Why Learn Cookie Decorating?

Cookie decorators use a variety of edible ingredients to add color and texture to cookies, transforming them into unique works of art. Learning cookie decorating can be a lot of fun and you’ll be able to create custom cookies for gifts, to celebrate special occasions, or even to sell. Here, you’ll learn more about the ways that you can benefit from cookie decorating and how it can enhance your life. Regardless of your overall goals, learning cookie decorating can be a valuable and impressive skill to learn

What is Cookie Decorating?

Cookie decorators use a variety of tools and techniques to add color and texture to plain cookies. For example, flooding involves flooding a cookie with runny icing to fill inside an outline. Piping is where a piping bag is used to make designs on the cookie. Cookie decorators also hand-paint cookies with brushes, and airbrush them with an airbrushing tool that sprays out a fine mist of food coloring.

According to a recent article in Smithsonian Magazine, people have been making and decorating cookies for a long time, but it was in the 16th century that the practice really became widespread. It says that at that time, spices started to become more accessible in the German city of Nuremberg, which was a trade crossroads. The article explains, “[c]ooks in the German city combined sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and other spices with locally produced honey to create lebkuchen, spiced honey cakes comparable to gingerbread.” The article also explains that people started to use molds to make cookies. It says, “[a]round this same time, wooden, metal and ceramic cookie molds came into wider use, enabling bakers to imprint elaborate designs on anise-flavored springerle and other picture cookies. Initially decorated with religious images, these molds became increasingly secular in the 17th century, with artisans hand-carving depictions of knights, coats of arms, and activities like ice skating and hunting, among other scenes.”

Benefits of Learning Cookie Decorating

One popular reason for learning cookie decorating is that it can be a fun way to express yourself creatively. When you decorate cookies, you get to experiment with different colors, designs, and techniques, and you can make miniature, edible works of art. Lots of people say that they also find this creative process to be a great way to relax and unwind.

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Cookie decorating can also be an excellent way to create unique gifts. Unlike many gifts that you buy at the store, hand-decorated cookies take time and effort to create, and are one-of-a-kind. They also work for a variety of different occasions, including birthdays, graduations, and holidays.

Some of those people who enjoy making cookies to celebrate special occasions like birthdays and holidays decide to turn their hobby into a business. Custom-made cookies have become trendy in recent years, and making them can be a lucrative business. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to start a cookie decorating business, and you can sell high-quality, custom-made cookies for more than $5 each. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (the BLS), which gathers and analyzes information about the economy, predicts that baking jobs will increase faster than average over the next ten years. It finds that California, Texas, and New York have the highest employment levels for bakers. The District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Massachusetts pay the highest wages. The average mean wage for a baker in the District of Columbia is close to $50,000 per year, according to the BLS.

Get Creative

When you decorate cookies, you exercise your creativity. Not only is being creative enjoyable, but there is a lot of evidence that it’s really good for you too. For instance, studies show that people who do something creative can feel fewer stress, and have better mental health. There is also evidence that creativity benefits society as a whole. Professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Jonathan Schooler, says, “[b]eyond those individual benefits, creativity is an endeavor with implications for society.” He explains, “[c]reativity is at the core of innovation. We rely on innovation for advancing humanity, as well as for pleasure and entertainment. According to Schooler, “[c]reativity underlies so much of what humans value.” Some cookie decorating classes even focus on unique creative themes. For example, in New York, Sugar Sketch runs a class called Under the Sea–Cookie Decorating.

Enjoy Learning a Unique Form of Art

When you learn cookie decorating, you’ll be learning how to create a unique form of art. Some people say that cookie decorating is unlike any other type of art, and that they enjoy its unique combination of designs and colors. Design historian and author Ella Hawkins likes to decorate cookies because it allows her to combine her love of baking with her passion for history and design. She says, “I think it was something to do with how different visual things like colors, shapes and styles come together to create something as a whole that just clicks with my brain…I realized I can just look at things and turn them into biscuits, and I just sort of carried on experimenting to see what I could do with that.”

Constantly Learn Something New

Some cookie decorators say that they enjoy this activity because they are constantly able to learn new things. “Cookie decorating never gets stale, ” says Karen Summers, who co-founded a cookie-decorating group called CookieCon. While cookie decorating does involve a number of basic techniques that stay the same, Summers explains that there is also constant innovation within the field. She says, “[t]here’s always some new technique, some new tool, some new thing [bakers are] implementing. Every time that I think I’ve seen it all, someone will pull out something new, and I think, ‘Whoa! How’d they do that?’” One way to learn about new cookie decorating techniques is to take a class. For instance, if you live in Los Angeles, Cakery by Syd offers a number of different cookie decorating classes that focus on different themes and skills such as Valentine's Day Cookies Piping Stenciling and Fun, where you can learn stenciling and piping techniques, and even how to work with an airbrush.

