7 Bakery-Worthy Cookie Decorating Ideas For Beginners

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Making cookie dough and baking it to make perfectly shaped cookies is a feat in and of itself. Or maybe you bought pre-made dough that made the process a lot faster. Whatever the case, decorating these yummy morsels is the next step that can take your regular cookies to the next level. However, decorating cookies with bakery-worthy charm can seem pretty daunting. 

The good news is that there are plenty of different methods you can rely on to frost with or without piping tips, ice a cookie super quickly, and decorate your cookies with a noteworthy flair. For each of these tips, you'll need either a firm or stiff homemade buttercream frosting (you can also use the canned kind, too), a thinner consistency icing like royal icing or glaze, and finally, edible sprinkles or decorative candies. Combine these elements with seven straightforward cookie decoration ideas that any beginner can master, and you'll be left with a batch of cookies that leave an impressive final look.

If you're using a royal icing, or one with a very thin consistency, or even melted chocolate, then this decorating sugar cookies with one simple method — dipping will be your decorative best friend. To get a good coat on a cut sugar cookie, dip the front in the icing (letting the excess drip off) before flipping it over to dry for an evenly coated surface.

To achieve this effect, apply a generous amount of thick frosting to the cookie and then level it out with a butter knife or spatula. Once the top frosting is flat, lightly press the backside of the spoon into the top, turning it slightly before lifting to reveal a slight swoop that adds a bit of cute character to your cookie.

For perfect floral rosettes, you'll want to get an open-star piping tip like this Bmaacye Store 1M Piping Tip and a firm frosting. For this pro-piping technique and beautiful rosette look, place the piping tip at the center of the cookie, squeezing out a star shape, then continue piping in a circle around this center star, maintaining the same pressure until you reach the exterior edges of the cookie. In no time, you'll have a floral look that takes seconds but looks super elegant.

If sprinkles are your idea of a perfectly decorated cookie, adding them to wet icing is ideal so they stick to the surface. If you want to create a design that pops with sprinkles, add your first layer of icing and let it dry completely before adding the next layer. Once that second layer is on, garnish your cookie with colorful morsels before it dries to create a sprinkle-coated surface.

Floral lovers, take note. Make one center dot with yellow-colored frosting to represent the middle of the flower. Dye the other portion of buttercream whatever color you want the petals to be, then pipe five equal-sized dots around the yellow center. You can make these flowers as large or small as you'd like, making one giant flower per cookie or little groupings for a bundled bouquet look.

If you have white royal icing and one other color, you can create a marbled look. To achieve this, place dollops of white and your chosen color throughout the cookie, then use a toothpick to gently drag the two colors together and apart, creating a dual-colored design. If you have extras, consider reading how to store royal icing for your next cookie decorating day.

When in doubt, ditch using frosting to create designs and use candy decorations instead. For example, try these Royal Icing Edible Blossoms or Bee Hard Sugar Decorations that you can adorn on the cookie with just a dot of thick frosting wherever your artistic vision leads you.