Easy Sugar Cookie Icing Recipe

If you love decorating sugar cookies but find traditional icing recipes too complicated or time-consuming, this recipe is for you. This cookie icing is incredibly fast and easy to prepare, requiring only a few ingredients and offering a beautiful, professional, mirror-like finish. Unlike royal icing, this recipe is easy to handle and avoids the need for egg whites. It delivers a delicious taste and soft consistency that truly enhances your baked treats. Best of all, once you master the single, versatile consistency, decorating becomes straightforward.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (or 120 g) Powdered Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Light Corn Syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon Flavoring Extract (Almond extract is preferred for a clear color; traditional vanilla extract or other extracts like lemon, orange blossom, rose water, or coffee extract can also be used)
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Milk (or up to 4 teaspoons total, adjusting as needed for consistency)

Instructions

1. Sift the Sugar: Start by adding 1 cup of powdered sugar into a medium bowl. It is crucial to sift the sugar to ensure there are no lumps that could clog your piping tip later. Push any remaining lumps through the sieve using a spoon.
2. Add Key Ingredients: Next, add 2 teaspoons of light corn syrup. This ingredient is essential as it provides a desirable shiny texture, prevents the sugar from crystallizing, and results in a beautiful glossy finish. Add 1/4 teaspoon of your chosen flavoring extract.
3. Incorporate Milk: Begin mixing the ingredients. Since there is very little liquid initially, the mixture will be very thick. Start adding milk, beginning with 1 teaspoon. Continue adding milk gradually until the icing reaches the desired smooth consistency, which often totals around 4 teaspoons (1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon).
4. Mix to Consistency: Mix until the ingredients are completely combined and smooth. You can use a whisk or spatula, but avoid vigorous whisking, as there is no need to pump a lot of air into the mixture. The final consistency should fall off the spoon in smooth ribbons.
5. Color the Icing (Optional): Divide the finished icing into as many batches as colors desired. Use a gel-based food coloring, as it is super concentrated and will not thin out the icing as much as water-based alternatives. If you must use water-based coloring, ensure your initial icing consistency is slightly thicker than desired. Mix until the color is vibrant and uniform.
6. Prepare the Piping Bag: To easily fill your piping bags without a mess, open the piping bag and invert it halfway over the edge of a glass. Place the bag inside the glass, pour the icing in, and then twist the bag closed. For this icing, piping tips are generally unnecessary.
7. Outline and Flood: Snip the very tip off the piping bag. Trace around the edge of your cookie to create a boundary. Lift the bag slightly so the icing is led where it needs to go; allow gravity to help you, rather than letting the tip touch the cookie surface. Once outlined, fill in the center by moving back and forth. The icing will easily flood into itself.
8. Smooth and Detail: If there are small gaps remaining in the middle of the flooded area, use a toothpick to zigzag the icing together to close the spaces.

Optional Tips

• Make Ahead: This icing keeps well and can be prepared in advance. As long as it is kept in a sealed container or piping bag to prevent drying, it will hold for a while. If storing it well in advance, it will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week.
• Consistency is Key: This recipe utilizes a single, thick flooding consistency for both outlining and filling. It should be smooth and easily pipable, but not too thin or watery.
• Decorating Time: This icing is like a “beautiful delicious glue” while it is wet, making it the perfect time to add decorations such as sanding sugar, sprinkles, or sprinkle pearls.
• Preventing Bleeding: If you are decorating with multiple colors that will be touching, allow the first color to dry or set slightly before adding the adjacent color to prevent them from bleeding together.
• Adding Patterns: If you apply a wet color onto a wet flooded surface, you can use a toothpick to drag the colors into decorative patterns.
• Drying Time: Depending on the thickness of the icing and the humidity, it can take up to 24 hours for the icing to harden completely. Be sure not to stack your cookies until a skin has developed.
• Batch Size: This recipe can easily be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled if you are preparing a big batch for a decorating party.