How to Write with Royal Icing - Intro Class

[Music] hi guys Lisa key here Borderlands bakery and today I'm going to show you my approach for how I do lettering on cookies so hopefully by the end of this you're going to be able to create fun designs like this washing hands and in lettering like this it's called distancing not social distancing and then some fun like this so all different types and you can even get fancy and paint yours after you've typed it if you want the purpose of this is really to show you my thinking and how I approach different fonts different sizes of the same font it's slightly a different approach and I think consistency so let's get into it what you'll be learning today our skills we usually teach in a physical or online or shop but due to Cova 19 we adjusted our approach and decided to release this video on youtube so that anybody across the globe can learn for free please give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to our YouTube channel to continue supporting our efforts so that we can keep creating content that's value added for you really quickly I want to show you guys how close I am to the cookies on actually piping it's about three to four inches away when I'm filming I've got the camera in between the piping bag and my face so I'm a little farther away and sometimes it gets a little bit awkward I can actually be much more precise if I'm closer so just keep that in mind as you're watching this video first thing I'll be showing you is how to reach a good consistency for writing I'm going to be repurposing some Flug consistency icing that I use for these terrazzo tile cookies I had flooded them the day before and let them fully dry for 12 hours before putting my writing details on so they're totally hard when you tab on them I'm going to be dumping out my previously used colors and adjusting them for writing I also have some powdered sugar closeby to thicken up my eye plus my face icing that was made in case I need more icing some water and a pipette as well as a small cup fitted with one of our Borderlands bakery hitless piping bags which we'll be putting our new writing icing into to get our white writing icing ready we'll be adding some the sugar aren't masterly in white to ensure that we get that nice bright true white to really contrast between the background color of the cookie I'm going to be adding a bit of masterly powder using these tiny adorable spoons that we offer for purchase in our shop they make it really easy to not accidentally pour too much of that powder into our icing I'm also adding a bit more of my base icing which looks like this thick medium fluffy consistency to my base white for more product I'm activating my master elite powder by adding some water to it and then stirring it and combining with the rest of the icing filling out that consistency before making any adjustments right now you can see I'm kind of just combining it letting it fall off the spatula and it's coming off in really thin ribbons this is more of a flood consistency so we got to add more powder sugar that's big in it up this is a final consistency that I prefer for my writing it can be described as something that's slightly thinner than toothpaste consistency and about a 25 second icing so it's actually not really something that can settle all the way on its own you would have to use a scribe to kind of jiggle and oscillate the surface of icing to help all the peaks settle I'm going to transfer this all into my piping bag and then move on to the next colors when I'm not using that much icing in a bag I like to close them off by tying them I just feel like that gives the most secure seal and here I'm just showing you how I like to tie them I just like to loop it through a hole very simply like this I'm going to repeat the same process for all of the other colors yellow pink blue I'm going to be repurposing my old Flud consistency icing and thickening it up with that powdered sugar to get to that slightly less than toothpaste consistency that I want for writing I'm also moving from light to dark doing all the same colors in One Bowl that really helps save some time [Music] [Music] and I'm also going to trim off the ends of my piping bags and that's just a personal thing I don't like them flapping around but when I'm typing here all the colors that we're going to be using today there are all the same slightly less thick than toothpaste consistency icing and depending on how we cut the tip which is what I'm going to show you next we can change things up a little bit so cutting the tip is super important to ensure success in writing our tipless bags have a seam that run right down the middle if you're using a piping tip you may not have to worry about this as much but I like using tipless piping bags because you can adjust to a very small level of detail how big your piping tip is so depending on how large your piping tip is you can create varying widths with your writing if you want to learn how to use tip loose piping bags we have a great video that we put together last year you can find the link down below in the description box when you're trimming your piping bag for writing with icing you want to trim it so that the size of your piping tip matches the smallest width of your specific font the best way to ensure you have the proper consistency is to test it to this day I'd test my icing and sometimes have to remix it and repack it and that's totally okay trim a hole in your piping bags starting small because you can always go bigger later make sure the size of your hole is the size of the smallest width of your font get used to handling that icing so take some time to play with it touch down at the beginning of your line or at any sharp change in direction drag and drop your icing while applying a little pressure keeping a good distance I say about half an inch between your cookie and your piping bag to ensure that the icing has space to fall smoothly behind you move your hand and guide your icing allowing gravity to do most of the work and with a little pressure let your icing fall out of the bag all the while moving it this results in what I describe as a drag and drop smooth icing motion this technique is how we get those smooth lines for writing thin fonts but also the same technique many of us use to create smooth outlines for our cookies so keep playing with it get really comfortable with handling your icing now print out the practice sheet included in my blog post that I linked you in the description box below everyone can download these for free and you can follow along and use these sheets as a practice feel free to put these sheets in sheet protectors or put a piece of parchment over them so that you can reuse them as much as you'd like I talked a lot more about this technique in the blog post itself and I also link you to all the different materials so definitely please read the blog post as well because it's a great supplement to this