Do you guys tag your gifts, or are you more of a Sharpie-on-the-wrapping-paper kind of a person? I try to make things look nice with a tag when I can. I was just staring at our newly decorated Christmas tree and thinking of all the wrapping that’s in my future, wondering if I have any gift tags left over from last year. And it gave me a new cookie idea!
This post may contain affiliate links that earn this website a commission that will go toward blog costs and support. Thank you!
Rule number one, these are- say it with me– easy! You can use a square cutter, rectangle cutter, or something with a bit of a fancier edge. I went for one with just a touch of embellishment, but feel free to get as fancy as you can stand to be. Start by, like always, baking up a batch of sugar cookies. Find the recipe here!
Fill an icing bag with stiff white royal icing and top with a #2 icing tip. Carefully outline the edges of your cookie, all the way around.
Go ahead and flood your cookie with wet consistency royal icing. Allow at least an hour to dry. Take a break!
Once your icing is reasonably firm, it’s time to add some color. Using a stiff red royal icing and a #1 tip, go around the edge of your cookie, making small dots. A good tip I’ve learned is to always use odd numbers when you’re counting a side- for this cookie, I used 5 dots by 7 dots. When you use an odd number, you are always able to try and place the middle dot (numbers 3 and 4, respectively) in the middle of your cookie. It can help keep your details in order rather than getting all bunched up!
Next, using black (or whatever color you like) stiff icing and a #1 tip, write the words “To” and “From” at the top left and lower left. Try not to make your letters too big, or you will risk running out of space for names!
Now you want to go back in with your red icing bag and draw an oval on the left, between the words you’ve just written. Allow all these new additions to dry at least half an hour.
Alright, now we’re at a bit of a crossroads. You can either pipe names onto your cookie with icing, or you can get a food grade marker and write your names directly onto the cookie once the white background of the tag is firmly set. If you want to use a marker, you need to wait until that icing is hard. I find that using a counter top fan can speed this process along. Once you’re ready to proceed, go ahead and address your cookies. I chose to use a marker because it felt more like an actual gift tag to write the names by hand.
For the final step, grab your red piping bag again and pipe a loop through the oval and over some of your writing. This will give it a bit of a 3-D effect and help it look a little more like a tag.
See? I told you that would be simple. Let me know how yours turned out!
