How to Make Jellyfish Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

If you’re not at the beach right now you can imagine you are when you make cute little jellyfish sugar cookies. These cookies take me to a place I love to visit. I haven’t been in years, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the feeling of the sand, sun, and waves. Aah, the joy of playing in the ocean.

Jellyfish cookies, sugar cookies, royal icing, The Bearfoot Baker, how to make

However, it’s not all fun and games because we have to watch out for things like sharks, stingrays, and jellyfish. They do have a bit of a sting and that’s no fun. If you bake sugar cookies in the safety of your kitchen you don’t have to worry about that. You just need to worry about making enough cookies for your loved ones or clients to eat. That’s much better than getting bit by a shark or a wicked sting of some kind. 

Enough about stings and bites. Let’s decorate these cute little jellyfish sugar cookies.

Supply List:
(may contain affiliate links)

Recipes:
Cookie Cutter:
Royal Icing Colors:
Tools:
  • Piping Bags
  • Turkey Lacer
  • Genie Mini Mat and Cookie Turntable– I use the Cookie Turntable with the Mini Mat every time I decorate. I love the way it allows me to spin the cookie without worrying abut messing up my royal icing. If I move it on my own I usually poke the icing with my finger. This tool helps me keep my fingers to myself! 
  • Paintbrush- You may not need this, but I got two of the tentacle lines too close together so I used a wet brush to separate them. I’ll show you later in the post and you can see how it works in the video.
  • PME # 1.5 or a PME #2 piping tip- I like using a piping tip for outlining the cookie, tentacles, and bell of the jellyfish. If you don’t want to use a tip you don’t have to. I feel like I get better results with them.  I also love the PME tips because they are stainless steel which means they cost a little more but they last forever! I’ve never had to replace one even if I forget and leave it soaking in water overnight.
  • If you need a reusable bag tie for your Reusable Icing Piping Bag Ties I use these from The Cookie Countess and I’m pretty fond of them. 

 

How to Make Jellyfish Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing Video:

Enjoy the video!

Outline and flood the jellyfish sugar cookies:

sugar cookies, royal icing, outline with royal icing, The Bearfoot Baker

 

  • Begin by making your sugar cookie dough and royal icing. You can make the jellyfish any color you want. I listed the colors I used above. The pink jellyfish was decorated with a tiny touch of Americolor Tulip Red. If you don’t have tulip red you can use a tiny amount of pink to make a really cute pink color. Remember, sometimes less is more. You don’t need a lot to make a good pink jellyfish.
  • Once you’ve baked and cooled your cookies and made your royal icing colors, your ready to decorate. 
  • Outline the jellyfish sugar cookie with the white royal icing. You can use an outline consistency or a 15-Second Consistency. You do whatever works for you. For this cookie, I used a PME #1.5 piping tip with outline consistency. I trimmed a small amount off of the tip of the piping bag for the flood consistency. Just thought I’d share the info with ya. 

flood sugar cookies, Jellyfish Sugar Cookie, The Bearfoot Baker

  • After you outline the jellyfish flood the entire cookie. Keep in mind you need to work fast because we are going to do a wet on wet technique for orals or as we humans call them arms. Or is it legs? I’m not sure. but here we go!

Jellyfish Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Royal Icing, The Bearfoot Baker

  • Flood the entire cookie and use a turkey lacer, toothpick, or scribe to push and move the icing into place. Remeber, work fast!
Make oral arms:

flood icing, The Bearfoot Baker, wet on wet, royal icing

  • While the white flood icing is wet pipe some dots from the bottom of the cookie to the top of the cookie where the jellyfish bell (head) will be. You don’t have to put the dots in a straight line so be brave and add a few curves.
  • While the dots are wet use your turkey lacer, toothpick, or scribe tool to gently pull the icing towards the bell (head). Go through the center of the dots as you move the turkey lacer towards the head. This will make the dots look like hearts or in this case it will make jellyfish orals. 
  • Add as many or few orals as you’d like. Three or four worked well for me.
  • Let this icing dry for a little while.
Time for jellyfish sugar cookie tentacles:

royal icing, jellyfish, sugar cookies, The Bearfoot Baker

  • Time to add the tentacles. As I mentioned before a piping tip might help make them nice and even. Pipe as many or few as you’d like. 
  • Pipe a dot at the end of each.
How to fix a mistake with a paintbrush:

royal icing, sugar cookies, The Bearfoot Baker, fix cookie mistake

  • Here is where the paintbrush comes into play. I accidentally piped the tentacles too close together. All you need to do to separate them is wet a paintbrush and wipe off the excess water. Then gently pull it through the clump of icing that was created and step back and look. Tada! It’s all fixed! 

how to make sugar cookies, jellyfish, The Bearfoot Baker

  • Remember when I said to let the icing dry a little while? This is why. I didn’t like piping the outline of the head over the tentacles so I used the Thingamagenie to remove the tentacles so the head would have a nice flat bottom.
Is the top of the jellyfish called a hood or a bell?

Jellyfish, The Bearfoot Baker, How to flood a sugar cookie

  • Outline and flood the bell.

turkey lacer, The Bearfoot Baker, Sugar Cookies

  • Use a turkey lacer to smooth out the royal icing. 
Add a few cute little dots to your jellyfish sugar cookies:

polka dot royal icing, The Bearfoot Baker

  • While the royal icing is still wet, add a few white dots. 

jellyfish cookies, royal icing, sugar cookies, The Bearfoot Baker

  • You’re all done! Congratulations! You are having fun at the beach while you’re working at home! Isn’t life wonderful!
Enjoy the beach even if you aren’t there:

Jellyfish cookies, sugar cookies, royal icing, The Bearfoot Baker, how to make

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did making it. If you’re wondering where I got the jellyfish cookie-cutter, don’t worry. It’s from Killer Zebras and I got a few others to share with you. She has super cute cookie cutters so check them out! 

Bear hugs,

Lisa