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Adding a painted watercolor effect to cookies is a great way to make beautiful, decorated cookies without using more royal icing! These Painted Sugar Cookies are a unique and fun cookie decorating idea that is easy for beginners and everyone in between. Great as holiday cookies!
If you're thinking that this cookie looks hard to make, let me assure you...this is a result of my FIRST attempt at creating watercolor art on cookies!
I had a blast making these and couldn't believe how quickly I got the hang of it. I had seen other cookie decorators use this effect and thought it was such a great idea. Starting out with a simple design, like these trees, will give you good practice, and it's such a pretty cookie for the holidays or Christmas!
If you are hesitant about creating elaborate cookie designs with Royal Icing, then watercolor paining is a great alternative to that.
Painted Sugar Cookies are so easy
I am not an artist by any means.
For this tree design, I simply allowed the brush to form the branches and I think it came out pretty neat!
I like to joke that I channeled my "inner Bob Ross" making these happy little trees.
The only part that you need royal icing for is the base layer. You will need a surface to paint on; you cannot paint directly onto the cookie.
Once you make your cookies (I definitely recommend my Perfect Sugar Cookie Cut Out recipe), use Royal icing to flood the cookie. I like to keep the icing pure white so that all of my colors stand out.
Once the cookies are flooded, let them dry overnight. You need the icing to be completely dry and hard in order to proceed with painting.
Now, you're ready to paint!
To make painted cookies, you will need:
- Cookies that have been flooded with white royal icing (completely dried and hard)
- Small bowls or a ceramic egg holder to hold the paint colors in. I like the egg holder because it's so easy to move about and switch colors.
- Assorted paint brushes; the tree branches look best using a squared tip brush
- Clear grain alcohol (I use vodka, everclear is also recommended)
- An eye dropper; this is the best tool to control the consistency of the color
- Food coloring
- For this design I used Americolor's 'Moss' & 'Silver Spruce'
- Paper towels to blot off excess paint
- A paint proof surface to work on. I laid a sheet of plastic wrap down on the surface to ensure my counter didn't get stained.
How to make these watercolor tree cookies
Start by adding a few drops of the Moss Green food coloring into the dish and dilute it slightly with a few drops of vodka.
Using a flat/wide brush, create several tree trunks. You want to try and make the color a bit deeper for the trunks to give the trees a sturdy center.
Using the corners of the brush, lightly dab branches on either side of the center. If you repeat some dabs on top of the branches you already made, it gives the tree more depth.
With the darkest trees made, dilute the food coloring with a few more drops of vodka to lighten the color. Make a few more trees at different heights behind the darker ones.
If you have other shades of green (the Silver Spruce color is gorgeous and works wonderfully for this design), add a drop to the green color you've already made or into a new bowl/cavity. It helps to mix up the shades/tones of greens to give the trees a more of a woodsy, forest look.
Lastly, add a little dab of color to the bottom of the cookie and thin it out with a bit of pure vodka on your brush. Add a different shade of green and swirl it on top for contrast to make the ground that the trees stand on.
This cookie is a very simple design, but it's easy to see that you can paint cookies with any design you come up with!!
In this version, I added some snow using AmeriColor's 'Fog' color. So pretty!!
Painted Sugar Cookies
Adding a painted watercolor effect to cookies is an great way to make beautiful, decorated cookies without using more royal icing! These Painted Sugar Cookies are a unique and fun cookie decorating idea that is easy for beginners and everyone in between. Great as holiday cookies!
Looking for more on cookie decorating? Check out my other site to learn more about cookie decorating and royal icing: easycookiedecorating.com
Ingredients
- Cookies that have been flooded with white royal icing (completely dried and hard)
- Small bowls or a ceramic egg holder to hold the paint colors in. I like the egg holder because it's so easy to move about and switch colors.
- Assorted paint brushes; for this design, the tree branches look best using a squared tip brush
- Clear grain alcohol (I use vodka, everclear is also recommended)
- An eye dropper; this is the best tool to control the level of liquid to paint ratios
- Food coloring
- For this design, I used Americolors 'Moss' & 'Silver Spruce'
- Paper towels to blot off excess "paint"
Instructions
To make painted cookies
- Start with cookies that have been flooded with royal icing and the royal icing is completely hard & dry.
- Add a few drops vodka to a small bowl or dish and then add a drop or two of gel food coloring.
- Mix with your brush and blot off the excess paint. You're ready to start painting!
- Allow the cookies to dry for an hour or so after painting, before packaging.
To make this tree design
- Start by adding a few drops of the Moss Green food coloring into the dish and dilute it slightly with a few drops of vodka.
- Using a flat/wide brush, create several tree trunks. You want to try and make the color a bit deeper for the trunks to give the trees a sturdy center.
- Using the corners of the brush, lightly dab branches on either side of the center. If you repeat some dabs on top of the branches you already made, it gives the tree more depth. Be sure to blot your paintbrush on a paper towel along the way!
- With the darkest trees made, dilute the food coloring with a few more drops of vodka to lighten the color. Make a few more trees at different heights behind the darker ones.
- If you have other shades of green (the Silver Spruce color is gorgeous and works wonderfully for this design), add a drop to the green color you've already made or into a new bowl/cavity. It helps to mix up the shades/tones of greens to give the trees a more of a woodsy, forest look.
- Lastly, add a little dab of color to the bottom of the cookie and thin it out with a bit of pure vodka. Add a different shade of green and swirl it on top for contrast.
- Allow to dry before packaging (about 1 hour or so).
Remember - NEVER use water to paint cookies. It will dissolve the royal icing!
Notes
Recipe by Owlbbaking.com
- Category: Cookies
Kim
Beautiful cookies. Have you ever had issues with the color coming off on people’s teeth or lips? Made some blue floral cookies and tested one and I have blue teeth.
😔
Liz
Yup! I've had this happen. Dark colors are a bit hard to deal with, but this may be unavoidable completely. To help minimize colored teeth and lips, I would say to avoid large areas of dark colors as much as possible, and use as little food coloring as possible!
Jenni
Thank you for this recipe! About how long will these cookies last once packaged? In other words, will they still be good to eat several days later? Also, will temperature changes impact the paint?
Liz
They will last 7-10 days packaged easily, maybe more! the temperature shouldnt affect the paint but if a hot environment may affect the cookie. Be sure to store at room temp or about 70 deg F.