That’s right, Two Ingredient Decorated Cookies. I can see you thinking, is that even possible? Yes, it is and it’s no rocket science either. What are the two ingredients that come to mind when you think “decorated cookies”? Cookies and Royal Icing, and there are your two ingredients! This is more of cookie decorating hack really. It’s something lots of people do, but it’s the first time I’ve done it.
Its three days to Christmas. You have loads of things to do and not enough time to get them done in. One of the things you want to do is make decorated cookies. Perhaps you promised the little ones you could make them together. Or maybe you had plans to pack a few for friends or give away as take away gifts. Or it’s just that you just can’t be bothered to make dough, roll and cut it out and then bake cookies. You just want to decorate some like I did. Whatever the scenario, this method works.
The way to go is to start out with store bought cookies. I don’t usually do this because I prefer to make my own cookies. My Royal Icing is home-made so that makes it alright in my book. This is not something I do often but it works when I need to make decorated cookies as quickly as I can. I know I said Royal Icing like it is a single ingredient. It is for me because I had a box of leftover icing in the fridge from these making these Marble Glazed Snowflake Cookies. Even if you don’t, it takes all of 15 minutes to make some.
I’ll give you a recipe for Royal Icing that I use. It has raw egg whites and if that’s a concern, use your go-to icing recipe. Make it in two strengths – thick piping consistency Royal Icing and thinner flooding consistency Royal Icing. Add colours to your Icing, transfer to piping bags and bottles, spread out the cookies and you’re ready to go.
You can use whatever cookies you like so long as they have a flat surface. I used McVitie’s Ginger Nuts/ Ginger Biscuits (this is not a sponsored post). I like gingerbread or ginger flavoured cookies/ biscuits because they’re not as sweet and spiced. The smaller packs I get here have 13 cookies in each. Any flavour will do really so long as you like it. You could try cookies like Oreos (not my favourites but they’re popular)), Shortbread, Nut Cookies, Butter Cookies or Chocolate Chip Cookies for example.
The Royal Icing recipe below gives you a consistency that is neither too thick nor too thin. You will need quite thick Royal Icing to pipe the designs on the cookies. Add icing sugar, a tbsp. at a time, to the below recipe, and mix well to till smooth and silky. The icing is thick enough when it can hold the shape you pipe. If it flattens out after piping, then it is not thick enough. For thinner flooding consistency, mix in a tsp of water into about 1 cup of the Royal Icing. You can add a few more drops if you want to thin it further.
Pipe an outline with thicker icing and then flood the cookies with Royal Icing and let that dry. I fill squeezy bottles for flooding because that’s easier to control the icing than with piping bags. Then pipe and decorate using the thicker Royal Icing. The colours you use and how you decorate the cookies are entirely up to you. I choose easy to pipe designs because I didn’t want to spend too much time on the decorating.
The Christmas tree design is quite easy to do. Just pipe zig-zagging lines close together, starting narrow at the top and moving to wider lines at the bottom. A few sprinkles on the trees before they dry gives them a more colourful look. The blue on white cookies was just a random design. I added silver dragees/ balls for decoration. The Melted Snowman Cookies are the easiest. Flood the cookies with white Royal Icing to llok like the snow has melted. Then randomly pipe the eyes, nose, mouth, arms and buttons.

Two Ingredient Decorated Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 egg whites
- 2 tsp lime juice
- 3 cups icing sugar sieved
- 24 ginger cookies
Instructions
- Make the Royal Icing by beating the egg whites till just frothy. Beat in the lime juice and then the icing sugar, a cup at a time, till smooth. This consistency is perfect for dipping the cookies and doesn’t need to be diluted further. Always store extra Royal Icing in an airtight container in the fridge.
- Colour the Royal Icing according to preference and decorate the ginger cookies.
How do you get that lovely blue color on your cookies? Is this a readily available color that you can use?
That blue color is gorgeous! I love your creativity.
Super idea. You know what, I am not a pro at making cookies, and decorating them. Neither do I have enough time ever to get creative. But these ideas are simple to try and not much time consuming. So, I can try these out and I know my little daughter who loves cookies will be totally delighted. All I am thinking is why couldn’t I think of something like this before!!
That is the whole idea. An easy to decorate cookie, that’s not time consuming and fun to do with kids.
Yes Anuradha. There are now gel food colours available. They add colour without diluting the icing.
Thak you Ishita. That’s what I like best about making decorated cookies – the decorating. 🙂