"This really is the ULTIMATE cookie book. Whimsical, elegant, colorful, and creative!! What more could you ask for? You will not be disappointed.”

Colette Peters

Celebrity Cake Decorator; Owner, Colette's Cakes

Cocktail Cookies

Cheers to these cookies! They’re relatively fast and easy to decorate because many of their details - “salt” on the rim, lime wedge, and cocktail stirrer - are store-bought!

What you’ll need for a few cookies:

A large (about 4 1/4 x 4 1/2-inch-tall) daiquiri or margarita glass cookie cutter (I purchased this exact cookie cutter from coppergifts.com.)
About 1 1/2 cups Royal Icing (Allow about 1/2 cup per color, especially of the white and lime green, which are used in larger quantities than the black.)
Green, yellow, and black soft-gel (aka liqua-gel) food coloring
Parchment paper pastry cones (or substitute disposable plastic piping bags)
Extra powdered sugar, as needed to thicken icing
A few plastic coffee or drink stirrers (1 or 2 per cookie; optional)
A few tablespoons coarse-grained clear sanding sugar (I used so-called Diamond Shimmer Sugar from The Gourmet Baking Co., which I found easily in a local kitchen supply shop, but had difficulty finding online.)
Small-ish (1 7/8-inch-long) sugar lime slices (1 or 2 per cookie; these lovelies came from fancyflours.com)

To make:

1 | Bake and outline the cookies. Once you’ve cut the cookies with your desired daiquiri or margarita glass cutter, bake and cool them completely. Mix the Royal Icing as described here, or in the “ALSO SEE” link, below. Divide the icing roughly in thirds. Tint one portion lime green using a combination of green and yellow food coloring (more yellow than green, actually). Tint the second portion black, and leave the last portion white.

Thin each portion to outlining consistency by adding a touch of water, following the consistency adjustments here. In order to get the icing very close to the cookie edges without running off, it’s best to outline cookie areas first, prior to topcoating (or flooding). Fill one parchment pastry cone with the white icing and another with the lime green; then snip a small (less than 1/8-inch) hole in the tip of each cone. Proceed to outline the areas of the cookie that will be white (the top half of the glass bowl and the stem and foot) and that which will be green (the bottom half of the bowl).

2 | Topcoat (or flood) the cookies. Thin the leftover white and green icings to topcoating consistency, and turn them into new parchment pastry cones. Cut a slightly larger (about 3/16-inch) hole in each tip this time - just large enough for the icing to flow freely, but not out of control! Guide the white icing into the white outlines in order to completely fill them. Important topcoating tips: Be sure to dab the icing onto the cookie with the tip of the cone and let it flow on its own into a smooth finish. Push out more icing, as needed for even coverage, as you dab. But take care not to re-tread smooth territory. Since Royal Icing sets up very quickly, you are more likely to mess up the icing if you overwork or spread it too much. You can also use the end of a craft paint brush or dowel rod to topcoat the cookie. I often do this, as it allows me to skip the step of making a parchment cone.

While the white icing in the top half of the bowl is still wet, carefully place a coffee or drink stirrer in it (if desired) so that the bottom-most end sits just above the green outline. Proceed to topcoat the green portion of the cookies as just described. While the green icing is still wet, pipe a swirl of white icing onto it to indicate the motion of the stirrer, if desired. For this task, you may need to thicken the white icing back to outlining consistency to keep it from spreading too much once it hits the green icing (I did). Let the topcoating icings dry until a skin has formed, about 30 minutes, before applying the black icing in the next step. You’ll minimize the chances of the black icing bleeding into the lighter ones if you allow for some drying time.

3 | Outline and detail the cookies, except for the rims. Use the black outlining icing, mixed in Step 1, to detail and outline the cookies wherever you desire. But avoid the rims (see second photo from bottom), if you intend to “sand” them in the next step with sugar. Allow all icings, both the topcoating ones and the black outlines, to dry completely before piping and sanding the rims. Any icing that is even slightly tacky will attract sugar crystals, and I don’t think you want them anywhere but on the rims!

4 | Pipe and sand the rims. Work on one cookie at a time. Use the leftover black icing to pipe an oval rim on the cookie. Immediately pour the sanding sugar on top of the black icing, while it is still wet. (Do this over a bowl so you can recover and re-use the overflow.) Shake off the excess sugar, again into the bowl, and you’ll find the sugar clinging beautifully to the rim. (If you don’t, you waited too long to pour the sugar on the icing and it dried, or your icing was a touch too thick for the sugar to immediately adhere. Try again!) Use a dab of the black icing to secure a sugar lime slice to the rim, and repeat this step with the remaining cookies.

5 | Add your finishing touches. I added a few additional details, but feel free to skip or riff on this step. I glued another lime slice to the base of some of the glasses with leftover outlining icing. And on most cookies, I used leftover icing (thinned to beadwork consistency) to pipe dots, some white and others blue, on the glass bases and stems. If you didn’t put a stirrer into the white icing in Step 2, you can always glue one on at the end with outlining icing, but take note: plastic stirrers pop easily off the cookies once the icing dries so it’s best to embed them in the icing (a la Step 2) if you want them to really stay put.