Wedding Cookies and Royal Icing Transfers

This weekend I had the great pleasure of watching my sweet sister-in-law marry the man of her dreams. She was truly the most stunning bride of all time, and I can't wait to share some pictures from the day with you soon! Coltin had the opportunity to do the ceremony and it was incredibly special for him to be such a big part of his twin sister's day.

These kinds of occasions always call for cookies and I had such fun creating these for the beautiful bridesmaids to enjoy as they did makeup and hair the morning of the ceremony.

One of the absolute best techniques I have ever stumbled upon in the cookie decorating world is royal icing transfers. It is the process of making royal icing decorations for the cookies ahead of time and then transferring them over after they've dried. Non-artists and perfectionists rejoice!! This is basically tracing over something and ending up with a gorgeous, uniform product. I've used this technique for flowers, monograms, logos, Disney characters, and several other small details like eyes! Here are a couple examples:

To get started, what you'll need is a print out of your design, parchment paper, tape, your icing of choice, a paper towel for quick clean up, and a boo boo stick.

When it comes to icing consistency, I like to use what is called "20 Second Icing." It's called that, because once you run an icing spatula through the icing, it should take 20 seconds for the icing to settle back to an even surface. This will ensure that your icing will be thin enough to make a smooth finish, but thick enough that it won't run over the edges of the design you are tracing.

Once you've got all your materials together, tape the parchment paper over the top of the design you are copying. Then trace over the design with your icing, using your boo boo stick to help smooth things out or fix mistakes. I highly recommend doing several extras! These guys can be super fragile depending on what you're doing, so you can count on a couple to break as you transfer them to the cookies. I also recommend letting your transfers dry overnight. No matter what! I've tried rushing them before and just ended up with a mess.

After the transfers have had a change to dry, use your boo boo stick or a thin spatula to help lift them off of the parchment paper.

Once it is free from the paper, fill in the area of the cookie that the transfer will attach to and give it a few minutes to slightly dry and then carefully drop the transfer on top. I have found that method works best for things like letters or other intricate designs that would be harder to "glue" on after the background color has dried. For flowers or other similar designs, you can let the cookie fully dry and then use a dot of royal icing to glue the flower on.

I ended up using these "R" transfers on the wedding cake cookies because nothing is more exciting than gaining a new initial for your monogram as a bride!