Hi! Just wanted to share since I've gotten so many great ideas here. My sister and I came up (kind of accidentally) with an icing that is great for cookies. It kind of fixes some of the problems/disadvantages of some of the options. It tastes like buttercream, has the mouth feel of buttercream, but it sets up hard enough to stack and you can use it as a glaze or a fondant (just the difference in how much powdered sugar you use).

Here is the recipe:
1/4 c. butter
6 TB. milk
Bring these to boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat. Add:
flavorings
enough powdered sugar for how you plan to work with it.

If you add less powdered sugar, you can make it a flooding consistency. Otherwise, you can add more powdered sugar until the mixture becomes a dough and use it as fondant. I was able to roll out shapes and put them on cookies, and I was also able to just "press" the icing onto the cookie to make mosaic type cookies.

It sets up hard enough as it cools that you can stack them. I decorated several with glaze and it hardened, but best of all, there is NO OILY look. They don't get too hard, and they taste great! I don't think you could do a whole cake this way, and I only made small batches to make sure that it doesn't dry out too fast, but it was great to work with for cookies. My sister said she makes bigger batches (she uses it as glaze), and then just keeps it on a heating pad to keep warm while she's working. No mixer necessary, and a batch can be made in a matter of minutes.

If you try it, let me know how it works for you. If it seems worthwhile, I'll get more specific with measurements and put it in the recipe section. Thanks!

Thanks for sharing this! Sounds delicious!

Wow thanks, I'll definitely give it a try.

Thanks so much for sharing!

This sounds great! What kind of milk do you use, though?

How nice of you to share! This looks good!