Rows of roughly piped icing beads that are swooshed with a food-safe paintbrush or popsicle stick give a textured effect on Christmas trees with all the holiday feels.
Using multiple tips adds different looks and textures. When piping with small tips, it’s easy to control how much space they fill by adjusting the pressure on the piping bag. See “Tools of the Trade” and more tips below!
It’s important to add decorations such as candy, glitter or sprinkles the moment you’ve finished piping. The icing needs to be wet for them to adhere.
Use a fine, round piping tip or parchment paper cone to detail an outline on your cookie. It creates a map to work with and builds a barrier to hold the runnier flooded icing.
Thinned icing can either be roughly piped into each cookie or spooned over, if the shape allows. Next use a toothpick to drag the icing gently to fill in the outlined area. See Royal Icing for instructions to make a thinned icing for flooding.
For smoother, more uniform details on a flooded cookie, make sure there is a small gap between the tip and surface to let the lines fall into place.
This rolling pin gives better control, as you can put pressure on either side to level out uneven spots. It yields a smooth finish every time.
A pastry chef’s best friend, this spatula keeps the edges of raw, cut-out cookies crisp when transferring them onto baking sheets.
Thanks to their light colour and ability to evenly conduct heat, these pans minimize overbaked cookies. They also last a lifetime.
For decorating your cookies, a 10-inch (25-cm) piping bag provides more than enough room for manageable portions of icing. To create intricate details and outlines, choose a fine round tip (Wilton #1, #2 or #3). Star tips (Wilton #16 and #32) and a ruffle tip (Wilton #103) will add texture, and a small round tip (Wilton #10) makes beads that can stand tall or be swooshed.
Gel food colourings are the way to go as they deliver vibrant colours without extra water, which can throw off the icing texture you’ve worked carefully to achieve. When flooding cookies, colour portions of stiff icing for outlines. When finished, thin out the same portion to flood the cookies. This makes for a perfect colour match every time!