Specialization in Cookie Decoration with Royal Icing Techniques

Turning an Illustration into a Cookie

In this lesson we will give you some tips to make cookies with any illustration without the need for a cutter or mold. By following these steps your opportunities to make character cookies become endless.

Frosting Recipe and Consistencies 1

At last we will share our royal icing recipe with you! Pay close attention to this lesson because we will tell you all our secrets to successfully decorate our beautiful set of cookies.

Frosting Recipe and Consistencies 2

Now you will see how to color the mixture and how to find the ideal consistency. You will learn the basic consistencies for decorating cookies and how to prepare the piping bag to apply the icing.

We introduce you to a great ally before you start decorating: a practice sheet, which we have also prepared for you. It is important that, before you start decorating, you spend some time practicing some basic lines so that when you apply the icing to your cookie, it will be nice and perfect.

Practice Sheet 1

Here you will see other decorative shapes that can be made with icing and how to practice with them. We'll also show you common errors and how to fix them.

Practice Sheet 2

Let's start decorating! After practicing a little, we will apply the techniques that we have taught you by decorating a lollipop-shaped cookie, which is basically made up of geometric figures.

Lollipop-Shaped Cookies

Cake Slice-Shaped Cookies

In this lesson we raise the level a bit to create—in a totally homemade way—characters, faces, textures, and sprinkles in the colors of your choice.

Cookies of Your Character 1

Let's customize our cookies! Now we will make cookies in the form of characters with characteristic elements. Since you will already have your own character planned, here we give you many tips to take your cookies to the next level.

Cookies of Your Character 2

To decorate a character we use various techniques. We will show you not only how to outline the shapes and fill in the sections in different ways, but also how to use molds to create decorative elements and details.

You sure have done amazing so far! But you may have had doubts along the way. So, in anticipation of your questions, we want to show you the most common mistakes that can occur while decorating your cookies.

Common Errors

Cookie Storage

How should I store my cookies once they are made? What care should I have? In this lesson we will solve these questions and many more.

If you want to sell or give away your cookies, here are a couple of easy but charming ideas to present them in a set or individually.

Packaging Cookie Sets

How to Showcase Your Work on Social Media

In this lesson we will cover some important points for you to take beautiful pictures with your cell phone and we will give you some tips to present your cookies on social networks.

Module 3

Get inspired by Hani from hanielas.com as she shares her creative process for designing unforgettable themed cookies. From sketching ideas to crafting custom cutters and mastering royal icing, you’ll learn how to turn sweet dough into expressive, edible art. Discover how to capture emotion and personality in every cookie you decorate!

15 lessons (2h 29m)

Inspiration and Mood Board

Where to find inspiration, create a mood board for birthday cookie designs, and how to make simple sketches.

Cookie Cutter Templates and Sketching Cookie Designs

In this lesson, I’ll show you simple techniques for sketching cookie designs and how to make cookie cutter templates for cutting out cookies without a cookie cutter.

Materials

I´m gonna introduce you to essential baking and decorating materials such as ingredients for basic sugar cookie dough, royal icing, and decorating tools.

Cookie Dough Recipe and Cutting Techniques

In this lesson, you’ll learn step by step how to create great cookie dough and fundamental techniques in cut-out cookie baking for the perfect cookie decorating base.

In this lesson, we’ll talk about royal icing. What is royal icing and how do you make it? I will share with you how to prepare royal icing from scratch, how to store it, and more.

Preparing Royal Icing

13m

Royal Icing Consistencies and Coloring

In this lesson, I’ll teach you how to prepare different icing consistencies for different decorating techniques, and how to color icing with food colorings.

20m

Piping Techniques

Now, I’ll show you the basics of piping with royal icing.

Advanced Decorating Techniques

In this lesson, we’ll explore more complex decorating techniques like flooding, wet-on-wet designs, marbling, and decorative borders

Royal Icing Transfers

Here we will see the Royal Icing Transfers - edible Decorations made from royal icing that can be used to embellish cookies.

Decorating Baloon Cookies

Here I’ll give you a step-by-step guide to decorating the first of the four birthday cookie designs.

Decorating Party Hat Cookies

Are you ready? Let’s decorate party hat cookies!

Decorating Present Cookies

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to make pretty decorated present or gift cookies.

Decorating Cupcake Cookies

Celebrate your special occasion with decorated cupcake cookies! In this lesson, I’ll show you how to make cupcake cookies.

