—so have fun tapping into that God-given part of you! Let go of all perfectionism, or any critical thoughts about your abilities and just GO FOR IT!
