Today on Sugar Spun Run, I'll be showing you how to make an easy sugar cookie icing.
Hey Sugar Spun Bakers! Sam here with another carefully tested,
well researched, and perfected recipe.
Today, I am sharing a flawless, foolproof sugar cookie icing.
This one tastes great. You do not need to use meringue powder.
I love it much better than classic royal icing.
This is a super simple recipe that's essentially foolproof.
You really can't mess this one up. Another great thing about
it is many people prefer it to royal icing.
It's easier to make and I personally think it tastes much better.
It's also great for decorating
and the frosting dries nice
and firm, and the cookies are stackable once the frosting's completely dried.
So the first thing you need is three cups of powdered sugar for today's recipe.
For best results, I really recommend that you sift your powdered sugar after you
measure it, just that way you can ensure you don't have any lumps.
Now here I have measured out four tablespoons of whole milk.
Most likely, I'm not going to need all of it, so, for starters,
I'm just going to add two tablespoons in with my sugar.
Next, we are going to use two tablespoons of light corn syrup.
Now, I know not everybody loves using corn syrup.
I want to stress that this is not the same as high fructose corn syrup.
And I use this ingredient
because it's going to help the icing set nice and firm and it's going to give it a glossy sheen.
Now if you absolutely do not want to use the cornstarch or you don't have have any,
you can leave it out, but you'll need to use a little bit more milk
and the frosting's not going to be quite as firm or glossy when it sets.
Next, we'll add our flavoring. I am using a half teaspoon of vanilla extract.
You can use classic vanilla extract, but you can see mine's clear.
This is because I want a pure white icing.
Even a small bit of classic, brown vanilla can tint your icing and make it a little dark.
Now I'm going to start whisking everything together
and most likely it's going to be pretty stiff at this point.
I don't wanna add all the milk just
yet though because I want to make sure I get the perfect consistency,
so I'd rather start with a little less milk than I need.
Now that I can see this is definitely too dry.
I'm going to add about another tablespoon of milk.
Now when making this icing, you really do wanna go based off the texture of the icing
rather than just blindly going by exact measurements,
which is why I give a range for the milk.
Things are starting to come together a little bit more. I'm gonna add just another splash of milk.
Add another splash. Most of the time,
I do end up using really close to four tablespoons,
but, just to play it safe, I always start with a little bit less.
Let's add that last little bit. Now,
let's talk about what the perfect icing consistency looks like.
Here's what we're looking for: you want your whisk to be leaving trails in the frosting
or the icing while you're whisking it.
You want to make sure there are no lumps. And when we lift the whisk or the spoon out of the icing,
you see it leaves a little trail behind. That trail should hold its shape
for several seconds before it dissolves back into the icing.
If it's not holding its shape and is immediately dissolving,
then you've made the icing too thin. Don't worry this is easy to fix.
All you'll need to do is add a spoonful of powdered sugar at a time
until you've reached the correct consistency.
Now, if that little trail is holding its shape
for longer than several seconds and just not dissolving,
then it's too firm and it's going to be very difficult to pipe,
so you'll want to add a splash more milk, about a teaspoon at a
time, until you have the right consistency.
I'm also going to check the consistency on a cookie.
I'm just gonna take a little trail.
And what I'm looking for is I don't want this to be spreading all over the place.
I don't want it to pool off the cookie and drip off the sides.
This is holding its shape pretty well,
so I'm comfortable with how this icing is and I'm ready to start decorating my cookies.
Now we'll always start with a white icing,
and then we'll break it up into separate bowls and color as you'd like.
Today, I'm just going to be doing some white and some green icing.
We'll pour some of this into a bowl for my green.
And when I'm using food coloring, I like to use gel food coloring.
It is so much more vibrant than the liquid dyes that you can buy.
You can use those. They just don't get
as bright and usually you have to use quite a bit which can thin your frosting out a little bit
and then you might have to add more sugar.
With the gels a little bit goes a long way.
I'm using AmeriColor gel. It's just what I always seem to use,
and I will make sure to link to this and all of the tools that I'm using today in the description.
We're gonna be doing some Christmas trees, so I want a nice, festive green color.
A little too pastel. I'm gonna go a little bit more.
Just have to be careful because it's very potent.
Don't get it on your clothes or your skin either.
Now to pipe these on our cookies, you're going to want some small,
round piping tips. I like to use the Wilton
five or, if I'm going to be doing more precise decorations, the Wilton four,
which is what I'm using today. It's gonna make it a little bit easier
for me to get the limbs of my Christmas tree.
Today, I'm using these disposable piping bags,
which work great. I use them all the time in my kitchen.
If you don't like disposable, I'll see if I can link to some reusable ones as well.
Getting the icing into the bag one handed is always tricky.
So you'd—I’ll usually just utilize a drinking glass,
fold that tip-up, set this bag right in here,
and the cup will hold it open for me.
And then I can add my icing.
Let’s start decorating some trees. You can see this pipes very nicely.
And when you are using icing like this, you don't need to worry
about filling everything in all at once.
What I'm going to do is I'll just go back and forth and mostly fill it in.
And then I'll grab my scribing tool.
Now, I love these little tools. They're really nice and easy to use,
but you could also just use a toothpick. We're just going to
twirl this icing around with out scribing tool
or a toothpick to fill in any gaps.
This keeps us from using too much icing. If we just piped in the outline completely,
we'd have too much frosting on our cookie and it would spill off the edges.
Let's do a couple more. I feel like I'm a little shaky today.
You guys are making me nervous. Now
the cookies that I'm using today are my classic easy sugar cookies.
They're great. They're so tasty. They can be made thick and soft or thin and crispy.
However, you'd like them. I have all the details in the recipe.
I'll make sure to link to that as well.
You can absolutely add sanding sugar
or sprinkles to this icing while it's still wet if you'd like to.
I like to add a little bit of white sugar,
kinda looks like snow. And then some little stars on top to make them Christmas trees.
Now, as far as doing detailed cookies, you can do some detail with this icing.
As you can see, I've done a little candy cane here using two different colors,
my red and my white. But if you're looking to do super intricate detailed cookies,
you're going to want to stick with royal icing instead.
I have a recipe for that as well. It's a great recipe,
but when I'm making simple sugar cookies that don't require a lot of design,
I really prefer the taste and the ease of this recipe.
This icing does take some time to dry, at least several hours.
To be safe, I like to let mine sit out on the counter overnight
just to make sure they've dried completely.
Exactly how long they're going to take to dry is going to depend on how humid it is where you
are and other factors such as exactly how much liquid you've added.
I have some cookies that dried overnight. You can see the frosting is nice and firm.
If I press into it, it does not dent the icing.
and it's completely stackable without damaging the icing that I’ve put on.
You can see the icing is not at all wet inside there.
Now if you want to make this icing in advance, you could absolutely do that.
You can either store it right in these little bags
or you can put it in a container with a piece of plastic wrap right
against the surface to keep it from becoming firm.
I'll include some more details on exactly how to store it in the printable recipe
or the description below.
I hope you guys enjoyed today's tutorial. I hope this is helpful
for you this Christmas cookie season.
And if you try this recipe out, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
I always love hearing from you. Thank you guys so much for watching,
and I'll see you next time. Ma, I can't have a cookie right now?
Which one? Umm…this one. You want the little one?
Yeah. Okay. Can we do cheers? Mhmm.
Wanna try it? Mmm, what do you think?
Good. That’s good.