Sugar Cookie Icing

This is the easiest Sugar Cookie Icing you can make! It's made with just a few simple ingredients including powdered sugar for sweetness, corn syrup for consistency, milk for thinning, and extracts for flavor. It's perfect for decorating your favorite sugar cookies.

Ingredients

3 cups (360g) powdered sugar*

1/4 cup whole milk

2 Tbsp light corn syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

Food coloring (gel, liquid, natural or powdered dried)

Instructions

In a large mixing bowl using a fork whisk together powdered sugar, milk corn syrup, vanilla extract, and almond extract until smooth. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl.

If needed thicken with a little more powdered sugar (a few tablespoons at a time) or thin with a little more milk (1 tsp at a time). It should not be runny but not so thick for piping, a nice ribbon should flow when you lift the fork from the icing. (You can also make a slightly thicker icing for edges and a thinner runnier icing if you want to flood the center of the cookies).

Tint with food coloring if desired (you may opt to separate portions of icing into individual bowls if tinting various colors), start with small amounts especially if using gel as it is very concentrated.

Transfer icing to a piping bag fitted with a small round tip (I like to use a Wilton #3 or #4 tip) or you can even use a quart size resealable freezer bag if you don't need precise detail, just cut a tiny corner from one bottom corner of the bag.

Pipe icing over cookies. You can also create an outline with slightly thicker icing and then use a clean paintbrush to spread slightly thinner icing over cookies.

Let it set until very firm, at least 2 hours. Cookies can be stacked once icing as fully set.