Cookie Decorating – Beginner royal icing techniques – How to make easy heart cookies

hello welcome Merlin here for today’scookie project were working on somehearts for Valentine’s Day at thebeginning of this tutorial I’m going tobriefly talk about icing consistency butI really recommend if you’re a beginnerthat you watch my longer kind of versionfor that video and then I’m going totalk about tools and then we’re going toget jump into the actual decorating solet’s get startedicing consistency is a tough one toexplain here in a video but basicallywhat you need is icing that is runnyenough that when you like apply it tothe cookie that once you stop touchingit gravity will take over pulling itflat giving it that porcelain surfacenow if I just shake my little bowl herelike you would with your cookie you cansee that it’s smoothing if it’s toorunny well a couple of things willhappen it could easily fall off yourcookie and it’s gonna get away from youand the other thing once it dries itwill be completely like flat on yourcookie you’re not gonna have any kind ofthickness it’s just going to look like avarnish on the surface of the cookie soit’s a dance you know you’re adding thewater a little bit at a time so that youget it the right consistency to go onyour cookie if it’s too thick by thetime you get finished it’s alreadycrusting and it’s going to be tough toadd secondary lines and such so probablyif you’re beginner runny ER is betterespecially since we have a perimeterkeeping it on the cookie but it’spractice you know you’re going to haveto play with it and then you’ll figureout what the good consistency is for youbut usually they say 20 seconds so bythe time you mix and you can count 20seconds and the surface is smooth that’sthe good consistency so let’s just takea quick look at supplies a cookie cutterideally you’d have a heart-shaped cookiecutter but you could certainly make kindof pink designs on a round cookie thatyou could make easily with like a cup ora glass so a heart-shaped cookie cutterif you don’t want to buy a bunch of foodI suggest you not buy read you get likea dark pink and so the dark pink you canget like a super dark pink and then makea light pink red does not make a nicelight pink and then white icing well youdon’t have to add anything to and thensprinkles these are notepad a littleballs here these are Valentine’s set youcan get them just pink just red or justwhite and the sanding sugar this isdecorative sugar and it comes in so manydifferent colors and it’s good if youcan coordinate your signing sugar withyour icing color and then a needle toolis just a fancy toothpick so if youdon’t have that just use a toothpick andthat’s pretty much all you need all thepiping bags these are tipless bags i’venot seen them in store you have tousually order these online thealternative is a ziploc bag but theziploc when you squeeze if you aren’tcareful you might rupture it so it’s upto you if you want to invest in someactual piping bags they can be pricey Ifind the little small kits a little bitridiculous in my opinion I think they’relike at the bulk store you can buy themlike just a few at a time so basicallythese are your supplies so let’s getdecorating by far the hardest part ofcookie decorating is outlining pipingand so the trick if you want to hideyour lines if you don’t like how theylookyour perfectionist so you pipe now I’vepracticed a lot so my lines are prettystraight so once you’re done okay you’regoing to take your cookie and you’regoing to dip it and some these arecalled null pate they’re not calledsprinkles sprinkles or like rice theseare little spheres they’re littlecircles and you see you just gently dunkin there to adhere that to your icing toyour wet icing or just I’m just gentlythings I don’t completely squish my lineand once I have it everywhere we’regoing to flip it over and look at it andnow with the notepad on I can actuallycome in and touch the edge you see andjust push it over back how I want it andif it’s too much inside you can take alittle toothpick or whatever and move itthis way and you can shape your line andthis will hold your icing in and we’vejust kind of made the icing perfect atthe edge if you don’t really like thenotepad a I’m going to show you now withsanding sugar sanding sugar is it’s notregular just like sugar that you use tomake your cookies it’s bigger granulesand that makes them kind of sparkly andyou can get them in all kinds of colorsand I know there’s videos like to makeyour own and all that it’s not worth thetrouble you can get them at bulk storesfor really not a lot it’s not anexpensive product not worse worth thehassle of making this yourselfnow here’s my sprinkles or my sandingsugar I should say I’m doing the samething as I did with the no peeI’m dunking my cookie in there but Idon’t want to squish my line I’m justgently dunking and again you can kind ofcome in now and touch it since it’scoated it’s not sticky anymore and youcan shape it the way that you want andnow you have an almost perfect edge andwhen we come in and flood the icingwon’t