Learn How to Decorate Valentine Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Valentine themed sugar cookies decorated with royal icing

Decorate Sugar Cookies Just Like the Pros

You can learn to beautifully decorate sugar cookies just like you see on social media and I can teach you how! Whether you like to learn from pictures and text or videos and words, I've got you covered! I have created photo Cookie Cards and a Video Tutorial so that you can choose your method of instruction.


*This tutorial is provided for those that have purchased my annually offered Royal Icing Valentine Cookie Decorating Kit. If you are creating the cookies and icing on your own, I use medium flood royal icing to both outline and flood the cookies. 

Valentine Cookie Cutters

Cookie Cards: Sugar Cookie Decorating Guides

Use my Cookie Cards below as a guide to decorate your Valentine sugar cookies. Step by step photos plus written instructions give you all the details that you need to create beautifully decorated sugar cookies of your own.

Decorate a Heart with Arrow Cookie with Royal Icing using the Wet on Wet Technique

  • Pipe an outline around the arrow tail of the cookie.
  • Following the outline, flood the tail working towards the center.
  • Pipe an outline around the arrow tip. Flood the arrow tip.
  • Give the cookie a gentle shake by moving it back and forth to even out the royal icing. If needed, use a toothpick or scribe tool to move the icing around on the cookie to fill in any gaps or holes.
  • Let the royal icing dry for at least 20 minutes before you add top layers and adjacent sections. You can speed up the drying time of your royal icing by using a small table fan or dehydrator on the lowest setting.
  • Pipe an outline around the center heart section of the cookie. Flood the heart.
  • While the base layer of royal icing is still wet, pipe polka dots around the edge of the heart.
  • Drag a toothpick or scribe tool around the right edge of the heart from the top center down to the bottom tip, running your tool through each polka dot along the way. This will turn the round polka dots into heart shapes. 
  • For the left side of the heart, begin at the bottom tip and drag your tool up around the left edge, through each polka dot, ending at the top center. Let dry for 20 minutes.
  • Pipe a triangle on the arrow tip and fill it in.
  • Pipe a "V" shape on the arrow tail and fill it in.
  • Pipe a dot in the center of the heart. Pipe a line from the dot to the "V" tail.
  • Pipe a small line from the triangle on the tip of the arrow, stopping at the heart.
Step by step royal icing cookie decorating tutorial for a Heart with an Arrow sugar cookie

 PRO TIP: To achieve a seamlessly smooth wet on wet design, flood the cookie quickly and then add the polka dots while the base layer of royal icing is still wet. This creates a flat design that looks like a background pattern rather than a raised top design on the cookie.

Decorate a Lips Cookie with Royal Icing

  1. Pipe a curved line across the center of the cookie to differentiate the top lip from the bottom lip.
  2. Pipe an outline around the top edge of the cookie.
  3. Following the outline, flood the top lip, working towards the center of the section.
  4. Give the cookie a gentle shake by moving it back and forth to even out the royal icing. If needed, use a toothpick or scribe tool to move the icing around on the cookie to fill in any gaps or holes.
  5. Pipe a small white highlight on the right side of the top lip.
  6. Let the royal icing dry for at least 20 minutes before you add top layers and adjacent sections. You can speed up the drying time of your royal icing by using a small table fan or dehydrator on the lowest setting.
  7. Pipe an outline around the bottom edge of the cookie. Flood the bottom lip.
  8. Pipe a small white highlight on the left side of the bottom lip.
Step by step royal icing cookie decorating tutorial for a lips sugar cookie

 PRO TIP: By decorating each lip separately and allowing them to dry in between, this creates dimension and makes them truly look like two separate lips. Alternately, you could flood the entire cookie at once and then come back and pipe a curved horizontal line to separate the two lips. Then, outline the entire outside of the cookie to give it a completed look.

Decorate a Heart Cookie with Royal Icing

using the Marbling Technique

  1. Pipe an outline around the edge of the cookie.
  2. Following the outline, flood the cookie working towards the center.
  3. Give the cookie a gentle shake by moving it back and forth to even out the royal icing. If needed, use a toothpick or scribe tool to move the icing around on the cookie to fill in any gaps or holes.
  4. While the base layer of icing is still wet, pipe horizontal stripes using alternating colors in whichever combination you desire.
  5. Using a toothpick or scribe tool, scrape a line through the icing in the center of the cookie from top to bottom. Scrape four more lines through the icing from top to bottom, two on either side of the center line, essentially dividing the cookie into six sections.
  6. Scrape six more lines through the icing in between the five lines that you created in step 5, but this time scrape from bottom to top.
  7. Give the cookie a gentle shake by moving it back and forth to even out the royal icing. If needed, use a toothpick or scribe tool to move the icing around on the cookie to fill in any gaps or holes.
Step by step royal icing cookie decorating tutorial for a heart sugar cookie

 PRO TIP: To achieve a seamlessly smooth marbling design, flood the cookie quickly and marble with a toothpick or scribe tool immediately before the royal icing begins to dry.

Step by Step Sugar Cookie Decorating VIDEO Tutorial

Visual Learner? Let's Decorate Cookies Together!


Follow along to my step by step video tutorial. Learn how to decorate Valentine Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing including a Heart, Heart with Arrow and Lips. I break down the decorating process into easy to follow steps and give you helpful tips along the way.

Helpful Cookie Decorating Tools:

Scrbe tool

Small Table Fan

Dehydrator


*Affiliate links. May earn a small commission when you make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Want to Learn More?!

Looking for more inspiration? Check out my Buttercream Icing Valentine Sugar Cookie Decorating Tutorial. Learn to decorate the same Valentine cookies with buttercream icing in different designs that can also be translated to royal icing.