A Welcoming and Supportive Community

When you learn cookie decorating, you’ll become part of a new community. Some more experienced decorators talk about their own experiences in that community, and many say that they have found it to be very welcoming and supportive. For example, cookie decorator Karen Summers says that she finds the community part just as fulfilling as the decorating. She says, “[t]he cookie community is just so supportive and open and sharing.” She explains, “People reach out and they lift each other. It sounds corny but that’s very much the draw for cookie decorators—as much as the art, it’s just the inclusiveness.”

Earn Money

Many people start out learning cookie decorating for fun, and then realize that they can turn it into a lucrative business. Cookies have become trendy in recent years, and there is a high level of demand for custom-made cookies for all kinds of special events, from baby showers to graduation parties. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that from 2021 to 2031, baking jobs will increase by about 8 percent. In the United States, the average growth rate for all occupations is only 5 percent. The agency explains that baked goods are, and will continue to be, an important part of most people’s diets. In addition, it says, “[p]opulation and income growth are expected to result in greater demand for a variety of commercial and retail specialty baked goods, including cupcakes, pies, and cakes.”

Fight Stress

People who regularly do creative things, including cookie decorating, often say that one of the things they like about being creative is that they are forced to slow down and exist in that moment, focusing only on their creative process. They say that this can be a great way to forget about other stresses, and that the creative process can overall be very meditative and stress-relieving. Art Therapy researcher Girija Kaimal explains, “[i]t's that sense of losing yourself, losing all awareness. You're so in the moment and fully present that you forget all sense of time and space.” A lot of research studies also support the idea that doing something artistic is a great way to slow down and fight stress. There is so much evidence of the benefits of creativity that some medical professionals even offer a type of therapy called art therapy, where patients who are dealing with health problems do different types of creative activities as a form of therapy. According to an article in Smithsonian, “[m]aking art as a form of mental health treatment dates back to the mid-20th century, when soldiers returning from the battlefields of World War II were left with a condition that was known as ‘shell shock, ’ but is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans painted, drew, sculpted and made other forms of art to help process what they’d witnessed and experienced at war.” The author explains, “[t]he practice has been growing ever since. Today, around 5,000 art therapists practice in the United States, plus more around the world.”

How to Start Learning Cookie Decorating

You might think that cookie decorating sounds easy, and that all you need to get started is a recipe and some basic supplies. However, if you’ve never decorated cookies before, it can be helpful to start with a class. This is because there are actually a number of different techniques involved, and if you don’t understand what you’re doing, you can end up extremely frustrated when your cookies don’t turn out right. Baker Lisa Snyder explains that cookie decorating is relatively easy, but she says that it is definitely helpful to start out by learning some of the basics from an expert. She says, “Mind-blowing cookie decorating isn’t difficult with a little help from someone who had the same struggles as you’ve had. Yes, years ago when I started I didn’t know about 15-Second Consistency nor did I know what caused craters or why my icing didn’t dry with a nice shine. As far as baking sugar cookies, I knew how to follow a recipe, but I didn’t know how to make the surface flat or how to keep my cookies from spreading as they baked.”

Many people prefer in-person cookie decorating classes because, with this format, it can be easier to understand the techniques being demonstrated. You can also get immediate feedback and answers to your questions. Depending on where you live, you’re likely to find a number of different in-person cookie decorating classes focused on different themes and techniques. For instance, if you live in New York City, you could take a basic decorating class like Royal Icing Cookies, or you could opt for a themed class like Under the Sea–Cookie Decorating.

If an in-person class doesn’t work for you, another option is to sign up for an online cookie decorating class. Online classes are popular because you can take them from the comfort of your own home. Many online classes require you to supply your own materials, however, since cookie decorating doesn’t require a lot of specialized equipment, this may not be a problem. Some online classes do provide almost everything you need. For instance, with Food Craft’s online Cookie Decorating class, you receive a kit that contains cookies, icing, decorations, and tools.

Key Takeaways

• People have been making unique cookies for hundreds of years.
• Cookie decorating can be an original way to make unique gifts.
• You can use your cookie decorating skills to start a lucrative business. 
• Cookie decorating allows you to express your creativity.
• When you learn cookie decorating, you’ll be gaining access to a unique form of art.
• Decorating cookies leads to constant opportunities to learn something new.
• Many people find the cookie-decorating community to be welcoming and supportive.
• To find options for in-person or online cookie decorating classes, including private group sessions, contact CourseHorse.