video lesson here we are with the pink icing that we worked on earlier I'm going to trim it so that the tip is the size of the smallest width of the smallest font that I'm going to be working on so it matches with this guy over here that's that popular redone font which I will also link you in the PDF in our blog and we're also going to have a blue font that's gonna have a slightly bigger hole so right now I'm kind of cleaning off the tip squeezing it pinching it never wiping because that really messes with the tip I'm using one of my eco towels which is a great paper towel alternative so you don't have to keep throwing away paper towels to kind of pinch and clean off the tip you'll want to do that often to ensure you have a clear piping tip for writing super super important so I'm just kind of adjusting the tip and here's what it looks like you notice I've got that seam facing away from the paper or kind of lined up against my fingers as I'm holding it that way the seam if there is one does not get in the way I'm just showing you how it can also come out curly if you don't move fast enough it can also come out curly if your tip is clogged so again keep cleaning it I'm using that drag-and-drop a motion to just kind of show you the path of the icing and keep in mind I'm like a foot away right now so I'm a little bit on the struggle bus and just trying to get used to that all right here we go cleaning off that tip again and now we're going to start writing and we're using some very small dragon drops to make it work and it just really depends on the size of the font notice that when I'm doing the long lines I'm doing the drag and drop but when I'm doing the short lines I'm very close to the icing and I'm pretty much just drawing across the paper so drag and drop for the long lines and then if you are able to kind of just drag your icing tip across the surface of the cookie or the paper for the short lines like that little horizontal line which connects the A's and h's and that works and then here's the much smaller text so even smaller than that first text I have my piping tip directly on the surface barely touching the surface but still touching the surface and just tracing it like this this is how we practice to get better as we move on to cookies we're going to be using a different technique [Music] here you can also see that I took out an edible marker and just showed you that sometimes you don't always have to be writing with icing when the font is so thin and so small you can choose to write with a very fine tip ethical edible marker using a projector or something like that to help you and it'll have a great effect as well so the style that we were just looking at is a ray Dunn style it's a single with fondant so it doesn't have varying widths like calligraphy or a lot but a lot of the hand lettered designs that we see that's popular nowadays and we use kind of the drag and drop for larger letters and then we use that tracing very close to the surface technique for smaller letters what about a font that's slightly thicker with some thin danglies so with this because of the nature of the font and the size of it the danglies are a bit smaller than the body of the font I like to be very close to it I like to bury my pressure while piping and I like to go over it several times to kind of fill in all of the space of that font and then I like to keep my hole relatively small the width of the little danglies not the width of the actual font the danglies are the smallest width in the font we'll keep going back to that right and then I just go back and add a little more icing if needed in certain spots right directly into the previously pipe lines of icing and then in order to smooth it out I use a scribe immediately and that will help get rid of any Peaks because again this is almost toothpaste consistency not quite and if you find that you're not quite getting the danglies you can use your scribe to kind of cheat and pull it out just drag your icing out a tiny bit to fill out those dangly parts the next fun or looking at is also a single with fun but it is soup or freak and thin these are the hardest fonts in my opinion and I feel like consistency is super important but control of your icing is even more important you get have to get very comfortable with the drag-and-drop technique and you use a combination of methods for these type of swirly thin fonts I lift drag and drop for the long strokes and then for the short strokes I keep my piping bag just above the piping surface so using those two techniques in conjunction we can tackle these thin fonts and for the one that I'm doing here I think it's even possible to have a smaller hole for your piping bag to get an even thinner font and that'll come with practice a bigger font in a very thin style like this is much easier to pipe than a smaller font so kind of user judgement when you're doing cookies that are using very very thin lines you can also alternatively use a marker to capture a look like this if that's what you're going for [Music] fonts like these are super popular right now they are what I like to call variable width fonts and they are the hand lettering or calligraphy style font if you're writing these letters like using a pen or a marker or something like that notice all the down strokes are thick and all the up strokes are thin so we are going to take that concept with us we are going to outline and flood all the thick bits and then just kind of drag and drop or trace all the thin parts which is what's happening here and I actually have some tips in my blog post for reducing cratering and some tips for using this in the dehydrator make sure to definitely check out my blog post for all the links to all the resources that will help you with those issues now before moving on to the next lettering exercise we're going to clean off the tip of that piping bag and I'm actually moving back to my pink icing which is a slightly smaller tip same consistency because we're working on a smaller font here it's the same style of font but it's a smaller size and you'll notice that I'm using very pressure piping with my piping tip very close pretty much directly on top of my surface to approach this type of font all I'm doing is adjusting pressure and kind of going back across the same lines for a thicker line as needed there is pretty much no dragging and dropping here for a style of font like this here I'm switching back to my blue icing and I'm going to be using a combination of techniques that we looked at earlier so we're going to drag and drop for some of them we're going to outline and flood for the really really thick parts and then I'm going to have my piping tip really close and kind of adding more icing and thickening it up by having by being very close to my piping surface so you can see how when I go do that are I'm using actually all of these techniques and it depends on what feels good for you what the font looks like how