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Sugar Cookie Icing Recipe that Hardens

Easy Sugar Cookie Icing Recipe that Hardens (easy & tasty!)

This is the perfect, easy sugar cookie icing recipe that hardens when dry, but has a deliciously soft bite. It's simple to make, easy for decorating, and tastes SO good!
4.75 from 4 votes
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Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Servings: 24 cookies
Author: TheAmericanPatriette

Ingredients

  • 4 c packed powdered sugar*
  • 3 tbsp light corn syrup
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp almond extract**
  • 16 drops of butter extract***
  • Pinch of salt about ⅛ tsp
  • 3-4 tbsp water see instructions
  • Gel food coloring

Instructions

  • Add powdered sugar, corn syrup, extracts, and salt to a mixing bowl. You'll need to use a spatula to scoop out all of the corn syrup from the measuring spoon each time - it likes to stick!
  • Add 3 T of water to the mixture (You'll likely add a little more later, but just start out with 3 tablespoons.)
  • Stir together using a fork until everything is blended together. Your icing will likely be pretty thick and will need more water, but it's easier to thin icing than it is to thicken it, so that's why I wanted you to start out with less water. To thin it out, add a teaspoon of water, stir, and then evaluate if you need to add more. See the note just below about testing the consistency!
  • Test the icing consistency: The icing should be thin enough to flow out of a piping bag, but not so thin that it'll run off the cookies. Testing is easy! Just take about a tablespoon of the icing, spoon it in a piping bag or Ziplock-type sandwich bag, cut a small tip out of the bag, and practice on a cookie. You should be able to outline the cookie without the icing running off, and you should be able to fill it in pretty easily. If the icing is too runny, you can add a little bit of powdered sugar - about a tablespoon at a time, mixing between additions - and repeat until it's thick enough.
  • Note: the icing in the mixing bowl will likely have air bubbles in it. I don't worry about it - the air bubbles usually go away when you add the icing to the piping bags and frost the cookies. You can always use the tip of your piping bag/icing bag tip to pop any small air bubbles that come up as you're decorating.
  • To color: use gel food coloring (I use Wilton brand), starting with just a small amount, in separate bowls & mixing with the desired amount of white icing. The icing starts to set pretty quickly, so you'll want to cover the main bowl with plastic wrap while you add color + smaller amounts of icing in the other bowls. Transfer to a piping bag soon after you mix in order to prevent the icing from getting too hard in the bowls.
  • To decorate: Add icing to piping bags or Ziplock sandwich bags, cut the tip out (start out with cutting a smaller tip - you can easily make it larger if you need to), and then use it to pipe an outline around your cookie, and then fill in the inside. You can use the tip to spread the icing around a little bit as you gently squeeze out more icing to fill in the shape. Or, simply drizzle some icing on the cookie for a "scribbled" look. You'll want to add sprinkles right after you ice each cookie, just because the icing does start to set on top pretty quickly.
  • To dry: Allow cookies to set out overnight - just let them sit on a baking sheet on your counter. (Yes, they'll still taste great the next day!) Unless the icing is very thick, cookies should be dry enough to stack by the morning. If you plan to ship them or transport them in such a way that they'll shift around quite a bit, you may want to give them a few extra hours on top of that to set.

Notes

*To measure powdered sugar - scoop with the measuring cup and then level off with a knife.
**Almond extract gives this SUCH great flavor, but if you don't care for the flavor of it, or if you're making this recipe and someone is allergic to nuts, you can eliminate this ingredient and the icing will be fine. It'll lose some flavor, but it'll still taste good. I'd consider adding a little extra vanilla in its place.
***Butter extract might be an unfamiliar ingredient but it is super easy to find (it's next to the other extracts on the baking aisle), inexpensive (it was only about $3 at my grocery store), and makes a HUGE difference on flavor in icing where you can't use butter. Icing that uses butter tastes *so good,* but that icing will never fully harden because of the fat content in butter. When you make icing without butter, you lose a lot of the flavor and "oomph" that butter gives. This extract is a great compromise! But, you don't need much - I've found that 8 drops for a half batch and 16 drops for a full batch is all you need. *Just enough* makes the icing taste wonderfully buttery, but too much and it tastes a bit...fake. So, start small and you can always add more!
A note about the corn syrup: I always use my store brand of light corn syrup, but I bought Karo to try it out and see if that worked the same way. I discovered that my store brand was definitely thicker than the Karo corn syrup, so depending on the brand of corn syrup you use, you may need to slightly adjust the recipe to thin out/thicken the icing with a little more powdered sugar/water. Because Karo is a common brand, I tailored this recipe to that kind of corn syrup.
Storing the icing: You can make this icing ahead of time, but I would use colored icing within a couple of days of making it, simply because after 2-3 days, the color starts to separate in the icing. If you do make the icing ahead of time, make sure to store in an airtight container. You don't have to refrigerate it, but you can. When you go to use it, you will want to get it back up to room temperature, and you may find that you need to add a few drops of water to it to thin it out just a little bit.
Decorating notes:
1. This icing is great when you're wanting to whip up something quick and simple. It's great for simple decorating, but if you want to do more complex designs, I'd recommend my royal icing recipe or my buttercream recipe. This recipe will hold some shape, but it doesn't hold as much shape as the other two frostings. However, as you can tell, with a variety of colors & sprinkles, you can make some gorgeous cookies with this!
2. If you decorate by piping + flooding, you'll want to allow the icing to set overnight. It should be hard enough to stack cookies on top of one another by then. Depending on how thick your icing is, it may take longer than 12 hours to 100% dry, but it WILL set. However, if you just do a drizzle on the cookies (see pictures in the post), the drizzled cookies will likely only take a few hours to set.