How to Make Adorable Hydrangea Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing
Do you like sugar cookies? I’m assuming you do since you are here with me today. I have another question for you. Do you like flowers? If you said yes to both, I’m glad you’re here because we’re going to make adorable hydrangea sugar cookies. Seriously, who doesn’t love cute flowers you can eat, right?
Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers of all time. Sunflowers are also at the top of that list and when we start talking about flower cookies, these two varieties always come to mind. If you have a good sugar cookie recipe, royal icing, and a simple design your cookies will be gorgeous and delicious!
I hope you want to make some with me because here we go!
The cookies we are making today have been airbrushed. I love my airbrush system because you can create a lot of cookies in a short time. And they’ll look similar and that’ll give you a very professional look. Who doesn’t want that, right?!
Supply List
(may contain affiliate links)
Recipes:
Royal Icing Colors:
- Bright White- Americolor
- True Blue- The Cookie Countess
- Positively Purple- The Cookie Countess
- Any green you want for the leaves and the dots in the center of the flowers
Cookie Cutters:
There are so many different cutters that will work with this design. Pick one and have fun!
- Whimsical Rose Cookie Cutter by Sweet Sugarbelle or
- Sweet Sugarbelle Nested Flower Cookie Cutter or Sugarbelle Flower Cookie Cutter,
- Or the Rose Cookie Cutter by Anne Clark
Airbrush System:
Airbrush Colors:
- Whipped White- The Cookie Countess White
- Positively Purple- The Cookie Countess
- True Blue- The Cookie Countess
Stencil:
- Hydrangea Petals Stencil– The Cookie Countess
Tools:
- Tipless Decorating Bags
- Turkey Lacer
- Bowl and paintbrush to mix the airbrush colors
How to Make Adorable Hydrangea Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing Video
Enjoy the video!
Let’s Decorate!
- Begin by baking your sugar cookies and making your royal icing.
- It’s time to color the royal icing. What color are you going to make your flowers? Hydrangeas come in many different colors so you have a few choices to make. I honestly think you can make the icing any color you’d like and it would look great on this cookie. If you want to see something beautiful do an online search for ‘hydrangea colors’ and prepare yourself for some beautiful photos. Once you decide on the colors mix your royal icing and place it in piping bags. Tipless bags will work great and less cleanup because you don’t have to wash all the decorating tips.
Let’s color the royal icing and get started.
- Once your cookies are completely cool you can begin decorating them.
- Outline and flood the flower with the color of your choice. I used The Cookie Countess True Blue food gel color mixed with Americolor Bright White food gel color for this cookie. The purple-looking hydrangea sugar cookies are a mixture of Americolor Bright White food gel color and The Cookie Countess Positively Purple food gel colors. Mixing white food gel color with a little bit of color will help you achieve the soft colors of the flowers.
- Don’t worry about the leaf on the side of the flower. We’ll get to that after we airbrush the cookie. You will see what I’m talking about in a minute.
Here is a helpful tip for you. If you place your cookies in front of a fan as soon as you outline and flood them, it will help them dry with a nice shine. I love a sugar cookie that has a nice bit of shine on the royal icing, don’t you?
Time to airbrush the flowers:
- Once your icing is dry grab your airbrush colors, stencil, and Stencil Genie if you have one. If not, these magnets will work well to help you hold your stencil in place while you airbrush the flower on the hydrangea sugar cookies.
- Place your stencil over the cookie and use what you have to hold it in place.
- In a small bowl, mix the airbrush color with some white airbrush color to achieve the color you want for the flowers. It needs to be a bit darker than your royal icing color so keep that in mind. We are also going to outline the flowers with this color in a bit so keep the bowl handy.
- Place the airbrush color in the airbrush gun.
Oh no! The leaf!
- Remember when I said don’t outline and flood the leaf yet? Well, this is why.
- If you outline and flood the leaf before you add the airbrushing step you will need to cover the leaf or it will have airbrush spray on it. I got a little flood happy and decorated mine before airbrushing. It’s not a big deal, but it does require a step to protect it from getting sprayed.
- You cover it with a piece of parchment paper or paper towel a little larger than the leaf. See, easy fix.
Time to airbrush with the stencil.
Quick tip-
- We are going to airbrush each cookie with the true blue color and then with the positively purple color. I recommend doing all the cookies with the blue, then clean out the airbrush gun and spay again with the purple. That way each cookie gets both colors of flowers without having to change the color several times as you decorate. Line them up, airbrush, and move on to the next color once all of them have the true blue flowers.
- Repeat with the positively purple color.
- Now place the stencil over the cookie using the Stencil Genie or the magnets. Position the pattern however you’d like. You can make the cookies all the same or each one a little different depending on how you position the stencil each time. I prefer different like nature, but that’s just me. You do you and make some happy flowers on your cookie.
- Airbrush the flowers holding the airbrush gun slightly over the surface of your flower cookie. Gently pull the trigger and keep the airbrush gun moving. If you hold it in one spot too long you will get an airbrush splotch and those aren’t any fun at all! You also need to clean the stencil every so often so none of the colors will bleed underneath and mess up your designs. You can watch the video if you need it so you can see how it’s done. So simple!
- Next, use a fine-tip paintbrush to outline the flowers. You can outline both colors of the flowers using the mixtures of colors you made earlier. or just do one color. I like the one color better because it’s faster. Just gently outline each one. It’s super fun and so relaxing!
- If you haven’t piped the leaf with the green royal icing do it now. Once it had dried add an outline or a line on the leaf and let it dry.
You’re all done!
I hope you make a few of these hydrangea sugar cookies because they’re simple, sweet, and scream gorgeous! Sweet Sugarbelle made Hydrangea Cookies some a few years ago that I’ve been admiring and finally decided to make a few of my own. She added a few additional steps and hers and they’re gorgeous. You should go check them out and maybe add those steps to your cookies.
Have fun decorating and I’ll be back soon with more!
Bear hugs,