Best Ever Sugar Cookie Icing (4-Ingredient Recipe) + Video
This is the best sugar cookie icing! It dries hard but melts in your mouth + tastes great!! This recipe makes icing for decorating cookies.
Ingredients
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup whole milk, plus more as needed
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 2 teaspoons almond extract or clear vanilla extract
- gel food coloring in desired colors
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or using an electric mixer), combine sugar and ¼ cup milk. Mix until combined, then add more milk, one tablespoon at a time, as needed to create a smooth consistency. Add corn syrup and almond extract.
- To decorate cookies, your outline icing should be the consistency of toothpaste, your flood icing should be the consistency of corn syrup.
- Add food coloring one drop at a time until desired color is reached. Pour into bottles, decorator bags or a cup. Keep unused icing sealed until ready to use.
Video
Notes
The icing will dry hard. It can take up to overnight before I would recommend stacking them. I store mine on cookie sheets tented with foil to keep the cookie bottoms from drying out while they are drying.
You absolutely can substitute vanilla extract (or any other extract). Keep in mind, it will give your icing a slightly off white hue but if you are coloring it anyway it won't matter.
This icing will keep for several weeks on the countertop, in a sealed container. I actually keep mine much longer than that.
We have received some questions about cloudy spots on the iced cookies. I have never had to deal with spots, I live in Arizona and it is a very dry climate and we use air conditioning to cool (which is also very dry). I know that too much humidity can cause icing to get spots. Do you live in a humid climate or use a swamp cooler? I would try a dehumidifier while you are making cookies to help the issue or stick to white icing (actually add white color to the icing) or try working with thicker icing. Or try using thicker icing. That will remove some of the water content and allow the cookies to dry faster. Also make sure the cookies are 100% dry before closing them in a container.
Nutrition
Serving: 1 | Calories: 129cal | Carbohydrates: 33g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 4mg | Sugar: 32g | Calcium: 4mg | Iron: 1mg