St. Patrick's Day Cookies

Simple shamrock cookies for St. Patrick's Day. There are also a few lucky four leaf clovers in the bunch.

All it takes to make a pretty assortment of more than three dozen St. Patrick's Day shamrock cookies is one afternoon, one batch of sugar cookie dough and two colors of  royal icing.

These cookies are so easy and the perfect project for novice cookie decorators. For the shamrock design, made using two colors and the wet on wet technique, you don't even need to bake any special shaped cookies. 

I used a variety of scalloped square and round cutters but you could add the shamrock decoration to any shape. Heck, you could even use a plain old drinking glass to cut the cookies.

For a tutorial on how to decorate the solid green shamrock cookies click here.

And, here is how to add a shamrock design to cookies:

Outline the cookies with white piping consistency royal icing. Let the outline dry for a bit while you fill two piping bags, fitted with #2 tips, with flood consistency white and green royal icing. Flood an outlined cookie with the white icing.

Use a skewer or scribe tool to evenly distribute the icing. Giving the cookie a gentle shake also helps.

Immediately add three drops of the green icing

Use a skewer or scribe tool to draw through one of the dots.

Wipe the skewer or scribe clean with a paper towel and draw through a second dot.

Again wipe your tool clean and draw through the last dot. And there you have it, a cute little shamrock cookie. Boy that was easy.

When you get the hang of it, you can work fast, decorating three cookies at a time.

Super cute.

It's also fun to make a few four leaf clovers. To do this, just add four green dots instead of three.

For the larger cookies I added a shamrock to each corner.

Just swipe through the green dots, working towards the center and being careful to wipe the tool you are using after each swipe.

Be sure to let the cookies dry completely before serving or packaging. This usually takes 6 to 8 hours.

Shamrock Cookies

Shamrock shaped cookies are the obvious choice when it comes to making decorated cookies for St. Patrick's Day.

The problem with them is there aren't many ways to get creative with the decorating. Solid green is kind of the only choice.

One way I've found to add interest to shamrock cookies is to decorate them in sections, letting them dry for a bit in between. This technique creates a textured effect that adds interest and dimension to the cookie. Plus, it's easy to do and you still only have to mix one color of royal icing.

Here's how:

Take your time mixing your green royal icing. Since these are a one color cookie, you want a good looking shade. I used a combination of avacado, leaf green, electric green and brown Americolors.

The pretty handle of my Grandmother Beatrice's rolling pin was the inspiration for the green color I mixed. It's always helpful to have a visual of the color you want to mix.

Using a #2 tip and flood consistency icing, outline and fill the bottom two leaf sections on every cookie. Let the icing dry for at least 20 minutes before moving on to the next step.

Now outline and fill the top leaf section of every cookie.

Finally, outline and fill the stem. Now you have a single colored cookie that's definitely not boring — so much better than flat green. Be sure to let the cookies dry completely before serving or packaging.