Spectacular ice skate-shaped sugar cookies all dressed up with colorful, homemade royal icing.
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Having a young daughter who is a competitive figure skater means that we are surrounded by everything sparkly, pink, unicorns, and anything else an ice-skating princess could dream of. For me, it also means having the perfect taste-tester and creative baking inspiration around. So as my daughter’s 6th birthday was approaching I started thinking about what special treat I could create that would make her birthday even more special for her. We had decided on having a skating-themed birthday party on ice so I wanted to make something that would go with the party theme too. I decided to combine her love of ice skating with her love of sweets and create some birthday treats fit for a winter wonderland fairytale. The outcome? These adorable, pink-laced, Ice Skate Sugar Cookies topped with Royal Icing to pair with a magically festive and wintery, Funfetti Cake decorated with Homemade Lollipops.
To add the really special touch to these birthday cookies I decided to decorate the ice skates to match my daughter’s skates, white with pink laces, to make sure they would be even more loveable to her. Let me tell you, these adorable birthday cookies were super easy to make and they turned out to be a huge hit! My daughter loved them and her whole skating team was in awe of how cute the fancy cookies were and devoured them up. Even at a young age it was easy for them to see that the delicious, fresh flavor of homemade sugar cookies is ridiculously better than the store-bought ones. So if you want to make your special little ice skater’s birthday the best ever then skip store-bought and instead surprise them by making these spectacular ice skate-shaped birthday cookies dressed with yummy royal icing!
Ice Skate Cookie Equipment
Let’s start by rounding up all the tools and equipment needed for this baking project. For these delightful ice skate sugar cookies you really do not need many special materials or equipment to work with. All that is necessary is just the cookie-baking basics with a few helpful decorating tools.
Cookie equipment:
- Kitchen mixer
- 3-Tier Cooling Rack for cookies
- Adjustable rolling pin
- Silicone baking mats – or parchment paper sheets
- Baking sheets
- Needle modeling tool
- Piping bags
- Ice skate cookie cutter
Simply Sweet Sugar Cookie Ingredients
Next, gather up all the cookie and icing ingredients. Luckily, the cookie part of sugar cookies requires fewer ingredients than most other homemade cookies so it’s slightly quicker to mix up the batter. However, we make up that extra time by whipping up some scrumptious homemade royal icing. I promise it is absolutely with it though because the icing is always the tastiest part!
For sugar cookies:
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- ⅔ cup of sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 tsp. of vanilla extract
- ½ tsp. Salt
- 2 ½ cups of flour
For royal icing:
- 1 pound confectioners’ sugar
- 3 tbsp. meringue powder
- 6 tbsp. warm water
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Food coloring: pink and black
Glitter dust – optional but highly recommended for a magical touch.
Smooth Skating to Sugar Cookie Success
Now we get to move on to making the magic happen! The magic of mixing, baking, and decorating, that is. To me, there really is something truly magical about taking a few ingredients and turning them into individual, smile-giving, sweet treats. These ice skate sugar cookies are super easy to make, but there are quite a few steps so just follow along while I break it down for you!
Making the sugar cookie dough:
- First, combine together the flour and salt in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
- Next, use a large mixing bowl and the kitchen stand mixer to beat the butter and sugar together until smooth.
- Add in the vanilla extract and the egg, then beat the mixture again.
- Then, slowly add in the flour/salt mixture while still beating the dough.
- Wait a little while, just until the dough is stiff, then finish kneading the dough by hand.
- Now, roll the cookie dough into a ball and then squeeze it into a disk shape, about ¾ of an inch thick.
- Wrap the disk-shaped cookie dough in saran food wrap, then let it chill in the fridge for 2 hours before it is time to roll it again.
- Next, it is time to preheat the oven to 350°F.
- On a lightly-floured surface, use the rolling pin to flatten the cookie dough out until it is ¼ inch thick.
- If your cookie dough chilled in the fridge for more than 2 hours then leave the dough disk on the counter for 15 minutes before rolling out the dough.
- Then, use the cookie cutters to cut out ice skate-shaped sugar cookies.
- Transfer the cookie cutouts to a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper sheet.
- Before baking, place the baking sheet of cookie cutouts in the fridge and let chill for 5-10 minutes. This is so the cookies will keep their form and not spread out while baking.
- Bake the sugar cookies for about 8-10 minutes.
- After baking, transfer the sugar cookies to the 3-tier cookie cooling rack and cool completely before decorating.
While the ice skate sugar cookies are cooling it is time to make the delicious icing. To make yummy homemade royal icing:
- Start by combining the confectioners’ sugar and meringue powder in a large mixing bowl.
- Next, add in the warm water, 1 teaspoon at a time, while mixing with a hand mixer on low-speed setting.
- Drop in the vanilla extract and continue to mix, on low, until the mixture is shiny.
- Maintaining a low speed, beat the icing mixture for 5-7 minutes.
- Scoop some of the icing into 3 separate small bowls to add colors into, but be sure to keep plenty of white icing set aside.
- Use a toothpick to drop in a little bit of pink food coloring into one of the small bowls of icing and mix until desired color is reached.
- Then, repeat the toothpick process with the black food coloring in the other 2 small bowls of icing, one to make a gray color in and the other to make black icing in.
- Now, for each color icing you need 2 different consistencies. A thicker consistency for borders and edges and a thinner one for flooding, or filling in.
- When you get each colored icing to the right thicker consistency transfer some of each into separate piping bags, leaving some icing behind to make thinner consistencies with.
- To make a thinner consistency just add in a little more water into the mixture.
- When the rest of the thinner icings are ready, transfer each color to a separate piping bag and then you are ready to start decorating!