fall off this stops the icing fromfalling off the cookie and so myperimeter here has had time to dry andso when I come in and add the icinginside the icing is not going to falloff and because it’s dry can pick it upand I don’t have to worry if you takeyour icing to the edge and you’rebeginning to pick it up you’re gonnastick your fingers in it and everythingthis gives you like a safe spot to grabthem and you see we have a nice kind offinish and if it let’s say was coming inhere well with the secondary icing hereI could kind of like just cover up theline and make it a little bit moreperfect so we’re going to start withthis one here and we’re going to do avery basic design royal icing it’simportant when you’re using differentcolors and you’re doing wet-on-wet thatthe icing is the same consistencybecause if this is runny er than thewhite let’s say well when it dries itwill be concave it will make a dent inthe finish so you’re better to just getyour consistency right with your whiteicing and then portion out in bowls thesecondary colors so that everything isthe same consistency and it’ll just lookbetter on the finished product I’mworking with the first color I’m goingto do is white I’m just going to fillthe whole cookie with this white icingand you can if you are using thesetipless bags you just flatten it out andthen you can trim it and you’re betterto cut smaller than bigger and then goback and recut so that you don’t cut agiant hole and then you can’t obviouslymake it smaller and now I’m just gettingreally against my sprinkles here so thatit creates a nice seam you don’t want tosqueeze like crazy and have it spillover so just go slow until you get yourgroove and you’ve done a few you’ll beable to kind of go faster until youfigure it out I suggest less is more sowe’re just filling in the cookies seethis little hole right there well untilthe icing is touching that won’t healyou have to make sure that it connectsyou just give it a nudge with the pipingbag or the tip that you have and you canjust kind of have it connectfilling all the holes you don’t want toadd too much icing or else it’ll spillover especially since we’re addinganother color now I’m just gonna shakeit a little bit and now I’m grabbing thedarkest pink and you can do whatevercolor I’m just showing you some ideashere and now I’ve got a small hole andI’m just right up the middle here I’mjust addingsome dots and then staggering on thenext one you see and you just lineyourself up looking at the previous rowto know where to go and polka dots it’sjust fun to see it kind of melt into thebase color and create this coolporcelain finishand you can rotate the cookie just sothat it’s easier to work and just try toline yourself up like the previous lineand just take your time a small hole isbetter in this case and we’re just doingpolka dots all over we’re not draggingor anything in this one this is justnice as polka dots it doesn’t have to becovered in hearts it is a heart cookieafter all I remember the first time Isaw a polka dot cookie I was just amazedat how smooth the surface was how didthey do that well this is it and you cansee it’s all healing and if it isn’thealing like you want you just shake itlike this and there we have a prettypolka dot cookie and you can see thesurface you see that the light hittingon it it’s all smooth so we’re going tolet that dry and this is it we’re doingthe polka dots and now I’m going to fillthis one in whitethere I’m just nudging it over so thatit connects to the sanding sugar fillingin the gaps I’m not squeezing icing I’mjust kind of moving the icing around sothat connects to the perimeter and nowit’s all smooth dough pretty smoothedout and I’m taking the light pink andI’m just cutting a small hole all rightand now here I’m following kind of theedge here and I’m spacing my lines allthe sameokay and now I’m rotating and I’mcreating squarestrying to have the spaces be the samesteady your hand with the other thereand now I’m taking the darker and rightat the corners I’m adding a dot of thedarker pinktry to get them the same size and ifit’s not you can go back and just pressin there and make them bigger tillthey’re the size you wantthere this one here I went a littlecrazy but I’m gonna just leave it andnow here I’m gonna pull from the tophere down and this creates a littleheart so in the polka dot you pull andthis creates a heart you want to wipethe toothpick or your needle in betweendrags so that it’s clean and you’re notgonna get pink where you don’t want itand you can see when the icing starts todry that it doesn’t heal as well so youdo have to kind of work somewhat quicklywe’re going to shake the cook in weshould be fine and let’s pick it up turnit around so you can see those heartsand I’m just going to gently kind of tapthose little peaks and they should healaway and there for this one here I’mjust going to fill the whole thing andin the same pink as a kind of theperimeter need a pink cookie so I’mgonna exact match but close enough Idon’t like to use red I lean moretowards the pink the red food color