If you’re like me and your love of sprinkles borders on an obsession, take a quick look at a calendar, find the next birthday coming up and make these birthday sprinkle cake cookies for the lucky birthday boy or girl!

Step 1:

To make birthday sprinkle cake cookies you will need:

Cookies made from your favorite sugar cookie recipe and cut using a wedding cake cookie cutter
Royal icing in white (12-count consistency), gold (12-count consistency), and black (piping consistency). (If you need help with icing color or consistency, check out the How To Make Royal Icing section of http://sugarkissed.net/cookie-decorating-resources/101 Essential Cookie Decorating Resources.)
Gold luster dust
Rainbow nonpareils
A small, food safe paint brush
Icing bags or bottles, couplers, and tips (You can use a #2 tip for all the steps in this tutorial.)

Step 2:

Before you begin, plan out how thick you want to make each layer of ribbon and cake. If you want a guide when icing, you can draw each layer on your cookie using a food coloring marker.

Start by using gold-colored royal icing to outline and immediately fill in the ribbon areas on each layer of your sprinkle cake cookies. Set the cookies aside to let the icing dry until moving on to the next step (at least 20 minutes). Working one cookie at a time, outline and immediately fill in the cake layers with white icing. While the white icing is still wet, cover the cookie in rainbow sprinkles. Turn the cookie vertically to gently knock off any excess sprinkles. Use the straight edge of a knife to press any unruly sprinkles neatly into place.

Step 3:

Using a small piping tip, draw thin lines to create the cake stand with black royal icing (If you are using chocolate cookies, I recommend using white icing instead so that there is a contrast between the stand and the background.) Let the cookies dry completely, preferably overnight.

With gold-colored royal icing, draw a simple bow with ribbon flowing down the tiers of the sprinkle cake cookie.

Step 4:

Set the cookies aside to let the icing dry until moving on to the next step (at least 20 minutes). Mix a small amount of gold luster dust with a few drops of vodka or alcohol-based extract (NOT water). Paint the gold paste that is produced on the gold layers of royal icing.

Step 5:

The alcohol will evaporate, leaving behind a pretty metallic gold ribbon on your sprinkle cake cookies. Let the cookies dry completely, preferably overnight, before stacking or packaging.