I've just been asked to make & decorate some cookies for a friend's daughter's bday party, which I'm also doing the cake for. I've never done it before, but figure if I can do a cake, I can do cookies!! lol They're going to be musical note sugar cookies....but I don't know what kind of frosting I'm supposed to use to decorate them. It has to dry hard enough not to squish or smudge...they're going to be put in little plastic bags for party favors. The colors will be black and pink. Do I use royal icing or color flow, or both for this??? I know there's lots of you who've done cookies, so I'm hoping someone can help me out here... And how thick should the dough be rolled out before cutting/baking? Man, i wish antonia74 had that article posted!!!! Can't wait for it!!!

Hi Jenn,
I am definately not an expert like Antonia but I have made a few cookies.. I use royal icing to decorate them. I use meringue powder to make the icing and usually flavour it with vanilla and almond .Think I roll the dough out to about a little less than 1/4 inch, I don't really measure Try a few and see how thick you like them. If you are putting sticks into them I guess they have to be thick enough. Good luck and make sure you post some pics, Id love to see them.
Liz

Thanks, Liz!

I was wondering....which will give the icing a shiny finish....color flow or royal icing?

royal icing is great for cookies, and will be glossy from the color you put into it, but not shiny. i've never used commercial color flow, but i've checked the ingredients and it's basically just meringue powder. i like to set aside my last decorated cookie for testing -- when it's dry and won't smoosh with the press of your finger, you can assume that all the one's you decorated before are dry too.

roll your cookie dough thinner than you think it should be -- this will prevent "overflow" as they rise and bake in the oven. you may also want to turn your oven temp down 25 degrees or so, and take the cookies out BEFORE they're golden brown, usually 7-9 minutes -- sugar cookies (and all cookies) will continue to "bake" after removal from the oven, and for decorated cookies you don't really want browned edges. let the cookies sit several minutes before moving them from the pan to the cooling rack (this is their final cooking and setting time -- place the pan on the cooling rack -- i made the mistake of leaving them on top of my oven once, and of course they didn't cool down at all) .

Thanks, aunt-judy, for all the tid-bits of info!! I'm printing this out for reference!! lol

I use color flow all the time and it works great - hardens nicely and has a nice shine to it. The nice thing is you can use 2 consistencies with CF - stiff which will allow you to pipe anything just like piping with a regular icing and then there's thin - which will pour nice and smooth. As Aunt Judy states - do a "test puddle" of the color flow to check for hardening. Color Flow is great to work with. When thinning - be very careful as CF is very sensitive to water - it thin's easily. A good way to test if your consistency is correct for pouring is - after mixing - pull the mixing utensil (I use a spoon) out of the CF and let the remaining CF run off the utensil back into your mixing container- count to 7 - the run off should smooth out no sooner than the count of 7 and take no longer than the count of 10 (I hope I said that so you can understand). PM me if your not clear on this. Once the consistency is correct - your good to go. Use parchment bags as it is sensitive to grease - everything should be grease free that comes in contact with color flow. Hope this helps.

Hi Everyone,
I was reading this post and you were talking about color flow. Can someone please explain a little better what that is?? I made sugar cookies last weekend and made my icing out of powdered sugar, corn syrop and water (And of course food coloring) Is this considered to be royal icing?? Thanks so much


Daniela