A frosting recipe for icing decorations that's perfect for sugar cookies.
This is the perfect Sugar Cookie frosting. I baked the "Blue Ribbon Sugar Cookies" submitted by:Angie Seaman, and used this frosting with sprinkles. I have a cookie jar filled with perfectly delightful tasting cookies. They make the best combination, and I am switching to them both from now on. This frosting starts off softer on the cookies and then hardens up enough to stack them without being crunchy. Absolute perfection.
Read MoreWe usually make butter cookies for the holidays that we decorate w/ colorful royal icing. This recipe did not mix well w/ food coloring, and in the end, had subtle white streaks through it. I've found that there are less ingredients in the recipe for Royal Icing, and that food coloring mixes in well to give you a smooth, uniform color, with the same sweet result as this frosting. I'm switching back to Royal Icing.
Read More This is the perfect Sugar Cookie frosting. I baked the "Blue Ribbon Sugar Cookies" submitted by:Angie Seaman, and used this frosting with sprinkles. I have a cookie jar filled with perfectly delightful tasting cookies. They make the best combination, and I am switching to them both from now on. This frosting starts off softer on the cookies and then hardens up enough to stack them without being crunchy. Absolute perfection.
We really liked this icing. It's a lot like the icing that my Mother made years ago. Only she added a bit of cream of tartar. This recipe is easy to work with as well. If you want to change the taste for something a little different try adding a little vanilla, or almond extract, even lemon extract. For a few ideas. Thanks for sharing with us!
This frosting came out great! What I did was I divided the frosting into four different bowls after adding the vanilla extract. Then I put 2 drops of different food colorings into each bowl so I could decorate some easter sugar cookies I made. It worked out perfect and it made a lot of frosting!
We usually make butter cookies for the holidays that we decorate w/ colorful royal icing. This recipe did not mix well w/ food coloring, and in the end, had subtle white streaks through it. I've found that there are less ingredients in the recipe for Royal Icing, and that food coloring mixes in well to give you a smooth, uniform color, with the same sweet result as this frosting. I'm switching back to Royal Icing.
I have never successfully made any frosting. But this one is IT! I havled the recipe and used a fork to beat and mix. Even though it took a long time and it was exhausting, it was really worth it! I used them to decorate my gingerbread men. The best thing is the frosting hardened up overnight making the cookies possible to be stacked. #1 frosting recipe!
I had never made a homemade frosting for my sugar cookies before. I expected with a name like "Decorator frosting that it would be close to a royal icing or stiffer.It is not. This recipe was very good.I halfed the recipe and there was plenty to frost 3 doz. 4" heart shaped cookies. The texture was creamy smooth and not greasy or gritty. I added 1/4 teaspoon of imitation vanilla butter nut flavoring. It added a tiny bit of color and a nice flavor. My husband and two toddlers love them.Thanks!
I have used this recipe several times with a few changes. I use 1/2 shortening and 1/2 margerine and also add almond extract instead of vanilla. Use this on "Best Ever Rolled Sugar Cookies" for a wonderful treat. After frosting each cookie try dipping your frosting spatula in cold water and gently running it over the top of the frosting. This will give your cookie a shiny finish. Be careful not to wet it too much or you may end up with soggy cookies! Or gently pat it with a paper towel for a textured look.
I LIKE THIS RECIPE. I USE IT A LOT WITH THE BEST EVER ROLLED SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE. I DO NOT ADD THE RED FOOD COLORING, I MAKE WHATEVER COLORS I WILL BE NEEDING, AND I ALWAYS ADD EXTRA VANILLA.
I had 4 small ones at my house this afternoon and we decided to decorate sugar cookies with this frosting. I've used this recipe several times since I first tried it and have always had good results. The texture is smooth and creamy. I've used red and yellow coloring and they've both turned out beautifully. Highly recommend!! Thanks P. Oakes
Very good and easy! Just the right amount of sweetness. Great on sugar cookies and cupcakes!
There are many good, basic buttercream frosting recipes on this site and this is one of them. Simple enough to adjust the amount of milk (I used half-and-half) to get it to the desirable consistency for whatever decorating project you're using it for. Since I used this to pipe onto a cake, I used less milk. Good, reliable, recipe - and because of the butter, especially good-tasting too.
If you are attempting to make this with an electric hand mixer, keep the following tips in mind. You will probably need a bit more milk to get the frosting to come together. I used about an extra 1 1/2 teaspoons. Also, the longer you beat this, the fluffier it will be. I was probably standing at my bowl with the hand mixer for close to 10 minutes to get it right. This is a recipe much like buttercream, and it IS possible to get it smooth. Dip a metal spatula in HOT water, wipe off the water, and smooth the surface of the frosting with the hot spatula. All that said, it is an incredibly easy and versatile frosting with a flavor that is far superior to royal icing.
