I always want my children’s parties to be perfect, and that vision often includes beautifully iced sugar cookies. I’ve been decorating cakes for seven years now—I’ve created everything from five tier wedding cakes to a 3D Hummer groom’s cake, and yet I still find decorating cookies intimidating! Royal icing is not very forgiving, and no matter how many attempts I make, I can never seem to get a perfect cookie. For me, it’s totally worth it to pay for professionally decorated cookies, but it’s not always an option. On those occasions when I just don’t have the budget or the time to place an order, I’ve found a few sneaky tricks to create stenciled cookies fit for a party!
The color gold has been a party trend for quite a while now, and there’s no end in sight! So for this tutorial, I decided to create metallic gold stenciled cookies that are simple enough for almost anyone to create.
Materials: cookies flooded with royal icing, small food-safe paint brush, highlighter or lustre dust, vodka or lemon juice, small stencil
Just a note that depending on where you live, there are different regulations about using pure gold highlighter or lustre dust as an “edible” and “non-toxic” decoration. Personally, I like Chocolats Roxy & Rich Lustre Dust in Golden Bronze. There are also many other colors of lustre dust available.
I prefer Sweetapolita’s recipe to make sugar cookies that are perfect for decorating. If you’re really in a hurry and don’t have time to bake and ice you own cookies, you may just luck out and find some at the store. I found solid white iced cookies around the holidays at Target of all places. They were sold with sugar markers for kids to decorate.
There are also a ton of amazing royal icing recipes online, but if you’re a beginner, it’s just as easy to pick up a mix from Wilton.
I created my own stencil with a silhouette I found online, card stock and an x-acto knife, but you can also purchase a small sugar stencil to simplify things.
To start, mix a small amount of the gold highlighter or lustre dust with a splash of lemon juice or vodka.
Place your stencil on your cookie. Hold the stencil in place with one hand so it doesn’t shift, and use your food-safe paint brush to fill in your stencil with the lustre dust.
Slowly pull up your stencil. There may be some imperfections that need to be fixed.
Carefully touch up the silhouette with your paint brush.
Allow them to dry, and your stenciled cookies are party ready!
