How to Make Fun Crab Cookies this Summer

I know summer is almost over, but we still have time to make fun crab cookies. The good thing about decorating cookies is you can make any kind of cookie you want at any time of the year. Have you ever made Mele Kalikimaka Cookies with Santa in his cute swim shorts during the summer?

Decorating cookies is a good way to express yourself any time of the year with any design you dream of.  If we can make Santa in the summer I guess we can make crab cookies at Christmas time. Wouldn’t these little guys look good with a set of hammerhead sharks,  jellyfish cookies, or Crazy Santa Shark Cookies? Okay, I’m going to the kitchen to bake so I can make a fun beach set of cookies with cute crab, hammerheads, sharks and jellyfish.

Keep in mind it doesn’t matter when you make summer and animal cookies as long as you have fun while baking and decorating them!

Supplies for Fun Crab Cookies:
(may contain affiliate links)

Recipes:
Sugar Cookie Recipe
Royal Icing Recipe: (15-Second Icing in tipless decorating bags)

Cookie Cutters:
Crab Cookie Cutter by Sweet Design Shoppe – A 2″ x 3″ cookie cutter was used for this set.

Royal Icing Colors:
Red
White

Free Royal Icing Candy Eye Template:
Large Candy Eyes Template– The candy eyes are made with white royal icing with a 4mm black edible dragees in the middle.
How to Make the Candy Eyes Video

Tools:
Turkey Lacer
Tipless decorating bags from Truly Mad Plastic
Food-Safe Marker – brown to draw the pattern and black to draw the smile.
If you don’t draw the smile you can paint it with black food gel color and a paintbrush.

Optional:
Cookie Turntable Swivel for Cookies and the Minimat
Fan to dry your cookies

If you plan on using the candy eyes you can make them about a week in advance so they’ll have plenty of time to dry before you make the fun crab cookies. You can make different sizes and store them in an airtight container so you’ll have them whenever you need them.

• Bake your cookies and cut out the crab shapes and let the cookie cool off completely before you begin to decorate.
• Once the cookies have cooled draw the pattern with a food-safe marker.
• When you make the legs outline the top and bottom legs with the red royal icing so you can flood them at the same time. Then, outline and flood the middle leg so they’ll look like individual legs once the icing dries. If you outline and flood them all at the same time they will look like one weird leg. Doing them individually and giving them time to dry will make your crabs look like they have six legs instead of two weird legs.
• Then, outline and flood the pinchers and let it dry for at least ten minutes.

• Once the icing forms a crust (that just means the top layer is dry) outline and flood the other two legs and let the royal icing dry for about ten minutes.
• Now it’s time to flood the body and let it dry for a few hours.

The good thing about decorating a cookie that’s decorated with one icing color is you don’t have to worry about different colors of icing bleeding into each other. It makes it a little easier to decorate without worrying about the final result of the cookies.

• After the body of the cookie has dried a little it’s time to add the eyes. There are a few different ways to add them and the way I did it probably wasn’t the easiest. I piped a circle of white royal icing and added the eyes. It worked, but the eyes slid a little as I added them. Next time I’ll pipe a white dot for each eye immediately after I flood the body. Let them dry as the body of the crab dries so it will be a little firmer. Then, add a small drop of icing on top of the white dots and attach the candy eyes. You can do it any way you want but making circles and letting them dry before adding the candy eyes will work best.
• Let the royal icing dry completely.

• It’s time to add some white or red dots for decoration and you can see how many I added in the second image. You can add a few dots or more for fun. Add as many or as few as you’d like and add them in a fun color or in the same color you used to decorate the cookies.
• If your icing is good and dry you can use a black food-safe marker to make a mouth. If you prefer you can use black food gel to paint a smile.

How to Make Fun Crab Cookies this Summer Video

I hope you like these little guys. Sweet Design Shoppe has some really cute cookie cutters so you should go take a look. And who knows, you might end up making summer cookie designs with me this winter or we can make snowflakes Christmas trees. It’s up to you just as long as you’re making sweet sugar cookies with royal icing.

Bear hugs,