I made 2 batches of this. One batch with melted butter and one batch with softened butter. Both were good but melted butter made it much smoother and creamy(better for piping). I also added more milk.
I used this recipe (I used mostly margarine and a little butter because that's what was on hand, plus I added 1 t almond extract) to decorate cookies tonight. It not only tastes delicious, but it works well for decorating and sets up nicely for putting the cookies in tins. This is my new go-to icing recipe.
The butter needs to be melted, not just softened. I used this icing with tips and bags and it worked very well to make pretty cookies. It was great!
The best frosting I have ever tried! My entire family loved it on the sugar cookies I made. I followed the recipe exactly too. Unlike some other people, I had no problems mixing it with food coloring, there was no streaking just a uniform color and it was easy to work with. I did have a lot extra though that I saved with this recipe.
I use this all the time. I make it with 1/3 c crisco & 1/3 c margarine instead of 2/3 c butter. It tastes great & dries hard enough for stacking (at least it does the way I make it).
As written, this frosting recipe is far too sweet. Even my eight year old nephew found the amount of sugar overwhelimg. I cut the sweetness with about 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice, which helped enormously. The spreading consistency is good and makes it easy for the kids to decorate cookies with.
Great frosting. Snow day today, and the kids were off of school, so they made cupcakes. We added a little extra milk so that we could pipe it onto cupcakes using a 2D tip. Worked great and tasted fabulous. Thanks.
This recipe was nice because it not only blended well, it was just the right viscocity to do some creating decorating. Not too thin. Kudos!
This recipe is fantastic! It is perfect for decorating cakes, cupcakes & I just used it for decorating a big cookie cake for my daughters birthday! It spreads nice and pipes out of a decorator bag perfectly as well. I didn't make any alterations to the recipe ... just beat it within an inch of its life with the mixer. No more expensive pre-made decorator frosting for me!
This recipe did not turn out AT ALL! There is TOO much butter in the recipe and that's all it tasted like, even after adding the Vanilla Extract. It was too grainy as well, i don't see how people can compare it to Duncan Hines. Yuck.
Pretty good frosting. Had to add a tablespoon of milk to help it get to the right consistency.
This Delicious!! Tastes like you bought it from the store! I frotsted cookies with it seems more like a cake frosting either way it's very good and easy. I followed a tip from someone add a little sugar at a time then the milk and then vanilla. Also you have to let them sit for a little while before stacking them lol I found that out the hard way haha great recipe!
This was an excellent recipe. The flavor was excellent. I made several batches and added different food coloring to each so my kids had a choice which ones to decorate with. We loved the flavor and consistency of the frosting. Will def. use again.
outstanding! I slightly moistened my knife so that it spread smoothly- very sweet and dries very well so you can stack cookies. I used the best rolled sugar cookies from this site- another winner.
This recipe makes a delicious frosting that we used for Christmas cookies. Needed to add more milk though, as it was pretty dry, as others noted. We used almond extract instead of vanilla: delish. I can't see how the vanilla extract would be "optional," as noted in the recipe. Wondering if P.Oakes meant to write that the red food coloring was optional, instead of the extract?
If you want a frosting that does not contain raw eggs (ie, royal icing), but still hardens so that you can stack them atop one another, this is the right one. According to the Joy of Cooking, you can safely store icing like this (with milk & butter) at room temp for four days, and two weeks in the fridge. Good to know. I did this recipe 1.5x, and it made a good bit of icing. It is a pretty stiff frosting, not soft like cake frosting. It seemed to take various colors well. It took me a TON of green food coloring to make a tint close to "Christmas Tree Green."
This was a quick and easy frosting for our fall cookies. I did find that the without adding food coloring (as with our white frosted ghost cookies) it was a bit tough to spread. Aside from that I didn't experience any streaks or spreading issues once the food color was added.
This is a really good recipe. I used 1 teaspoon of almond extract instead of vanilla, and salted butter (not margarine). Very good! A recipe I certainly will use again.
I used this recipe to frost my cutouts at Christmas and was very pleased with the results. I definitely prefer a recipe with butter instead of shortening. Makes a lot of frosting which was good because I made many colors and had a lot of cookies with the Shortbread recipe that I used.
This is a great frosting! We decorated our sugar cookies for "Santa" with this, I also used red, white & green. This is a pretty universal frosting, I'll use it for other things as well, (although my 11 year old son has pretty much not stopped talking since he's eaten 3 cookies... sugar buzz)! Thanks P.
This Frosting was PERFECT for Sugar cookies! I used it on the Soft Sugar cookies IV (Which were the best sugar cookies I have ever made). The tasted great! This is the best frosting for Sugar cookies that I have ever made.
It was a very sweet frosting. Reminded me a lot of fondant with the taste. It was easy to make, no doubt, but too sweet for my liking.
