I'm new to baking and this site. I was looking through the gallery here and saw the fantastic cookies done by thyterrell and cakecre8tor! So I tried searching your forums and was refered to a Martha Stewart's recipe for Gingerbread Snowflakes and wanted to try to recreate it. But honestly all this icing stuff just goes way over my head.
Could someone please give me the dummies instructions to decorating a snowflake like that? If I got this, would that work? How do you make sanding sugar? What else do I need? I'd prefer to just buy all the ingredients ready than mix it. Thanks! 
I'm relatively new too, but you'll find lots of icing recipes in the recipe section.
Sanding sugar is bought from stores like Michaels or a cake decorating shop, I don't think you can make it.
For cookies with hard icing that doesn't get smeared, most people use royal icing and the recipe by Antonia74 seems to be especially popular. Another one that I just tried is called Toba Garrett's glace and it's really easy. But I couldn't find the recipe here, I got it by googling her name and glace and it directed me to baking911.com.
Another very helpful cookie site is called kitchengifts.com and it has the no fail sugar cookie recipe and helpful tips for rolling it out on parchment for less mess.
Have fun!
I know it is not exactly what you are looking for. But there is a great general tutorial in this site. It will halp you get the basic ideas about how to get started.
http://www.cakecentral.com/article54-How-To-Bake--Decorate-Cookies.html
Bella9,
You can get a very similar result using Alice's cookie icing and regular sugar. If you can buy coarse sparkling sugar, that's fine, but regular sugar will also work.
Alice's Icing tastes a bit better than royal, and doesn't dry quite as hard. You will want it fairly stiff to hold the piped lines. Once you pipe your pattern, but before it dries, sprinkle heavily with sugar. Wait a few minutes, then shake off the excess sugar. If you do this over a baking sheet, you can restrict some of the mess.
Alice's Cookie icing (basically royal with a little butter)
1 pound powder sugar
3 tbsp egg white powder
1/2 cup SOFT butter
1/2 cup OR less of warm water.
On low, blend the egg white powder and sugar (or sift or whisk)
add the softened butter and some of the water.
beat until smooth, then slowly add water and beat to the consistancy you want for decorating.
Keep the bowl well covered with a damp cloth to prevent drying
Hey Bella9 thanks for the compliment!! I just used regular royal icing which is really easy to use. Just get some meringe powder and follow the instuctions on the can 
. I have never used the ice-a-cookie but I am sure it would work fine - and would probably stay a bit softer than royal. I think any kind of eddible glitter would be fine on those too. I had some left over from a barbie cake and used that on my cookies...Sanding sugar is just bigger granules than regular sugar so you could probably just use regular sugar too! Good luck and don't forget to post some photos!!
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