How to Store and Package Cookies

In this lesson, I’ll share with you how I store cookies. And we’ll explore fun and creative ways to package your cookie masterpieces.

Shipping Tips

Follow these steps on how to ship decorated cookies and surprise your friends or family members with a thoughtful, delicious gift of homemade decorated cookies.

Module 4

Let Lili and Willie from VanilleCouture show you how to elevate your cookie game with advanced decorating techniques. As you explore themed designs, you’ll learn to combine texture, color, and detail to create cookies that are as beautiful as they are delicious. Perfect your style and push your creativity further—one cookie at a time.

16 lessons (2h 52m)

The materials

Some materials may sound familiar to you, but here we also present some that will help you on this new journey between sugar and butter.

Types of consistency: frosting

Let's do a quick review of the consistencies that you are going to use during this course. Ready with your spatulas and spray bottle?

First steps with the airbrush

Airbrush art is as extensive as oil painting. Although we are not going to teach you to be an expert in this vast world, we are going to share the basic tips for using this useful tool in your cookies. If you already had it and were afraid to use it, it's time to dust it off and dare!

Transfer preparation with templates

For some creations with an intermediate level you will use small sprinkles or transfers with the help of the templates that we created for you and here we will teach you how to make them and how to use those templates.

18m

Cookie design and size

Graphic design has never been our strong suit and we always do what we can with the tools available. In this lesson, we are going to teach you how to scale your images easily (and a little rudimentarily) in Word. We will also share with you what we look at to be able to define the volumes of the cookies.

wedding cookie 1

The first theme that we are going to use as a means to create new techniques will be wedding cookies, without a doubt a great and very useful theme to start offering your services.

We will continue to show you how to carry out the details of the wedding cookie. Remember that this is just an idea, you can add different details and make your design unique.

wedding cookie 2

Father's Day Cookies

Now let's move on to other types of applications and textures on the cookies, and for this you will use a pizza cookie as a canvas that can be given as a gift on Father's Day or on a birthday.

Cookies are an excellent gift to celebrate the birth of a new member of the family. Therefore, the following theme is highly requested in our business: baby shower cookies.

baby shower cookies 1

19m

baby shower cookies 2

During this second part of the lesson you will learn how to finish a stroller-shaped cookie. Additionally, you will see how to make the base for the design of the next cookie on this theme.

To finish with these cookies, you will see in detail how to make a baby clothes cookie. We will share our best tricks to create unique and fun designs.

Baby shower cookies 3

13m

Mother's Day Cookies 1

Mother's Day is the best season to launch cookies for sale, because everyone is looking for an original and beautiful gift for mom. So here we leave you a couple of incredible ideas to get you started selling on this date.

We will continue showing you some ideas that you can carry out for Mother's Day.

Mother's Day Cookies 2

Valentine's Day Cookies

Lastly, you will make some Valentine's Day cookies, the theme where one can be as cheesy as they want. We always suggest offering this theme in small packages ready to give to that loved one.

Presentation of the cookies

The presentation of your cookies can define whether you sell “simple cookies” or “gifts ready to give.” Believe us: the second can be sold much easier. In this lesson we leave you a couple of ideas to sell edible gifts.

Tips for sending cookies by parcel

To finish this great course, we will show you a series of tips so that you can start selling your cookies in other states or even ship to other countries.

Module 5

Step into a dreamy, colorful world of edible art with Rachel Levesque, the creative force behind Happy Pastille. Blending her love for baking and illustration, she’ll guide you through watercolor techniques to bring charming, hand-painted cookies to life. Discover how a simple biscuit can become a delicate, illustrated treat full of personality.

14 lessons (2h 42m)

Material and Tools

To get started, we'll go over all the materials you'll need to make beautiful hand-painted cookies. It is a mixture of pastry and painter's equipment, it is important to follow the advice carefully!

Practice Drawing on Paper 1

In this lesson I will show you how to paint basic flowers and foliage. You will first practice on paper, to fully understand your brushes, the colors, and the gestures to be made.

Practice Drawing on Paper 2

During this second part of the lesson, I will continue to show you how to paint flowers and foliage. I am going to share with you tips to comb them more easily.

Now we are going to prepare together a delicious cookie dough, the recipe of which I will leave you in the additional resources. Then we will cut out our templates together to give the shape of our cakes.

