Aww, little duckies! These cookies work for springtime — or for a baby shower (anyone know why little ducks are always associated with baby showers? Maybe because kids love their little yellow rubber duckies at bath time? I don’t know). I wasn’t planning on making these cookies, but got the idea when I was digging through my bin of cookie cutters and found the little ducky.
If you are a new to decorating cookies with royal icing, here are some helpful tips and links:
- I used my grandma’s sugar cookie recipe, which is listed below. Another good cut-out cookie recipe can be found at Bridget’s wonderful Bake at 350.
- I used a royal icing recipe from Annie’s Eats, which is listed below.
- If you are new to decorating with royal icing, please visit this post by Annie’s Eats, which will teach you about outlining and flooding. Bake at 350 is also a great resource for cookie decorating and ideas (I love Bridget’s book, too!).
Here are the specifics on how I made these cookies:
- The ducky cookie cutter that I used was part of an Easter collection that I bought years ago. I’m sure you can find something similar on Amazon or another retailer.
- I dyed the icing using Wilton’s gel colorings — Buttercup Yellow and Orange.
- The black icing was colored with AmeriColor’s Super Black gel.
- After flooding the yellow icing, I let the cookies sit for a minute or two, then dipped each into yellow sanding sugar. Same goes for the orange beaks – create a little triangle of orange icing and dip it into orange sanding sugar.
- I used a round tip to pipe the little black eyes onto each ducky.
- I used the recipe below for the sugar cookies — and it will make a lot of cookies, especially if your ducky cookie cutter is small! I’d recommend cutting the recipe in half – otherwise you’ll end up with 4 dozen plus cookies.
Omi’s Sugar Cookies
Print Recipe
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon nutmeg
Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350F until golden (in true fashion, my grandma didn’t give a specific baking time. I baked the cookies for about 8 minutes).
White Royal Icing
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tablespoons meringue powder
5 Tablespoons water
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the sheen has disappeared and the icing has a matte appearance (about 7-10 minutes). Transfer the contents of the mixing bowl to an air-tight container. This will be the stiffest consistency of the icing, and at this point it is still too stiff to use for decorating. Add water a very small amount at a time and stir by hand until fully incorporated. Continue until the icing has reached a consistency appropriate for piping.