More Cookies Recipes
To decorate the ice skate sugar cookies with homemade royal icing:
- Start with the piping bags of white icing. Cut the tip of the bags big enough to squeeze some of the icing through.
- For piping bags with the thicker icing, cut off a very thin tip of the bag, about 1/8 of an inch. For the bags with thinner icing, cut 1/16 of an inch, if this is too small of an opening you can always cut a little more off of the bag. I like to do a little test squeeze to make sure the icing comes out the way I want it to before cutting any more from the piping bag, just to make sure.
- Next, start decorating the sugar cookies by outlining the shape of the shoe part with the piping bag of thicker white icing. Then fill in the shoe using the piping bag of thinner white icing.
- Then, repeat the cutting process with the bags of black icing and draw out the bottom part of the shoe that connects to the skate.
- Repeat the process again with the gray icing to draw the skate part of the ice skate. Then, finally with the pink icing to draw on the laces and decorate with glitter dust.
- Use the needle modeling tool to pop any icing air bubbles, to spread the icing, and to help shape the laces and other details.
- After decorating the ice skate cookies, use a craft heat gun to blow on them for just a few seconds, about 10 inches away from the cookies, to create a thin crust on the icing. This is done so that the flooded icing does not cave in on itself. Then let the cookies air dry the rest of the way.
I like to let my sugar cookies air dry in a cool place for 2 days before they’re ready for packaging and storing.
Sugar Cookie Storing and Freezing Tips
To store these yummy sugar cookies with royal icing you can seal them in an airtight container or ziplock bag on the counter for up to 1 week or in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Or these cookies can be frozen at any point of the process whether it’s the dough, fully baked and decorated cookies, or undecorated cookies.
- Decorated cookies must be frozen slowly. Start by placing cookies in a flat, spaced out layer on a baking sheet and freeze for ½ an hour.
- Then, layer with parchment paper and stack similar shapes on top.
- Wrap the stacked cookies in press n’ seal food wrap and then with aluminum foil.
- Mark the date on the outside of the wrapping with a marker. Frozen sugar cookies will stay good for 4 months.
- If desired, the icing can be frozen separately on its own! Just transfer to a ziploc bag and remove all the air. Mark the date and freeze for up to 3 months.
- To thaw the icing just bring to room temp and afterwards, if needed, add a little water to moisten back up.
The Coolest Birthday Treat for Ice Skaters
These adorable ice skate sugar cookies truly do make the perfect gift for your favorite ice skater on their birthday! But these cookies don’t have to be saved just for birthdays, you can make these as a special treat to celebrate any time of year. To make the cookies more personalized, the icing colors can easily be swapped up to match the colors of anyone’s favorite skates, or to match party scheme colors or holidays.
- Feature these sugar cookies as a loveable centerpiece for an ice-skating themed birthday party.
- Wrap the cookies up in party favor bags and serve up as charming birthday party gift favors for guests to take home.
- Wrap up and take to skate competitions and award ceremonies to celebrate and keep everyone in good spirits.
- Serve at any winter wonderland-themed party from Halloween all the way to Valentine’s Day.
Whatever the occasion, these insanely cute and scrumptious ice skate sugar cookies decorated with homemade royal icing are a magical addition to any celebration or special day. Easy to personalize and easy to devour!
Ice skate cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
Royal icing
- 1 lbs Confectioner’s Sugar
- 3 tbs Meringue Powder
- 6 tbs Warm Water
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- Food Coloring pink, black
- Glitter Dust
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine flour and salt.
- In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar together in a stand mixer until smooth.
- Beat in the vanilla extract and the egg.
- Add in the rest of the dry ingredients slowly while beating the dough.
- After a while and the dough is stiff, finish kneading by hand.
- Roll the dough into a ball, then squeeze the dough into a ¾ inch-thick disk.
- Wrap the dough in saran wrap, and chill in the fridge for 2 hours before rolling.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Roll the dough onto a lightly floured surface to ¼ inch thick, and cut with cookie cutters into desired shapes.
- Transfer cookies onto a baking sheet lined with paper or a silicone liner.
- Before baking, place the baking sheet of cookie cutouts in the fridge and let chill for 5-10 minutes. This is so the cookies will keep their form and not spread out while baking.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes, then cool on a cookie sheet, then transfer to a cookie rack to finish cooling.
Royal Icing
- In a large bowl, combine confectioner’s sugar and meringue powder.
- Add warm water, one spoon at a time, while mixing on low speed.
- Add vanilla extract, and continue mixing until the mixture is shiny.
- Mix at low speed and beat for 5-7 minutes, and add desired colors.
- Transfer to piping bag.
- Decorate.
Notes
- Leave dough dist on the counter for 15 minutes before rolling out cookies if you chilled dough in a fridge for more than 2 hours.
- For each color of icing, you need 2 different consistencies of icing. For a thinner consistency, add more water to the mixture. Thinner icings are used for flooding, and thicker icing is used for borders and edges.
- For thicker icing, cut the piping bag very thinly, around 1/16 of an inch. For thinner icings, cut ⅛ of an inch. If this is too small, you can always cut more bag.
- After decorating cookies, dry the icing with a craft heat gun 10 inches away, so the flooded icing does not cave on itself.
- I like to let my cookies air dry in a cool space for 2 days, then they’re ready for packaging.
- The cookies can be frozen in any part of the process: the dough, decorated and undecorated cookies. Decorated cookies must be frozen slowly, placing a cookie on a baking sheet for half an hour, then stacking similar shapes, putting parchment paper in between. Then wrap the stacked cookies in press n’ seal and then aluminum foil, date the cookies, and the cookies stay good for four months.
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