These sugar cookies say it all — and they’re super cute. They’re also easier to decorate than you might think, even if your handwriting isn’t perfect. Keep reading for a helpful trick to make lettering simple.
Before decorating, you’ll need a batch of sugar cookies. Use a reliable sugar cookie and royal icing recipe and a shirt-shaped cookie cutter or template to create the base for these tee cookies. If you buy a shirt cutter, you can print the template at different scales to match your cutter.
Sugar cookies are little blank canvases for endless design ideas. I settled on a simple playful phrase — “Eat More Cookies” — and placed it right on a cookie shaped like a t-shirt. It felt right, and tasted sweeter.
When your cookies are baked and cooled, you’re ready to decorate with royal icing. For a ringer-style tee like these, use three colors of royal icing: mostly white for the shirt, a tiny amount of light pink for the collar and sleeve details, and a small amount of brown for the little cookie accents.
Fit one piping bag with a #2 Wilton tip and fill it with white icing. Fill two more bags with the light pink and the brown-tinted icing. Snip a very small opening at the tip of the pink bag so the detailing stays fine. Reserve the brown icing in an airtight container to use later after the base has dried — either the next day or after several hours.
Pipe and outline the shirt with the white icing. Use a consistency that’s fluid enough to flood the shape but stiff enough to hold the outline. Immediately after flooding with white, pipe the pink details for the collar and sleeves on top of the wet white icing. If both colors are similar in consistency and still wet, they will settle together for a smooth look.
Allow the cookies to dry completely before adding any lettering. I left mine overnight to be certain the surface was fully set.
To add the sweet phrases without uneven, lopsided writing, use a simple tracing method. Print a template with the shirt shape and your chosen wording. Cut small strips of wax paper, tape one side down over the printed template, and trace the letters on the wax paper with an edible-ink pen. Turn the wax paper over and carefully press it onto the dried cookie surface without shifting it.
When you lift off the wax paper, a faint impression of the letters will be left on the cookie. Use an edible-ink pen to trace over the impression directly on the cookie. Leave gaps where you want to place the tiny cookie accents so the lettering remains clear.
For the tiny cookies on the shirt design, use the reserved brown-tinted icing to pipe small dots in place where you want each cookie. If you prefer a lighter cookie look, tint the brown icing a lighter shade before piping.
Allow the piped cookie dots to dry thoroughly. Once set, darken a small amount of royal icing to a deeper brown or nearly black and use a toothpick to add tiny chocolate chip dots on the cookies for realistic detail.
These cookie tees are a fun, playful project that combines simple royal icing techniques with an easy lettering trick. Enjoy making them — and eat more cookies!