Beautiful Caramel Apple Cookies are fall-themed cut-out cookies decorated with royal icing in the easiest way! Make these cute cookies during the apple season, and take them to a gathering, a bake sale, or a fall festival.
One of my absolute favorite things about fall is caramel apples! And these cookies combine 2 of my favorite things: decorated sugar cookies and caramel apples. The best of two worlds!
They’re made with an easy no chill sugar cookie recipe, and decorated with 3 colors of royal icing with a smooth finish and simple but beautiful details!
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Why Should You Decorate Cookies With Royal Icing?
- Super Simple Recipe – You might think that Royal icing is “fancy” and must be difficult to master, but it’s a really easy recipe that requires just 3 ingredients and one of them is water!
- Hardening Icing – What I love about Royal icing is that is hardens quickly and really well. If you’re planning to give these cookies as a gift, or want to mail them to someone, Royal icing is your best bet.
- No Raw Eggs Needed – While the traditional recipe for royal icing is made with raw egg whites, the easier way is to make royal icing with meringue powder. It’s available in large supermarkets, or you can also order some online. I like to use the Wilton brand meringue powder.
Prefer buttercream frosting on your cut-out cookies? See my recipe for simple vanilla buttercream with some techniques on how to decorate cookies with it.
Key Ingredients
Complete list of ingredients with quantities and instructions is located in the recipe card below
- Powdered Sugar: Sometimes called icing sugar or confectioners’ sugar, can be found in most supermarkets. Don’t try to blend up granulated sugar in your blender to make it, it will still have a bite to it.
- Meringue Powder: Meringue powder is essentially dehydrated egg whites. If you use meringue powder, then you don’t need to add any raw eggs for the icing.
- Gel Food Coloring: I always use gel food coloring in icings, because liquid food coloring can throw off the moisture content in my recipes. This is easy to find in large grocery stores and craft stores or pick up a pack of 12 colors online. I love the bright colors, and a set will last forever.
How to Make Royal Icing for Cookies
You’ll need a bowl and a whisk to make royal icing.
- In a bowl, combine powdered sugar and meringue powder.
- Add in 8 tablespoons of water, and mix until combined.
- Continue to add water, one tablespoon at a time until the icing slowly drizzles from the whisk when lifted. If you overmix the icing, it won’t be shiny when it hardens so be careful with this!
Royal Icing Consistency for Cookies
The consistency that we are going for here is called medium consistency. We don’t want the icing to hold details when we pipe it onto the cookies. Instead, we want it to spread out on the cookie while having enough sticking power to not completely spill over the edges,
Medium Royal Icing for Cookies: If you take your whisk or a spoon and drizzle a line of icing into the bowl, it should take 13-15 seconds to settle into the icing and disappear. This is the perfect consistency for outlining and filling small to medium sugar cookies.
Stiff/Thick Royal Icing: For piping raised details that hold their shape, you want icing that takes 20-25 seconds to disappear back into the bowl of icing. I’m not using thick royal icing on these cookies, but you may want to. If you make large cookies (over 4 inches) it’s usually best to outline with thick icing and then fill in with medium or thinner icing.
How to Decorate Caramel Apple Sugar Cookies
Before you start, make a batch of these easy Sugar Cookies. Make the dough, roll it out, cut, and bake. Allow to cool completely before you start decorating.
- Start with baked cookies. I’m including a recipe for you in the recipe card below, follow it and make sure that the cookies are one-hundred percent cool before adding icing to them.
- Tint your icing. For the caramel apples, separate your royal icing into 3 small bowls. Leave one of them white. Add a few drops of green food coloring to one to create a nice bright green. Add brown food coloring to the third bowl to get brown. Fill your piping bags with the icing, and snip off the corners of the piping bags.
- Fill and decorate: Working on just a few cookies at a time, use the icing to outline and fill the brown part of the cookie (it should be uneven as if the apple was dipped in caramel – see image above), then do the same with the green part. If needed, use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles or coax the icing to fill in the corners. With the white icing, outline and fill to create the “stem”.
- Allow to Set: After the cookies are decorated, set aside on a cookie sheet or a wire rack, and allow the iced cookies to set/dry for at least 2 hours at room temperature, but preferably overnight.
FAQs
Royal icing is not vegan because meringue powder is made from eggs. You can substitute the egg white with aquafaba (chickpea water), and see how that works.
Yes, cookies decorated with royal icing are better for bagging up than any other iced cookie. You can wrap your decorated cookies in cello bags and tie them up with pretty ribbons to give as gifts.
Store the finished cookies at room temperature in an airtight container. You can also freeze royal icing decorated cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
I ordered mine from Etsy, you can see the exact one right here. If you have a regular apple cookie cutter, you can use it by cutting off the leaf and adding the stem yourself.
I hope that you find this tutorial useful to help you make beautiful caramel apple cookies! If you try this recipe, please share your experience with me in the comments box below!
Caramel Apple Decorated Cookies
Ingredients
For the Sugar Cookies:
- 1 cup (225g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 ½ cups (420g) all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 recipe Royal icing click for the recipe!
- Green gel food coloring
- Brown gel food coloring
Instructions
To Make the Sugar Cookies:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C, or 160°C fan oven. Prepare a cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper or a silicone mat and set aside.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter with the sugar until smooth, light in color and creamy (2-3 minutes).
- Add vanilla and egg and mix again until the egg is incorporated but don’t over whip (the longer you whip the egg, it can souffle up and the cookies will rise and you don’t want that).
- Add in the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix again until just combined. Scrape the sides with a spatula so no dry flour is left. The cookie should pull away from the sides of the bowl (if it doesn’t add ½ cup of flour).
- Divide the dough into 4 portions, and roll out each using a rolling pin into ¼ inch thickness. Cut out using the apple cookie cutter and with the help of an offset spatula transfer to the cookie sheet.
- Bake for 8-9 minutes rotating at 6 minutes for even browning (one sheet at a time). Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Cool completely before icing the cookies.
To Decorate:
- Separate your royal icing into 3 small bowls. Leave one of them white. Add a few drops of green food coloring to one to create a nice bright green. Add brown food coloring to the third bowl to get brown. Fill your piping bags with the icing, and snip off the corners of the piping bags.
- Working on just a few cookies at a time, use the icing to outline and fill the brown part of the cookie (it should be uneven as if the apple was dipped in caramel – see image above), then do the same with the green part. If needed, use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles or coax the icing to fill in the corners. With the white icing, outline and fill to create the "stem".
- After the cookies are decorated, set aside on a cookie sheet or a wire rack, and allow the iced cookies to set/dry for at least 2 hours at room temperature, but preferably overnight.
Notes
- To Store: Decorated cookies with royal icing can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. The icing keeps the cookies from drying out. Undecorated cookies will stay fresh for up to 1 week if you’d like to make the cookies one day and then decorate them later.
- To Freeze: Seal the cookies in an airtight container with a layer of parchment or wax paper between layers. Decorated and undecorated sugar cookies will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
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