How to Make Icing for Cookies: Recipe and Tips

It's cookie time, and we will agree that they look beautiful with a cookie icing to decorate them. The frosting is pure consistency , and it's as easy to prepare as mixing sugar and egg white. If you haven't done it so far, with all the explanations you have in this post on how to make cookie icing , the time has come to start.

You can make many and varied cookies with icing, but what I encourage you to do is start with what I personally find to be the finest, most beautiful and elegant: make white royal icing and decorate your cookies without major complications, but giving the cookie a decorated and beautiful finishes and that brings tender smiles to whoever sees your precious decorated cookies.

You may get the impression that decorating cookies with icing is not easy, but making the icing is very simple and after some practice with the piping bag you will see that you quickly get the hang of it and prepare beautiful cookies.

In this post you will find the recipe and tips to make icing for cookies , and soon I will bring you decoration ideas of Christmas cookies , so that this Christmas the table, the tree and the gift boxes are full of beautiful Christmas cookies.

How to make royal icing for cookies

Ingredients

• 480 gr of icing sugar (superfine sugar)
• 2 egg whites of one L egg, at room temperature and ideally pasteurized**
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or the essence of your choice if you prefer another, such as lemon, orange, anise...)
• water, as needed (to soften the icing if it becomes hard)
• gel food coloring (only needed if you want to make colored icing)

*The frosting is pure consistency! The proportion to make icing is 1 egg white for every 250 g of icing sugar.

**There are many people who use fresh egg whites. You can make glaze with them, without a doubt, but there is a risk that they are contaminated by bacteria (because we are talking about using raw eggs and we will not bake or cook either). Therefore, it is advisable to use Pasteurized Whites, available in large stores and 100% safe. The equivalent of the 2 egg whites in the recipe is 1/4 cup of an egg if you use the cup measurers, or 2 whites are in grams 60 grams (30 grams per white).

Cookie icing preparation

1. In a large bowl with the icing sugar, add the salt and vanilla extract (put them on the side of the bowl, not in the middle). Also add the egg whites (on the same side), which will be where you will start mixing.
2. From the side of the bowl where you added the ingredients, start mixing slowly with the help of a wire whisk. Go stirring little by little, integrating the whites with the sugar and covering more and more area of ​​​​the sugar. Thus, continue until all the sugar is integrated. This will give you the smoothest frosting, with no lumps, and no dusting outside of the bowl. Mix until you get a smooth mixture with the right consistency.

Now you have the frosting ready to start decorating your cookies!

About the pastry bags

If you are looking for practicality, you can use a disposable piping bag ( De Buyer's 20-piece set results in a really practical and accessible product); If you're environmentally conscious and don't want to buy refills, a reusable piping bag is best, like De Buyer's nylon piping bag . In all cases, the set of nozzles for pastry bags will come in handy.

Types of glazes

1. Thicker consistency icing, ideal for outlining cookies or making small decorations and details. It is also the most appropriate to introduce you to this art.
2. Liquid or light glaze , perfect for filling larger areas - all we have to do is add a few tablespoons of water (which we would add one by one) to the mixture obtained to achieve a lighter consistency.

Things to keep in mind

• If you want to make only white icing, like the one you have obtained, you can now fill your piping bag and start decorating. If you intend to make different colored icing, separate the icing obtained into different bowls, and apply the gel coloring you want to each one.
• A virtue of cookie icing is that it hardens quickly (so, when you apply it in a very short time you will have your decoration intact). But at the same time it is inconvenient when you are trying to work with it. If you see that the glaze has hardened, you only have to add a tablespoon of water and mix well, you will see that it returns to a more liquid state, and you do it again in the same way if it hardens again.
• If you see that it is going to take too long, or you want to ensure that a more solid film does not form on the surface, you should only put plastic wrap covering the surface (in contact with it).

How to apply icing on cookies

The time has come to decorate your cookies!

Outline and decorate your cookies

To highlight the pattern or shape of your cookies, or to decorate them with details, introduce the icing into the piping bag and, using a narrow nozzle or removing a small end of the bag, apply the icing on the cookie outlining its shape or doing the details you want.

Fill your cookies with the icing

If what you want is to fill your cookies, I am going to talk about two methods to do it:

1. Submersion: It's easy, fast and effective! If you want to frost the entire top of the cookie, grab the cookie by the edges and dip the top side into the frosting. You move it for a moment in the glaze, remove it, wait a moment for the excess to fall off and place it face up so that the glaze dries. You will see that the glaze is perfect, smooth and uniform on the entire surface when you let it set (it is a very quick process, you dip it on the upper side, move it, remove it and leave it on a tray).
2. Filling: once the icing has been applied to the profile of the cookie, wait for it to harden and, with the help of a spoon or a pastry bag, apply the icing, which you will have diluted with one or two tablespoons of water so that it spreads better. You will see that the frosting on the edge slows down the frosting inside. You can use a toothpick to work the inner icing into the places that are missing icing.

On the left, an example of decoration with royal icing, with a simple but beautiful decoration and biscuit outline; on the right, photo with cookies with filling, which after the icing has hardened, an additional final decoration has been applied to them (letters and details with icing, on top of the icing filling).

Other things to keep in mind

• If you want to apply decorations such as chocolate chips, flakes, shavings... do it when the icing is still wet or a liquid point (this way they will stick, however you will notice that they do not submerge into the icing and the decorations are perfectly placed).
• If you want to decorate with more icing on top of the icing already applied (for more details or colours), wait until the icing is completely dry.

It's time to start decorating cookies!