Simple Cookie Icing for the Not So Skilled Baker

I am not very good at icing or baking or cooking, or anything that has to do with a kitchen really.. I almost burnt the house down making tea >.> oops. But for Valentines day every year (and my anniversary) I try my best not to burn the house down and make a home cooked meal or desert for my boyfriend.

This year I made him gingerbread cookies from scratch (since its his favorite type of cookie) and I used cookie cutters to make them cute. But I didn't just want to give him cookie cut cookies, I wanted to make them look pretty too. But as I said I am a little spastic. However I stuck with some rather simple icing designs and made the most adorable cookies! They look more professional then I imagined they would!!

So with a thin icing tip and a fairly steady hand you too can make adorable cookies!!

Step 1: Materials

<3   Cookies
<3   Icing
<3   Food Coloring
<3   Icing Bags and Tips of various sizes. (You can buy these at the grocery stores)
        If you buy any tip, buy a small drawing tip. I swear the tip is amazing, everything I tried just looked great with it. Im pretty sure its magical!
<3   If you dont have icing bags or cant find them you can use sandwich bags and cut one of he corners with a scissor to fit your tips.
<3   A Fridge

And of course some Love and creativity!  <3

Step 2: Make and Bake Your Cookies

This step is fairly straight forward. Find a recipe you like or buy some cookie mix and make those cookies.

If you want, you can use cookie cutters to cut the cookies into cute shapes. To do this roll your dough into a ball and place the ball into a plastic zip lock bag or cover with freezer paper. Now take a rolling pin and roll the ball of dough flat. After it is about 1/4 inch thick take your cutters and cut out those cute shapes.

After baking, let the cookies cool over night or place in the refrigerator till cooled. You do not want to icing the cookies out of the oven or the icing melts. Ive learned this over the years of trying to be fancy. Most of the time my icing melts off the cookies and any cute designs Ive made end up looking like blobs of mush.

Step 3: Make the Icining Bags

I found this kit to make icing bags at the grocery store, but if you don't feel like buying the bags or have tips without bags you can use a sandwich bag and cut one of the corners to fit your tips.

For the icing, I bought store bought fluffy icing since it is my favorite and separated the icing in sections. I kept half white straight from the container and i made the other half a pink color. I used red food coloring and mixed it till I liked the color. For this step, you can make the icing any color you would like of course! The food color on white icing can make some wonderful colors. The other day for some cupcakes my mom and I made some purple, rose, and teal colors!

Now that you made you colors, stick the icing tips into the bag and fill the bag with the color icing.
For the designs I did I used a very small drawing tip with the white icing (which for me came in handy in a later design), and I put a fancy flowery looking tip with the pink icing.

Step 4: Design One

Pick out the cookie you want to decorate.

For this design, take your fine tip and make an outline of a heart.
Next, fill in the outline with more white. Like coloring yay!
After you fill in the outline fill in any gaps or holes you may have with the white.
Finally take a knife and gently swipe over the icing to blend the icing. It wont be super smooth, but the better you blend and smooth out the icing the better it will look.

Let the icing harden a little bit by placing it in the fridge. When the icing is a littler harder take your second icing bag (the second tip with your other color) and simply outline the white. Try to do this in a smooth motion.


Remember though, it doesn't have to be perfect. Neither your stomach or your loved one will care if it doesnt look like a world class baker decorated it!

Step 5: Design Two

This design is super simple, and looks very elegant.

For this design take your thin drawing tip icing bag and make horizontal, vertical, or slanted lines across your cookie. The lines can be in any direction to your pleasing.

Make your first line, then make each line parallel to it and close to being equally apart.

You can stop after making just the lines or get fancy and do the same thing in the opposite direction to make a lattice type design.


Remember though, it doesn't have to be perfect. Neither your stomach or your loved one will care if it doesnt look like a world class baker decorated it!

Step 6: Design Three

Now lets get a little fancy!

I honestly was afraid to try this, I dont usually have a steady design and I cant write cursive. But I found the cursive letter for Love online and practiced with a pen and paper till I felt I could write it nicely.

I used the technique from design one to making the pink color and smoothing it out.
Then let it cool.
Next take your thin drawing tip and write the word Love (or anything else you would like to write).
Finally draw a little heart in the corner if you have room. I think the heart gives it a cute touch.


Remember though, it doesn't have to be perfect. Neither your stomach or your loved one will care if it doesnt look like a world class baker decorated it!

Step 7: Design Four

If you are having a hard time with these designs, here is the best and easiest way to make the cookies look a little more fancy.

Pick two cookies that are the same size and shape.
Icing the bottom of each with your choice of colored icing. (you can be a little messy here its ok)
Finally, put the two cookies together like a cute cookie icing sandwich!

Simple and fun! And you can always icing one side of the cookies if you want too!


Remember though, it doesn't have to be perfect. Neither your stomach or your loved one will care if it doesnt look like a world class baker decorated it!

Step 8: Lets Put Them All Together

Now is the time to play!
You can combine all these designs to make some super cute and creative designs. They look creative and really well done, but their really super easy! Don't worry I wont tell anyone the secret of how easy they were!!

Ideas: (All shown)
Use the pen tip to make squiggly lines along the cut out letter cookies.
Add a lattice design over a solid icined cookie.
Alternate the colors when filling in the cookie.
Add dot like things on the edges.
         To make dots just squeeze the icing bag a little bit and touch it to the cookie then pull up.
Add dots on top of the colors.
Add dots in between each lattice square.

And anything else you can think of!!


~<3~<3~<3~~<3~<3~<3~~<3~<3~<3~~<3~<3~<3~~<3~<3~<3~~<3~<3~<3~


Remember though, it doesn't have to be perfect. Neither your stomach or your loved one will care if it doesnt look like a world class baker decorated it!