The chocolates and bows were done as transfers!

Made these for a friends birthday :)

I pulled some inspiration from a design I found on Google, so this is not an original design by me (props to the original decorater!!!)

Probably the hardest set I've ever done, and I'm really proud of them!

One small issue I ran into was all of my painted lines disappeared. I didn't dust them with cornstarch before packaging, I'm assuming that would have helped!

What brands of natural colors has anyone else used? And please share photos if you have! With the ban on Red 3 in the future, for this order I was asked to use natural food coloring. I used the 365 natural liquid coloring set from Whole Foods. I also bought some beet powder and extracted color with hot water and allowed to cool and strain. Using the beet powder directly to icing will show some grains of beet since it doesn’t dissolve. The brown colors were achieved by adding drops of all 4 colors and then I added cocoa powder. For the darkest brown, I added black cocoa. I don’t think it’s possible to get true black without going to squid ink or charcoal. Neither of those sound palatable to me. Because of my uncertainty of how the natural coloring would work, I created the characters as a large transfer on squares of parchment of time. That way if it was difficult, I wasn’t ruining the entire flooded base.

Hi everyone, first time in this sub and looking for some help with my son‘s birthday party end of this month. He loves Goofy and I found a cookie cutter online I’d like to use, along with some Mickey cookies. I’d like to use natural food colors for the icing and sprinkles.

Wrapping my head around what to use in place of black icing for Mickey and Goofy. Has anyone used chocolate royal icing for something like this? Does it work well and look good?

Thanks in advance!

I am totally loving these little cuties! Cutters from SweetLeigh Printed and Kaleidacuts.

So happy with how this turned out!!!

Hi! I am doing a trial of some cookies for my friends baby shower in a couple of weeks. Do you have any tips and tricks I can use to get better? I did the flood last night and I'm going to try decorating today. I don't love the border and I'm not sure if it's because of my consistency or just that my piping is Shakey. Any advice is appreciated:)

hey guys! I have never had issues like this with my royal icing before. I was sick for a week and came back to decorating, and my icing will NOT dry smooth. Ive iced 2 dozen cookies and each one looks like it’s covered in pimples!!

I let my icing sit after coloring, popped the air bubbles, helicoptered it in the bag, the whole nine yards to prevent air bubbles so I am SO confused and SO upset. I’m going to have to scrape these and figure something else out :/

Some cookies I made for an in-person class. So fun!

I am new-ish to cookie baking/decorating and I have decorated sugar cookies to make soon. I would like to prep as much in advance as I can, but I don't know if it's better to chill the dough as a chunk of dough, then cut out shapes or pre cut the shapes before chilling/freezing the dough. Or does it really matter?

Also is it better to bake from fridge temp or freezer?

Thanks in advance!

My first attempt at baking and decorating sugar cookies. A lot of room for improvement and a lot of trial and error (see the upside down lips.. lol) but I’m happy with how they turned out, especially for my first try!

I was unhappy with how this batch of royal icing turned out (too much food color, I think), but I still think my bees turned out so cute 🥺

(reposted because the coloring was off!)

This was spare icing from my previous Skull Valentine set. I made the terracotta from the extra white.

Pretty fun! The squares I’ll do something with… not sure yet :)

I take pride in my cookies—crispy on the edges, chewy at the center. However, living in Delhi, where summer temperatures soar up to 45°C (112°F), baking becomes a challenge.

After baking, the cookies struggle to cool down and firm up. At room temperature (~38°C), they remain too soft to hold in one piece. While refrigerating them helps, cold cookies don’t taste as good.

Interestingly, I’ve tried cookies from brands that deliver across India, enduring different climates and transportation conditions. Despite being moist and preservative-free with a 30-day shelf life, their cookies remain firm and easy to handle.

I’d love to understand how they achieve this. Is it a specific ingredient, a baking technique, or packaging innovation? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I've made the America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book holiday cookie recipe for years, and just recently started learning about royal icing and decorating. The cookie recipe is DELICIOUS and so I really don't want to tweak it too much or switch, but recent batches I've made are spreading. Looking back at October when I made Halloween cookies there was no spread (pre decorating-hobby research). Here are some things I've tried/noticed...

- The Halloween cookies that didn't spread were rolled pretty thin and overbaked. Recently I've been rolling with guides, a little thicker than 1/4", and removing when the middle isn't shiny.

- OG recipe calls for 375 degrees, I've also tried 325 and 350.

- Spread on silpat seems worse than on parchment, but on parchment the edges seem more jagged (if that makes sense)? Haven't had too much of a problem with bubbles, nothing I can't iron out with a spatula.

- The dough has been consistently cold/freezing. The timing/placement of the fridge/freezer has maybe changed but should this make a difference? My recipe calls for mixing the dough and placing two 4-inch discs in the fridge at least 20 min, rolling out/cutting, and then fridge again until firm before baking. Since reading about other recipes I've been rolling out to desired thickness and cooling before cutting out, then again to firm before baking. I don't think this should make a difference since everyone seems to use the fridge at different points but maybe it does...

- My recipe doesn't have eggs and has a small amount of cream cheese. Most all others do have eggs and cream cheese doesn't seem to be super common. But again, I've had crisp edges in the past so maybe this doesn't matter.

- Yesterday I added 2 Tbsp cornstarch which seemed to make zero difference.

- My butter is room temp but not cool, as recommended

Here's the recipe: 2.5 c AP flour, 3/4 c superfine sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 sticks cool room temp unsalted butter, 2 tsp vanilla, 2 Tbsp cream cheese room temp

Sorry for the novel - thank you!

Hello, fellow decorators! Wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar issue. I switched from Wilton to Genie’s Dream meringue powder based on recommendations I’ve seen here and elsewhere. I do agree Genie’s Dream has better flavor but I’m having a ton of trouble with the texture. I have tried both my normal recipe and the recipe on the Genie’s Dream bag and can’t get it to work the same for the life of me. It feels like I have to thin it out way more than when I use the Wilton meringue powder to get it to flood the way I like (I normally use a medium consistency). I also get an outrageous amount of air bubbles with the Genie’s Dream. I know this is usually an issue of mixing technique but I haven’t changed that either. I have been letting it sit for a while and helicopter-ing the piping bag and it seems like the bubbles are endless no matter what I do. I have quite a bit of Genie’s Dream left and don’t want to waste it so I figured I’d ask around to see if this has been an issue for anyone else. Thanks!