I have been reading this forum for weeks now and I think I have a pretty good idea of how to decorate with the royal icing on sugar cookies .. but I have a few questions ... this will be my first time working with Royal icing ...so please bear with my newness to it!

I want to make decorated Easter Eggs .. I have the cutters, a recipe for dough and I saved some of the recipes from here to use ..

I want to do a basic flood of one color and then draw on colorful stripes .. very basic for my first time out

I figured on making 4 colors from one batch of icing and just working with those 4 ..

Now, can I outline, flood and make the lines with the same consistency icing? Do I have to outline all the cookies in thick and then thin the icing and then go back to flood?

Which recipe do you suggest for a total beginner to use? I saved several from suggestions on this site, but is there one that is more user friendly?

I have wilton disposable bags and tips and all that, but should I just go with the bottle method? Will the couplers that work with the bags also work with the bottles?

Any hints or tips will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Wish I could be more help. I don't really do the cookie thing. So new at cakes I don't want to fluster myself But I do however think the out line needs to be thick and fill in with thin then decorate with thick? So this is what I hear & guessing. Hopefully someone familiar with it can give you better advise. Good luck! I love decorating now that there is this site I can come to for help.

I came across this website and found it to be very helpful. It explains icing consistency etc. She uses the term "run sugar" or "color flow" for flooding. She also explains using the heat from a lamp to keep royal icing shiny.
http://www.ladycakes.com/color_flow_cookie.htm
There are also pictures to show you how to roll out cookies the easy way by using square dowels for your rolling pin to rest on. You'll see by the pictures.

kos

Also, Antonia74 has a tutorial on this site which is really great! Go to the home page of this site and look in the purple box "New Articles" and it's the third one down.

I highly recommend Antonia74's tutorial! I just started doing decorated cookies at Christmas time, and have done several bouquets for taking to school, etc, since then (pictures are posted in my photos).

I do them just like she instructs, using the same icing recipe and the no-fail cookie recipe, and I'm very pleased with how they turn out.

I have a couple of orders for later this spring from people who want to give one to their kids' teachers for end-of-school-year gifts!