A Guide to Cookie (& Cupcake) Decorations
Dennis Weaver
Cookie decorations are the cookie baker’s best friend. It means that you can bake, frost, sprinkle, and you’re done. But what can you sprinkle them with? We’ll show you. Plus we’ll give you alternatives to sprinkling.
Immediately after frosting your cupcakes, sprinkle decorations on them. If the frosting starts to dry, the decorations won’t stick.
How to Bake Great Sugar Cookies
What are the secrets to great sugar cookies?
First, add flavors and colors to your frosting. Don't make them plain. Make them interesting and flavorful. (It's more effective to add flavor to the frosting than the dough.) Be little creative with your flavors. Choose blackberry or apricot or caramel or . . .
Choose a color. Gel food colors will give you better control over your colors than liquid food colors and there is a myriad of colors available.
Second, don't over bake them. If you roll your dough thin, they'll bake in six or seven minutes and tend to be crisp. If you roll them thicker—as I like them—they'll bake in eight to ten minutes. They'll be softer and moist.
Decorating Sugar
Decorating sugar or “sanding sugar” comes in an array of colors, both pastel colors like sage and lavender and primary colors—solid red, black, green and more. It also comes in blended combinations of colors.
Decorating sugars come in fine grain and larger crystals, AA being the largest that is commonly available.
You can also buy white sugar, add a drop of food color, and stain the sugar any color you wish. We sell 27 different food colors so you can color your sugar just the right shade.
Metallic Sugar Crystals
Metallic sugar crystals come in sliver and gold. For my daughter’s wedding reception, we used gold and sliver metallic crystals. They really do look like metallic pieces, pieces of gold or silver but the silver pieces are less shiny and remind me of pewter. They are larger than AA sugar crystals. These are distinctive, classy decorations.
Jimmies
Jimmies are another choice. (PPJimmies are our brand name for jimmies decorations. They come in a choice of colors and in blended colors. To me they are very nearly flavorless except for chocolate jimmies which I like.
Bark Decorations
Recently we discovered bark decorations Bark is a combination of chopped candy and white chocolate pieces. You may know of almond bark and peppermint bark. For decorations, the candy is chopped into pieces.
The candy is intensely flavored so instead of just making your cupcakes pretty, you get a burst of flavor. My favorites are lemon cream, cherry, and strawberry cheesecake.
For me, these are top-of-the-line decorations. I love adding flavor, not just color to the cookies. If there is a downside to bark, it is that there are fines in the mixture those can be removed with a sieve.
Other Decorations
There are other decorations available, not as often used. Wilton makes some luscious toppings and we carry them. The turtle candy toping is noteworthy. We also carry some cute little candy discs.
Free! A Baker's Cookie Guide
A Three Volume Cookie Cookbook
You will get three volumes of recipes, tips, and
techniques—everything you need to make perfect cookies.
Would you like to bake perfect cookies? Learn to troubleshoot cookies? Or even make cookies without baking?
We’ll give you “A Baker’s Cookie Guide” to help you bake those perfect cookies—
You’ll get . . .
- Dozens of recipes
- A Baker’s Cookie Guide: Tips and Techniques for Better Cookies
- How to Troubleshoot Cookies
- Save Time with No-Bake Cookies (with Recipes)
- The
Joys of Refrigerator Cookies