This frosting was like the kind that is on the cookies that the supermarkets sell around the holidays. Very easy to spread. Tasted GREAT on the Pink Icing Cookies (Submitted by: Lisa Tomshack). We used green food coloring for Christmas.
Fantastic frosting, I used this on sugar cookies and it worked very well. I used half and half instead of milk and used a Kitchenade mixer to beat for nearly 10 minutes. I love the texture and flavor and will try again with some of my favorite cake and cookie recipes. Be sure to put treats in fridge since it has butter and milk!
I have been looking for a recipe like this! This is THE BEST frosting I've ever made! It would just roll out and press onto the sugar cookies. Another reason I liked it, was because it HARDENED.
Worked perfectly to decorate my "ninjabread men". It was just right to pipe small details and dried nicely as well. It was also easy to spread and would work well to frost larger cookies too. Yum!
I sifted the powder sugar and I think that improved the creamy/smooth texture. It was easy and tasty. The frosting set nicely for stacking.
This is absolutely fantastic. I will NEVER again buy frosting with Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate!
I only needed a little bit of frosting for the gingerbread cookies we made for santa this year. This is a great recipe. I only used one stick of butter, eye-balled the milk and vanilla and probably only used 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Didn't use the food coloring. But this recipe definitely helps to figure out the ratio of butter to sugar. Thanks for sharing.
So good. As a frosting lover, I can barely stop myself from eating it right out of the bowl. It dries nicely to keep it from sticking to other cookies, but still stays soft.
I found this recipe to be extremely sweet - it might be worth playing around with the amount of sugar.
Worked wonderful for decorating our Easter cookies. I did add an extra tablespoon of milk so it would come out of the pastry bag easier. Thanks
This is the best recipe I've ever found for cookie frosting. I had some frosting left over after making cookies about a week ago, so I put it in an air tight container and stored it in the refrigerator. Today I microwaved the left over frosting for 9 seconds on power level 2 and PRESTO I had perfect spreadable frosting again.
beautiful colors. Nice and shiny. Just way too sweet for me but the kids loved it!
Dangerously delicious. Helps to keep the cookie moist for several days. If they last that long.
This frosting was the perfect consistency and flavor. I love that it gets hard overnight, so that cookies can be stacked. My husband was impressed.
This is the BEST frosting I've ever made! In the past, I've always had trouble with frosting tasting too greasy or grainy. This is absolutely wonderful. I used it on cut-out sugar cookies, with the margarine instead of butter and lemon juice instead of milk. It has almost a cream cheese frosting taste. ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL!!!
Simply the BEST!!! Perfect to stack without getting *too* hard, still soft, sweet and delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was too sweet for my liking... Cut the amt of sugar down to 3 1/2 Cups yet it was way toooooo sweet! Otherwise, consistency and all were great!
The taste and texture were great. I found if you use 1 tsp each of Wilton Butter flavor and Clear Vanilla Extract instead of butter and regular vanilla extract, you get a nice white icing which you can then use any food coloring to expand your decoration needs.
I used this recipe to decorate some sugar cookies, and I was really happy with the results. I use my Grandma's recipes for frosting normally, but I was in the mood to try something different. The only change I made was to add a few drops of almond extract to the mix as I do with most of my icing. Thanks for sharing!
Fantastic tasting, great consistency. If using over the course of more than 30 minutes, it is best to keep it covered or it begins to lose moisture and become too thick. Worked perfectly on sugar cookies for us!
This is exactly the consistency I was looking for to frost some chocolate cupcakes. I halved the recipe, and I did have to use a tad bit more milk (1/2 T?) to mix everything properly. I also added a generous pinch of salt and about 15-20 drops of bottled lemon juice to balance the sweetness. Will make this again!
Nothing out of the ordinary. It set nicely but the taste didn't amaze me.
Yummy yum Yum! My 3 1/2 year old Daughter and I had so much fun baking cookies and making icing "from scratch" as she says : ) and this icing came out perfect. I like the fact that I can stack the cookies once the icing get's hard.
I use this recipe every time I make sugar cookies. I never use vanilla though, I like it with almond, lemon, maple, even anise extract. Have fun and try with different flavors.
Great basic frosting. I would probably add a tbs more of milk next time to make it spread easier. We used it on gingerbread cookies.
I was looking for a recipe for frosting. I have always winged it, using the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla and sometimes butter.I made this to decorate our Halloween cookies and my daughters loved it.They liked other recipes,but hey said to make sure I keep this recipe because this is THE BEST.I will definitley be making agian and again. In fact, I am making it this afternoon. One of these times, I would like to try it with some of the flavored coffee creamers for a different taste. Thank you for a great frosting recipe!!
I use this frosting for my sugar cookies. Everyone LOVES them!!!!! thanks for sharing the recipe!!!! ;)
Great frosting. Tastes wonderful on "Dora's Christmas Cookies" recipe found on this site.
