As a cookie decorator I want to get a beautiful look to my cookies. To do this I use a variety of cookie icing recipes.
But, by far my most popular and most used recipe is this one.
Why? This glossy icing dries with a nice shine which shows off the designs. It also dries hard so you can stack or even ship in the mail without the icing being disturbed.
I created a quick tutorial here.
Printable Recipe Below
How to Make – this recipe will decorate about 15 – 24 cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 Cups powdered sugar
- 1 heaping Tablespoon to 2 Tablespoons light corn syrup (depending how thin or thick you want icing)
- 1 heaping Tablespoons to 2 Tablespoons milk (depending how thin or thick you want icing)
- 1 teaspoon extract
Add ingredients and stir with a whisk or use a mixer. If you want the icing thinner, add more milk. If you want icing thicker, add more powdered sugar. Once cookies are decorated they will dry within one hour.
My Best Sugar Cookie Recipe HERE

- 2 Cups powdered sugar
- 1 Heaping Tablespoon to 2 Tablespoons light corn syrup (depending on how thin or thick you want icing)
- 1 Heaping Tablespoon to 2 Tablespoons milk (depending on how thin or thick you want icing)
- 1 teaspoon extract
- Add ingredients and stir with a whisk or use a mixer. If you want the icing thinner, add more milk. If you want icing thicker, add more powdered sugar. Once cookies are decorated they will dry within one hour.
Does this dry as hard as actual Royal Icing? This is not royal icing because this no egg whites.. I’m afraid it will be too soft to pipe lettering
It actually does dry hard to add lettering. It is a softer royal icing but I pipe lettering all the time. The dry time is just longer. If you have to work fast, I would use the egg whites or meringue powder. Jill
I want to try your recipe but you say use milk but you video shows you using half and half. Which one is it?
Thank you!
Hi Yolanda,
You can use either one. It is best with a higher fat milk like half&half or whole milk.
Enjoy! Jill
Help…. I did this recipe. My first problem was that it did not whisk at all. I had to add lots more milk and use a knife to try to get the mixture out of the whisk. Then after I finally mixed it, it has a brown color to it, like tea. It is a no no to use vanilla extract? Everything else was exactly as in the recipe.