Rainbow Cookies | Royal Icing Tutorial & Free Printable

One of the best things about having talented friends is when they use their talents to help you improve yours.  My girlfriend from church is an extraordinary baker and makes the most darling sugar cookies.  I wanted to make some rainbow cookies for some loved ones to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and she was gracious enough to teach me how to work with royal icing.  It was so much easier than I thought it would be, but a bit more time consuming than I estimated so it evened out. lol

Aren't they just the cutest?!  Are you already thinking of the people you love who could use a little bit of rainbow and sunshine in their lives?  Here is how we created these with just a couple circles and flower cookie cutter.

Whip up a batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough, chill and roll out about 1/4 inch thick.  First we used a big circle cutter, a glass would work just fine too.  Then we took a smaller circle and cut out the center, a medicine cup would work.  Take a pizza cutter and cut the big circle in half leaving you with a "rainbow".

Next cut out some flowers to use for clouds.  Then use the flower cutter again on the bottoms of the rainbows so the flower has a little space to fit into.  Think of it like a puzzle piece that fits into the bottom of your rainbow.

Bake those up in the oven.  A great tip I learned is to chill your dough before cutting so it keeps it's form in the oven.

While those are cooling off make your royal icing.  I remember making ginger bread houses with this stuff as a kid and watching my Mom make it always seemed labor intensive.  To my surprise it's just 3 simple ingredients that you probably already have on hand.

Beat 1 egg white with 1 cup powder sugar and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.  This makes a small batch and then just increase as needed using the same ratio.  We tripled the recipe for these cookies.  Separate your icing into bowls and color as desired with food coloring.  Make sure to keep some white for the clouds.

Using a piping bag line your clouds and begin the lines for your rainbow.

You will end up with 2 red lines and 1 each of the yellow, green and blue.  Set the cookies aside for about 2-3 hours so the icing dries completely.  Be patient!

They really do look cute just like this and you may be tempted to quit there, but trust me, the extra effort is worth it in the end!

To prep your icing for filling you will add about 1-2 teaspoons of water to the icing and mix.  You want it to slowly migrate when you drip it instead of run all over the place.  Be careful.  It's easier to add more water than it is to take water out.  Leave some white frosting thick so you can do a little bit on lining at the end.  With a new piping bag cut a slightly larger hole and start filling in your lines.  You want the lines to slightly bulge, but they shouldn't run over your guidelines you created.  Do the green and red and let them set for just before you move on to the rest of the lines and the clouds.

One you have everything filed let them set for another 2-3 hours till completely dry.

The last step is to outline your clouds and you are all set!

Dylan was a big fan!  We shot these photos over 3 days so we could have good light and he was a trooper and waited till day 3 to dig in.

I packaged them up in a ziplock and stapled on this Lucky printable and we were all set to deliver some St. Patrick's Day goodness to our friends!

I created a printable for Friend, Teacher and Neighbor so we are set for anything that comes up!  Right click on the photos below and select save photo as to download or pin for later.