ACTIVE_STREAMHow To Decorate a Beach Cookie Using Royal Icing

I’ve been having a lot of fun lately using different techniques to create textures and effects on my cookies. These beach cookies were no exception!

Here’s my beach-y color palette. I mixed a teeny tiny drop of golden yellow into the white to get the off-white color that’s shown all the way to the left. Then there’s white, red mixed with a little touch of black, brown with a little bit of green to neutralize it*, and sky blue.

*I usually add a little green to the brown because I find that brown comes out too pink if you use it in medium or light shades.

The cookie shown here is smaller than my usual size. It’s 2-1/2 x 2-1/2″ rather than 3×3″. I used my Orange Vanilla Spice recipe, which is available in my tutorial shop along with my royal icing recipe. You’ll also find lots of useful video tutorials there including How To Make Royal Icing, Flooding With Royal Icing and Cookie Decorating Basics.

Start out by covering about 2/3 of the cookie with brown flood consistency icing and a tip 3. Leave a wavy edge for the water on the shore. Use a scribe tool to help evenly distribute the icing.

Immediately fill in the rest of the cookie with blue flood consistency icing and a tip 3.

Again, use a scribe tool to help evenly distribute the icing. This will also help to get rid of any air bubbles.

Allow the icing to dry 8-12 hours. Then, using the same brown flood consistency icing, pipe a few lines using a tip 2.

Then, use a short, stiff brush to dab the icing to create the sandy texture. This is the same process that I used in the teddy bear cookie tutorial.

Just do one half at a time so that the icing doesn’t start to dry before you have a chance to dab it.

While the icing is still wet, you can “draw” in the sand. Use the back of the brush to create a design.

To create the waves with the brush embroidery technique, use a tip 1 and stiff consistency royal icing to pipe a line with a zigzag motion along the edge of the blue icing. Work with small sections so that the icing doesn’t dry before you brush it.

Use a damp square tip brush to bring the icing toward the bottom edge of the cookie. There’s a video tutorial in my shop with full instructions on brush embroidery.

Make 2 or 3 layers of waves using this technique. You don’t have to wait for them to dry in between.

Then, using the same stiff icing and tip 1, pipe tiny dots on the edges of the waves to create a foamy effect.

If you’d like to add a crab, use the red icing in flood consistency and a tip 1. Pipe something that looks sort of like an apple for the body and the use scribe tool to help shape it. Then add legs and claws.

Use the scribe tool to make the claws pointy. Then add little dots for eyes.

To give the water a wet look, mix a little bit of alcohol or flavored extract with some corn syrup. I use about a teaspoon of alcohol per tablespoon of corn syrup. My preferred alcohol is Bacardi 151. Use a soft round brush to apply the corn syrup to the icing.* Make sure that your brush embroidered waves are nearly dry, or else you’ll crush them with the glaze. 30 minutes of drying time before adding the glaze should be enough. Put the cookies in front of a fan just to be sure.

*A note about using corn syrup glaze: This glaze will dry to the touch after several hours, but it will always remain somewhat soft underneath the surface. I’ve tested this glaze for shipping durability and the results were mixed. On certain cookies, the cellophane bags stuck to the glaze. On the cookies with raised decorations, however, the bags were kept off of the glaze and they survived the trip just fine. So, if you are going to be shipping these cookies, make sure to add some raised decorations, such as the shell border.

To make a shell border, use stiff consistency icing and a star tip 16. This is where I used the off-white color icing. I left a space in between each shell so that I could add pearls in between.

The pearls are made with stiff consistency white icing and a tip 3.

Allow the icing to dry for another 4-6 hours before handling the cookies.

Learn how to create a beach scene on a cookie using royal icing! For recipes, product recommendations and variation on this design, visit: https://www.sweetambs.com/tutorial/tutorial-beach-cookies/
Thank you to everyone for your summer cookie suggestions!

Tips on making perfect cookies: https://www.sweetambs.com/uncategorized/cookies-some-general-information/

Tips on getting the correct royal icing consistency for your project: https://www.sweetambs.com/tutorial/royal-icing-consistencies/

How to ice a cookie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9wEILJshpU&list=UU3I0VtPUgUkhLpggtt7iIpw

Watch more of my tutorials here! https://www.youtube.com/SweetAmbsCookies

Share your cookie creations with me!
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Music courtesy of Audio Network