How to Decorate a Baby Rattle Cookie with Royal Icing

Directions

• 1

  Bake and cool cookies before decorating. Make sure cookies are fully cooled. If they are warm, the icing will run off of them. Make royal icing. Learn how to mix different consistencies of royal icing here>>
  
  Prepare the following icing colors:
  
  Piping Consistency:
  White Sage Green (create sage green by mixing leaf green with a tiny amount of mocha brown and super black food coloring)
  Yellow
  
  Flood Consistency:
  Yellow
  
  Pro Tip: To get softer, more pastel colors, mix bright white into your brighter hues.

• 2Outline a yellow circle at the top of the rattle, then create a handle by outlining two nested circles at the base of the rattle. Connect the two with an elongated white handle, outlined in white piping consistency icing.
  
• 3Fill the white outline with white icing. Since it is a small area, you should be able to get a nice smooth fill with your piping consistency icing. However, if you find that the icing is too thick, add some water so that it flows more freely.
  
• 4

  Use yellow flood consistency icing to flood the top of the rattle, then the handle.

  
• 5

  Be careful to leave the center of the handle at the base of the rattle open to make it look more realistic.

  
• 6

  Use a scribe tool or toothpick to gently move the yellow flood icing around. This will ensure full coverage, and will also get rid of any air pockets or bubbles in your icing. Wait 30-60 minutes for the flood to begin crusting over before moving to the next step.

  
• 7For the details, we piped an arched outline on the rattle part of the rattle with green piping consistency icing. The gentle arch of the shape makes the rattle look more spherical, rather than flat.
  
• 8Fill the arched rectangle with green flood consistency icing. Again, if you would rather just mix one batch of green icing, this area can be filled with piping consistency green icing. Let the green icing dry 30-60 minutes or until just crusted over before moving on to the next step.
  
• 9It's all in the details-pipe some white dots on either side of the green stripe in the rattle.
  
• 10

  Now, add a bow to the rattle.

  
• 11

  Pipe on one side of the white handle line at a time, creating two small loops and tails that intersect over the white line of the rattle.

  
• 12

  Wait for the icing to dry fully before transporting or packing these cookies.