- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today on "Preppy Kitchen,"
we're making easy, amazing sugar cookie icing.
So, let's get started!
To make this recipe,
you'll need powdered sugar,
some milk,
some light corn syrup,
this is the magical ingredient,
and I will explain later,
as well as some flavoring,
vanilla, almond, anything you'd like.
And yes, if you're coloring it,
use some food coloring too.
This is gel food coloring, but any will work.
First off, we're sifting out one cup of powdered sugar.
I'm not gonna weigh this with the scale.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
In you go,
and sifting is important
because
if you have any lumps,
it's just so annoying.
And you never know
if your powdered sugar is full of lumps or is perfect,
until you sift it out.
Using a tablespoon of milk,
but you could use a milk alternative, if desired.
Let just add that right in.
Oh my goodness.
Ah!
And now, the magic comes from two teaspoons of corn syrup.
I love this recipe,
and I like it more than royal icing
for a couple reasons.
One, royal icing is a kind of a pain,
and like with the egg whites,
and all this.
You're like.. (John sighs)
When you make royal icing,
you have to do two consistencies.
A little edging consistency,
and a flooding consistency.
So if you're decorating cookies,
which we're probably doing,
if we're making this icing,
it just takes for forever with so many bowls.
This, only one consistency is needed,
and as a bonus,
it's so shiny and pretty,
and it tastes better too,
in my humble opinion.
Okay, two teaspoons.
Get that out.
Today I'm using almond extract.
I actually love this as a flavoring,
and it has an added bonus of being totally clear.
If you're concerned about your frosting
being like really white,
or you're icing being really white,
do me a favor,
don't use clear vanilla,
just use almond extract or lemon extract,
something clear,
and you'll be happy.
Even rosewater, orange blossom water.
That was one quarter teaspoon.
And now it's time to give it a mix.
So here, you're gonna see what happened.
Is this going to work out the first time?
Or, will you have to add a little bit of something?
It's kind of up to you,
and the consistency that you're looking for.
I'm gonna show you how to decorate cookies with this,
and you'll see how easy it is.
So for me,
I'm looking for a consistency that's like pipeable,
and it won't just like spread all out.
Not like a dipping,
glaze, basically.
Very nice, dripping off of the whisk.
And you can see that it doesn't
fall back into itself right away,
it has just a little bit of time before it oozes.
This looks good.
So what we're gonna do now,
is divide this into a few batches,
and I'm gonna show you how to decorate some cookies
really easily in a way that's going to be like,
oh my gosh, I can't believe I never did this before.
It's so delicious and amazing.
So as you can see,
I cut out some snowflakes, some stockings,
as well as candy canes.
These are my sugar cookies from the blog.
There's a link in the description box and one up here.
So for my cookies,
I want blue, green, and white.
It's gonna be really simple.
This will remain white.
Now a drop of green.
Gel food coloring is really nice.
You just use a little tiny bit,
like that's one drop,
and you want to see what one drop does?
That's nice.
Look at the color.
So fast, just one drop.
Two drops of red.
(lively music)
Beautiful colors.
So glossy.
I'm gonna pop these into a piping bag
with the tip cut off,
just a little tip,
and well, let's get to work.
Pop that bag onto a glass.
One thing to point out about this icing,
is that it will
dry fairly quickly,
so you want to get it into an airtight container
as soon as you can.
Otherwise, it'll change consistency,
and you will not be happy.
To right in there.
Trim just the tip off of your bag,
and if you're using an actual piping tip,
I would say,
go for a number three.
Let's grab some sprinkles.
I'm gonna get some of these pearls,
and some sanding sugar.
The key to using this icing,
is just to separate the colors.
So I'm gonna give my stocking a little fur topping.
I'm gonna outline it just like you would do
for a royal icing,
but now we're gonna fill it in.
And the nice thing is,
that it will just blend together.
(lively music)
That first top is there,
and I want to have a little bit of extra sparkle,
which is why I use the sanding sugar.
So over a bowl,
just sprinkle the sanding sugar on top like that,
excess is gone,
and this can hang out and just set up.
I'm gonna do a bunch of different cookies with the colors,
and then fill them in next.
All right.
Now for these guys,
we're gonna do some stripes.
(lively music)
Fill them in really quick.
Look at that!
It's so fast and easy.
Ah! It's gonna look great.
Just let this set up for a few minutes,
so that the colors don't all blend together,
and then, we're just gonna keep going.
For the snowflake,
I'm just gonna fill this in all white,
and you can see how the flooding consistency works,
just outline it.
Now it's outlined, we're just gonna fill it in really fast.
Filling in that center now.
Oh, like that.
And even though there's like a big,
like swoop coming up in the center,
it's gonna be gone in just a moment.
It really just self-levels nicely.
Stocking, just like the other ones,
we're gonna outline it,
and get that beautiful red right up to the fur top.
And right here at the edge,
I wish it was a little bit straighter,
so just add some more.
So now I have a much cleaner looking cookie.
Ah, I'm so excited about that.
(lively music)
So, I actually have fairly shaky hands,
so I steady my arm or my,
my wrist onto the counter,
and then I'll pipe in 'em,
I even use two hands sometimes,
so it's really, really just nice and steady.
That's how you get a pretty cookie like that.
Look at this.
What were those pearls for?
You might be wondering.
Well, I actually have a little bit of frosting leftover,
I'll open this bag up,
and I have one more snowflake shape,
so let's just get that icing out.
I keep calling it frosting,
I don't know what's wrong with me.
One 50 thousandth of a drop of blue is all you need.
Can you see that much? (laughs)
Just for a really pretty ice blue effect.
So let's mix that up,
and see what it looks like.
Now that's a really pretty ice blue,
we're gonna pipe this,
and I'm gonna show you how to use the sugar pearls.
If you make a mistake with your flooding,
just use a skewer or something, and fix it.
It's so forgiving.
Now we're gonna flood it up.
Now, I'm using tweezers to place my little pearls
right on the corners,
just for a bit of added decoration.
It looks so cute like this.
I'm so happy with the way these turned out.
I really hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video,
check out my cookie playlist.