Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Last week I decided to try Royal icing again to make Thanksgiving cookies to bring to my friend’s house. I had the turkey cookie cutter and also wanted to use my square one. I planned to make turkeys and the squares would say “give thanks.”

I started with a yummy cookie recipe. I hear that is really important for these types of cookies. I went with this one.

It was then time to make the royal icing. I have worked with royal icing before and it seems to be something you have to work at. I understand the basics of it but then I make mistakes. I am going to keep trying because I want to get it right. I used this recipe and the Sweet Sugar Belle website because she explains it so well! Bake at 350 also has some good advice.

1) The first thing I did was make the batch of royal icing. I used my KitchenAid for this with the paddle attachment. You want stiff peaks and you don’t want the icing to be able to move very easily.

2) I then decided to color some of it brown for the turkeys. The color turned out to be more of an orange color but that was okay. I kept it the consistency you need for piping. I wanted to outline the turkeys and the squares.

I used these bags and tips from Wilton.

3) I then needed to make the icing the right consitancy for flooding. You do this by mixing in a little bit of water until it is the way that you want it to be. I was waiting until I stuck my spoon into it and the icing went back to where it was within a few seconds.  With flooding I use bottles you can get at a craft store. They work well and make it a lot easier to flood the cookies.  After I flooded the turkeys I wanted to do the same with the squares. I wanted white. This is where I messed up. I added too much water to the icing. I flooded it too much but didn’t realize that until it was too late.

This is what happens when you do that. I also mixed a little of the thicker icing thinking that would help which is while it is a mix of the colors. If the icing is too watery, it will go over the edge like that. Luckily that didn’t happen to all the cookies.

Luckily I had enough cookies turn out. I tried to write on one of them but I goofed on that type of icing so I went with sprinkles. Sprinkles make everything better, I am sure. Plus, kids always love sprinkles.

Have you ever made cookies with royal icing? Any tips?

Last Updated on June 3, 2016 by Julie Provost