I used this with "Grandma Minnie's Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies" for a cookie exange at my husbands work and I could not have asked for a more perfect holiday cookie. I put all the ingredients in my Kitchen Aid and just mixed. It made the perfect amount of frosting and after an hour or two, dried enough to stack for easy transportation, while remaining soft when eaten. On a side note, a Chef friend of mine recommended going to Hobby Lobby and buying disposable decorating bags and tips to ice the cookies with. Next to baking cookies on parchment paper, it is the best advice for cookies I've ever gotten. It gave the cookies a store bought look, without compromising the great homemade frosting taste!
This was the perfect frosting for the sugar cookies I just made. Will be the go to frosting from now on.
Since I'm not the greatest baker in the world, I was pretty scared to make my own icing instead of using a store bought one, but your recipe was very easy, quick, and yummy to make. The icing was very smooth, creamy, and easy to apply onto cookies and harden quite nicely in a couple of hours. Thanks a Bunch!!!!!
Terrible Recipe. I had to seriously fix this recipe - the previous reviewer was right - tasted like butter & the sugar was so sweet it hurt my teeth. I added crisco after the fact & extra milk to lessen the sweetness & butter taste. Was easy to work with but I'll look elsewhere for other frosting recipes
To die for! I'm looking forward to using this recipe again this christmas with the "Soft Christmas Cookies" recipe also found on this site.
This was very easy to make and work with. I did only make half the recipe and still ended up with way more than I needed. I colored it purple and added almond extract to ice my shortbread cookies. Awesome!
This frosting turned out very creamy and firm and everything that frosting should be. I used this to frost Eileen's Spicy Gingerbread Men from this site, and the combination was great. This is now my absolute favorite frosting and I will use it every time I need to frost cookies.
Nice sturdy thick frosting worked well for icing my gingerbread cookies. I cut this down to a forth and had plenty of icing for drawing on the cookies. Dried pretty quickly too. Too bad my artistic skill isn't as good as the icing. First time I ever tried to draw with icing, it's not easy. I ws trying to use a plastic sandwich baggie with the tip cut, but the side kept splitting where the bag seam was, so I rolled up a piece of parchment paper into a cone and made a paper baggie and then cut a tip out and it held up great especially since I didn't know what I was doing. Great frosting!
I used a full teaspoon of almond extract instead of the vanilla extract (that's the way my mom makes cookie frosting), but I followed the recipe exactly otherwise. I beat it until it was very light and fluffy, and I added some red food coloring paste--it really turned out a lovely shade of pink for my Valentine's heart cookies. It turned hard enough to stack them. Great texture, color, and flavor, and it spread really nicely. Will use this from now on.
great recipe! I made a half batch for a few cookies. It set up pretty quickly and has a good sweet nice, but not too overpowering
Wonderful, and great with almond extract instead of vanilla. Yummmmmmm
This is yummy sweet and stiff enough to decorate. If you chill it it has a hard texture so that it doesn't rub off on other cookies.
Very tasty and easy sugar cookie frosting! I did add a bit more milk, but otherwise it's wonderful and will definitely use again.
Turned out great! Was not runny at all, had a great flavor, and went very well with a more floury-tasting cookie. Reminds me of the frosting from Lofthouse brand cookies.
Question. This frosting contains dairy,is it ok to leave them on a counter? How long this will be good ? I need an answer.Does anyone know?
This was a very yummy frosting! My kids had a great time using it for their cookies. It not as stiff as I would have liked it to be, so I just added a little more confectioners sugar to it. Stacked great for storage too! Definitely a keeper!
We added a lime and a half of juice to this, and it turned out delicious! It was really hard to wait for the cake to finish baking so we could use it.
I used this frosting on Valentine Sandwich Cookies and they turned out lovely! I used Rice Dream (rice milk flavored like vanilla) and it worked fine.
Do NOT make this with sweet cream butter! That's all I had in the fridge but it turned out very weird. I threw it all out. Will have to try again some other time...
Best icing ever! I thought I was destined to muck up every icing I tried but this came out perfectly. Cut the recipe in half, because this makes a MASSIVE amount. I'll definitely use this in the future!
I love this frosting! I just eyeball the milk until I get the consistency I want. It's very quick and easy and tastes delicious!!!! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Frosting is sweet, but not sickening so like many others. Works great for decorating cut out cookies. I use with Dora's Christmas Cookies, which with almond extract provide a savory counterpoint to the frosting. (Don't worry. It's still plenty sweet!) I suggest doubling the Decorator Frosting to use with one batch of Dora's recipe.
Loved! I did add an extra teaspoon of vanilla cause I love the taste. Hubby loved it so much he was eating it on graham crackers after I was done using it on the cookies!
Nothing to write home about. I added the vanilla too and my family and I all thought the frosting didn't have much flavor.
