Behind The Scenes

Mix the butter, sugar, eggs, flavorings, salt and flour. The dough must have the right ratio of wet to dry ingredients with the right proportion of flour for the cookies to maintain their shape and not spread in the oven.

Between parchment sheets or Silpat mats, roll the dough with a guided rolling pin to make sure the cookies are flat and of even thickness so they bake perfectly and have a flat surface for decorating.

Using cookie cutters (or with a small blade to hand-cut), cut out the shapes, transfer to lined baking sheets, and chill in the freezer to firm up the dough. Bake until the dough is fully set and cooked through, but only just slightly caramelized so the cookies stay soft and moist. Cool completely.

Using meringue powder, flavorings, corn syrup (for shine and a soft bite), and a bunch of powdered sugar, make the royal icing. Mix until stiff peaks so the icing will hold its shape, but be sure not to overmix or the icing will dry hard and brittle. 

Add various shades of gel food coloring to smaller portions of the icing to achieve the colors you are looking for, and make sure you portion out enough of each color for the designs you want to create.

For each color, create the icing consistencies that will allow you to flood and decorate the cookies. Use icing straight out of the bowl for fine details or add a small touch of water for lettering or other details. To create a flood consistency, add just enough water so the icing will spread nicely across the cookie surface and settle easily, but not so thin that it flows over the edges of the cookie. 

Each consistency of each color is bagged separately in piping bags either using tipless bags (for which you cut the opening to the size you want), or bags with special tips for certain designs (florals, leaves, etc.)

Once the cookies are cool and the icing bags are ready to go, carefully outline the edges of the cookie and fill in with the flood consistency, using a scribe tool to help the icing settle into a flat even layer.

While the icing layer is still wet, you can add other colors and create "wet on wet" designs like hearts, flowers or other patterns. Since these designs are flooded at the same time as the base flood, they will dry all together as part of the same layer.

After each step is complete, the cookies need to dry or "crust over" before the next layer of flood or detail can be added. If you are designing a cookie with multiple adjacent colors, these areas will need to be flooded one at a time with drying time between each step.

After the base layer has crusted over, you can add other layers of flood, lettering or details on top of that initial layer. For advanced decorating, you may use a projector to pipe a complex image or words on the cookie, an airbrush and stencils to create patterns, or paint on the cookie with food dyes or luster dusts.

After all the details are complete, the cookies need to dry completely before they can be bagged or stacked (usually around 24 hours). The entire cookie baking and decorating process can take several days, but the cookies stay soft and fresh (and freeze beautifully if you have extra!).