Simple Beach Hut Cookies

Hello from southern California! After a two month break I'm finally settled into my new digs and ready to get back to baking. I really do miss Seattle, but I'm slowly embracing what sunny SoCal has to offer-- one of them being the beach!

For my first post from my new city, I was inspired to do something beachy. I also wanted to keep things simple as I slowly get more familiar with my new kitchen. One way of making this next cookie set easy to decorate was letting a stencil do most of the work.

These beach hut cookies were made simply with the use of a wide stripe stencil from The Pink Mixing Bowl. You can order one for yourself by clicking here. Now here's how to make these simple beach hut cookies.

Preparing the Dough

The cookie cutter I used to make these beach hut cookies was from a gingerbread house kit at Foose Cookie Cutters. I trimmed down the sides with a knife for a more slender building look. If you don't have that particular cutter I think any gingerbread house cutter would work. This Wilton house cutter might work with similar trimmings.

Click here for my basic sugar cookie recipe.

Decorating Process

Step 1

Begin by first sketching out a door with an edible food marker. I made a template out of template plastic as a guide to trace around.

Step 2

Next, outline and fill the cookie with white royal icing, as shown below. Leave the cookie to dry completely (about 3 to 4 hours).

Step 3

While the cookies are drying, this is the perfect time to make the life preserver detail to add later. Because piping a perfect circle can be frustrating, I made a printout guide to use to creat royal icing transfers.

You can printout the life preserver template by CLICKING HERE.

For detailed steps on making royal icing transfers, check out this past tutorial.

Outline and fill the rings with white royal icing, as shown below. Leave them to dry (about an hour).

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Step 4

After the royal icing transfers had time to set, add the red sections right on top of the white rings with red royal icing. Leave to dry completely (about 2 hours).

(NOTE: You probably noticed the paper template is different from the one in Step 3. I updated the file with guide lines to help pipe on the red sections evenly.)

Step 5

Now back to the cookies! The white icing should be dry by now and ready to be airbrushed. I like to hold down the wide stripe stencil with magnets as demonstrated by this Sugarbelle post. Magnets pretty much ensure I get clean airbrushed results most of the time.

Step 6

Once the stencil is secured, it's time to airbrush. For the spray color, I used various Amerimist airbrush colors with my airbrush machine. However, the colors can be totally up to you.

For even airbrushing, I like to spray on the lowest pressure setting while moving the gun back and forth along the length of the stripes. Once you carefully remove the cookie from under the stencil, set aside to let the airbrush color dry.

Step 7

Next, fill in the empty door space with white royal icing, then add a roof line with blue royal icing. Once the door had time to set, outline around it in blue icing and add a knob.

Step 8

The last step to these beach hut cookies is to attach the life preserver royal icing transfer. Just dab a little royal icing on the back of the transfer and place it on the cookie.

To complete the look of this batch of cookies I added a few ocean waves and surfboards. Turns out that this new city of mine is know for its surfing! I figured surfboards were appropriate.

I hope you all have an amazing summer!