Prepare the Cookies

First of all we will learn how to make a perfect royal icing and I will give you all my secrets for an ideal texture and result!

Make the Royal Icing

Flowers and Foliage on Cookies

To finalize this unit, we will finally apply our technique of painting flowers and foliage on our cookies.

I'm going to share with you all my secrets for finding inspiration, and succeeding in reproducing what you've seen on your cookies, which gives you emotion.

Finding Inspiration

The Preliminary Design of the Bouquets

In this lesson, we get down to business! I will guide you to compose bouquets of flowers, based on the flowers you learned to make in previous lessons. I will also show you many composition tricks.

19m

Watercolor Cookie Flowers

We're going to get to the fun part, painting directly on cookies! With everything I've taught you before, you should be able to paint beautiful bouquets! We will focus first on the main flowers, because they are the ones that will guide the composition of the bouquet.

Watercolor Leaves and Foliage

You will be able to garnish your bouquet with beautiful foliage in subtle shades of green. Foliage is very important in bringing life to your cookie bouquet.

Adding Details

Now you will see that the details are not, and to make hand-painted cookies really exceptional I give you all my tips to sublimate them.

Enhance Cookies with Luxurious Packaging

We are going to use our brushes and watercolors to make small patterned cards to slip behind the cookies. The mixture of patterns and colors give relief to your cookies!

Easily Making a Series

You will quickly see it around you, hand-painted cookies are very popular! You may have orders, where you will have to make cookies in series. Here is my best tip for having identical cookies!

Digital Drawing

The technique I developed is quite simple, but requires some know-how! In this lesson, I will teach you how to digitize your illustrations, and explain how to replicate them on edible paper!

First, I will show you how I establish the concept for my designs. From gathering inspiration to organizing them into a mood board, you’ll see each step I take to plan out my projects.

Module 6

Explore the playful side of buttercream with Liz Shim, a cake artist celebrated by Martha Stewart Weddings and more. You’ll dive into coloring, piping, and shaping techniques to craft charming animal-inspired cupcakes. With each swirl and detail, learn how to turn this creamy frosting into a tool for creativity—and irresistible desserts.

17 lessons (2h 49m)

The Design Process

Sketching the Cupcakes

In this lesson, I will walk you through the steps for simplifying your ideas and sketching them into cupcake-friendly designs.

Now I will guide you through how to assign colors to your designs. Whether you want the color palette to be realistic or more whimsical, I will show you how to put together a cohesive combination.

Assigning Colors

The Tools and Ingredients

Now that you have established what you want to make, let’s look at the tools that can help you achieve those designs.

Tips on Baking Cupcakes

Cupcakes are the base of our treats, so we will dive in and see how to best prepare them in this lesson.

Making the Buttercream

The buttercream will be our main decorating medium. For this reason, now I will walk you through the entire process of making a silky, stable, and delicious buttercream.

In this lesson, I will show you the best coloring agent for buttercream and how to mix up your desired shades.

Coloring the Buttercream

How to Use a Piping Bag 1

In this lesson, I will teach you how to prepare, fill, and handle a piping bag. The first step will be to cut the bag according to whether you're using a coupler or an individual tip. Next, I will show you how to attach and switch piping tips. Then, I will teach you how to fill the piping bag. I will introduce a helpful plastic bench scraper tool and show you some tips on how to handle it.

How to Use a Piping Bag 2

Now that I've discussed how to control the pressure and speed when piping, let's see how to create different textures. After, I will show you how to apply all the techniques and piping tips I've covered to create the sketches.

Preparing the Cupcake Surface

Before we begin to pipe our animals, let me show you how to prepare a smooth, flat surface on the cupcakes.

The Bear

Now that you have the cupcakes prepared, let’s begin piping! We will start with making a cute bear cupcake.

In this lesson, you will learn how to pipe an adorable sloth cupcake.

The Sloth

Now we will move on to learning how to pipe a lion cupcake.

The Lion

The Tiger

In this lesson, you will learn how to pipe a tiger cupcake.

Finally, let’s take a look at how to pipe a giraffe cupcake.

The Giraffe

Properly storing and transporting your decorated cupcakes is so essential. Let me share with you some tips for success. Also, accidents happen, but there are always ways to fix them. I’ll show you how to troubleshoot when issues arise.

Caring and Repairing