How to Pipe Ice Cookies
- 1). Attach a No. 2 nozzle (or similar small nozzle) to a piping bag and fill it 3/4 full with royal icing. Push the air out of the piping bag from the top, then twist the top and tie with a rubber band to stop more air from entering.
- 2). Rest the nozzle in your less-dominant hand, and hold the piping bag from the back with your dominant hand. On a piece of baking paper, squeeze the bag from your dominant hand and guide the nozzle from the back hand to practice piping. When you want to stop a line, hold the nozzle upright and squeeze while pressing down slightly, then abruptly lift the nozzle, which will break the line cleanly. Practice until you feel comfortable with the piping bag.
- 3). Pipe a line 1/8 inch away from the edge of a cookie, right around for a border. In a back-and-forth motion, fill in the border with icing. Jiggle the cookie to settle the icing. Within a minute, the icing will have settled nicely to a smooth coating. You can leave it like this or pipe on designs.
- 4). Change icing colors and pipe your design on top of the background color of the cookie. If you want the design to settle into the background icing, pipe it on while the background icing is still wet. If you want the design icing to stick out from the background, wait until the background is hard (a couple of hours), then pipe on the design. You can also pipe on a design without a background of icing.
