The Secret To Iced Sugar Cookies

You won’t see tons of recipes on this site because I’m not a great cook. If anything, I’m pretty good at baking mostly because I’m really good at measuring and following steps. I do have one secret though. I can ice sugar cookies and make them look way more impressive than they really are. Today I’m going to let you in on the secret to iced sugar cookies. It’s so easy.

To start, I am very particular on the sugar cookie recipe I use. My all time favorite is the recipe published HERE by Sweet Sugarbelle. Her recipe, to me, is like a sweet version of shortbread. It’s a little lighter because it is made with confectioner/powdered sugar. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated before rolling it out and holds it’s shape when baked. What more can you ask for?

Ingredients for Iced Sugar Cookies Frosting

Confectioner/Powdered Sugar
Water (I use the filtered out of my refrigerator)
Food Coloring
Extract (I use almond but other flavors would work well too)

Directions:

Pour powdered sugar in a large bowl. With a small cup of water add a little bit of water in at a time. Warning-A little water goes a looooong way. I put it in a tablespoon at a time. Keep adding water until you are stirring it and it feels really, really stiff. Add a small amount of the extract (less than a tsp) because you can always add more. Keep adding water until it slowly drops off your spatula. It should feel too stiff to ice cookies with. Add in the food coloring mixing it well. Then, separate 1/3 of it by filling one icing bottle with the thicker icing. These bottles can found in the cake decorating aisle of your local hobby store.

Once you have the bottle filled, mix more water into the remaining mixture until it has a smooth feel and easily drips off your spatula into the bowl. Fill the second icing bottle with the runnier frosting. Now you are ready to ice!

I created a little video for you so you can see how to easily ice sugar cookies and make them look professional.

It really is that easy! I was able to ice all of the cookies in a very short amount of time with hardly any mess. You can use this technique all through the year. If you’ve already made your Christmas cookies, don’t fret. Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Hearts would be so cute and easy too!