evenif it says no tasteit has a yucky taste and I try to avoidit also few Google talks tissa T of redfood color you I don’t think as pink ismuch better but in my mind it’s lessintensive so I just fill in this wholecookie and like before we’re gonna goand kind of smush the icing around sothat it all the gaps are filled a shakeshake shake and now I’m going to work myway around this cookie putting somepretty big dogall around and here I’m starting hereand I’m going to go through all thesedots now so I’m pulling right down thecenter of all these dots this side nowand they’re going to meet here and ashake let’s pull the little points sothat they meet and if you want once thisis done you can come in with the lighterpink and just add some little polka dotsaround that little kind of wreath justrandomlyand there we have the heart now I’mgoing to just fill this whole thing in alight pink the sequence of colorsdoesn’t matter you could introduceanother color if you want I think like ablue would be really pretty if you wantto break up all this pink but if youdon’t decorate a lot you know then it’sanother bottle of food color you have toget and now I’m going to do dots downlike that staggered I’m leaving a biggergap in between I’m gonna put one hereand I’m going to just turn so I can workhere and I’m just pulling right deadcenter creating a row of hearts likethathere try to go straightI shouldn’t have had that cup of coffeeI’m shaking like crazy okay now that Ihave my rows of hearts I’m taking mywhite icing and I’m just doing a line inbetween like that the white colorbrightens it up and the lines also breakup the heart design and at the ends thatI’m getting kind of like lumps likethicker lines you can come in and kindof just fix that a little shake andthere are our pretty heart cookies I’mgoing to fill the cookie with white hereon the edgewell let’s create like a thickness allaround we’re drawing a heart in themiddleokay and now in the middle of that I’mand the other pinkwhite or the restI’m just going to pull the shape downlet’s spread the icing in here and I’mjust going to spread this pinklike thatit’s the same color here so like thatand now I’m going to create littlehearts hereright here it didn’t work so I’m justadding the darker pink and a darker pinkpart here and we’re going to pull allthoseso first you got to fill the wholecookie here I’m connecting to mysprinkles and then just filling in theother cookie and don’t feel too muchbecause you do add quite a bit of colorsyou add more icing with other colors andso you’re going to potentially get yourcookie to spill over so you don’t wantthat so like I said before just smush itaround so that it levels but don’t addtoo much done and now I’m taking thewhite doesn’t matter just you need atleast I’d say two colors and I’m justgoing to do lines across the surface ofthe cookielike that and I’m taking my light pinknow don’t worry about the bottom sinceyou’re draggingit’ll fill that up as you pull the icingand you can see my pink line is not thesame width as the white again not aproblem you’ll see and I’m going to pulldown right here down the middle and I’mpulling right in the center here and upup here and I’m not going straight I’mfollowing kind of like that the shape ofthis heart a heart is kind of rounded soI’m just following the shape of theheart and now I’m shaking to really liketake out those strokes out of the cookieand I like following the shape of theheart usually I’ve seen them they’relike you’re going really straight andthis just suits the shape a bit more yousee it kind of creates points here atthe bottom I’m going to fill this cookieand of the light pink and we’re going todo something a bit different on this onefill it in and just kind of swirl allright so we’re good we’ve got thesurface filled and now I’m taking thedark pink and I’m creatingsome dots go down here and now I’mgrabbing the white and right in themiddle of those hearts of those circlesright here in the middle I’m justdropping in white icing in the middle ofthe pink and you can see it’s giving mea perimeter a dark pink perimeter aroundthose white lines and now when I pullthrough I’m getting two tones you seeand I’m just going to add some littledots here and I’m going to pull thosedots I’m just going to kind of pull themrandomly not necessarily to createhearts more like there’s some littleadded details and that’s it I’m justdoing half final cookies in white hereand now I’m just adding some pinkbig dotsall over and then just a little bit ofdark pink to that dotand now we’re going to come in with theneedle and we’re going to swirl this upand now let’s create some hearts thatare going all which waysand I’m taking my two colors and I’mjust going to add some polka dots alloverand now with the lightand that’s it a shape to get those dotsleveled so much for watching if you wantto watch that icing cookie tutorialyou’ll find the link in the descriptionbox as well as the cookie canvas I’llhave that link as well so thanks so muchfor watching thanks so much for beinghere and I’ll see you next time