the curves work that always matters because these are like it's a varied with font with squirrel YZ on the side or I don't even know what to call them danglies and bits I don't know but here definitely a combination of all of those things and then I use a scribe to help us settle I moved back to my pink icing for the smaller version of that font because I show you that you really got to get a smaller piping tip in order to work on a smaller font now we're ready to look at some of the graphics that you can find online by searching you know merry and bright typography or handle lettering you'll find a myriad of designs and I'm also linking you to some websites that I absolutely love in my blog post that have a ton of graphics that you can choose from some are phrase some are great prices and you can get amazing bundles for just a really good deal this is a great way to support the artists that create these fonts as well I'm using a combination of techniques to attack these designs I'm using a scribe to help me smooth it out as needed and then when we look at the M is for a mom I'm outlining the thick parts of it and then I'm adding the squiggles in the middle of the thick parts I learned this from the Koreans custom cookies and she does this in order to reduce the possibility of cratering which is something that is a huge struggle for a lot of us so that's awesome getting it in the dehydrator ASAP or getting a fan or a moving air source on it ASAP is going to help the small parts keep that tough which is very highly desired and very aesthetically pleasing but we're doing the hello gorgeous you're going to see that as some parts of it there are little piece in the icing that you can also settle with a very gentle tap of a slightly wet finger you have to be very very gentle you can also use a scribe but I just also wanted to share what else works make sure you take a look at the website because I've created a ton of practice sheets for you guys if you're not ready to transfer these skills to a cookie itself or you want to practice some more there are a ton of PDF downloads that I've put together and I will continue to create for everybody that you can use either on your cookies or just as practice you can find those at borderlands bakery dot-com slash shop there is something else that's really cool some fonts not all of them are robust enough that they can be used as realizing transfers I have a whole video on this and a blog post on this and I will link it for you below and all you got to do is to pipe them let them fully dry peel them off store them and then use them on your next project because they keep a really really long time notice for this I've also kept my consistency quite thick and I purposely didn't use a scribe on the U so that you can see the natural consistency untouched is quite thick [Music] so now it's time to transfer our skills from paper to cookie and my favorite way of transferring that skill is with the help of a projector there are some ways that you can transfer your text to cookie without a projector and I'm gonna talk about that in the blog post before the sake of this video I'm gonna show you this setup where I have my laptop running I've got a word processing software or a graphics software like PicMonkey where I write my text in my font of choice i hook it up with a projector and I project it on my cookie and I trace my entire projector setup is something that's also linked down below as well as in my blog post so please check it out if you want to know the details of how I set up my projector [Music] using the techniques that we've learned previously I'm using all of those for the wash your hands and we're gonna speed this up and we're going to speed up the next videos too but you'll be able to see how we fill in various font designs using various techniques make sure to use your scribe as much as you need to make sure that you trim your holes pretty small and drag-and-drop where appropriate but also trace and be really really close where appropriate make sure to always clean off your tip by pinching it not wiping it [Music] in some cases if you're writing very thin font like this social physical distancing design we've got here you might actually have to thin down your icing just a tad more and that's because when you're using very thin lines you want it to still adhere to the surface of your dried cookie if you're using even a slightly thicker consistency the chances are that it'll dry and then flake off a lot easier than something that's a little more runny and that will stick better the downside to using a slightly thinner consistency is you're going to have to have better control over your icing you may need to trim your whole even smaller so that less of the icing comes out and you can control how much of it comes out as with all forms of cookie decorating icing consistency is key and takes the longest to figure out so please give yourself lots of time and practice to learn this skill as a general rule of thumb use icing that's as thick as possible trim your piping bag tip to match the width of the smallest width of your text for single with style large letters most of the times you'll be dragging and dropping first single with smaller letters you're gonna be really tracing and keeping your piping bag very close to the surface for varied with large lettering and monograms if it's a huge monogram you can outline and flood make sure to get that stuff in front of a fan or dehydrator ASAP to reduce chances of cratering if it's a smaller design feel free to find what works for you you can outline or you can use a very pressure technique if you're using varied pressure technique it's usually more pressure on the down strokes so that it's thicker more icing comes out and less pressure on the up strokes many lettering designs require a combination of techniques in order for you to make them come to fruition and make sure that you clean off your piping tip often by pinching not wiping to reduce the chance of icing drying out or something clogging your tip and then practice and repetitions will truly tell what works for you most of us end up liking a combo of techniques and you know we might all like different things but you'll only know if you do it a lot [Music] [Music] I hope you found this video helpful and that you learned a little bit more about writing with icing please smash the crap out of that like button and subscribe to our channel so that we can keep bringing you videos and don't forget to check out that blog post in a description box because it has a ton of additional information on writing with icing some other tips on dehydrators using transfers as well as where to get your fonts so definitely check it out if you have any other questions or have any thoughts please leave them for me below and I will see you next time

Channel: Borderlands Bakery

Views: 299,760

Keywords:

Id: Y5otA_VTzQk

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020