Decorated Acorn Cookies with Brush Embroidery

My decorated acorn cookies are perfect for fall gatherings, Thanksgiving celebrations, and harvest-themed events.

updated from 2012

DECORATED ACORN COOKIES STEP-BY-STEP

• Cookie Decorating Guide
• Beginner’s Guide To Cookie Decorating
• Ultimate Guide to Cut-Out Cookies (tips, tricks, troubleshooting)
• Royal Icing Recipe
• Small Batch Royal Icing Recipe
• Cookie Icing Recipes (includes vegan royal icing, glaze, fondant)
• Guide To Royal Icing Consistencies with Visual Help(what is stiff, flood icing, etc.)
• How To Freeze Royal Icing
• How To Make Royal Icing Transfers
• Royal Icing FAQ ( for example: how to make black icing, color bleeding, storage, and more)
• How To Make a Cookie Cutter Template
• Ultimate Guide To Cookie Decorating Tools

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THINGS YOU NEED

• Acorn Cookie Cutter
• Gel Food Coloring: ivory, green
• Food Only Paintbrushes
• Edible Markers (optional)
• Tipless Piping Bags
• Edible Luster Dust: brown, bronze or gold (optional)
• Scribe Tool

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BAKE COOKIES

There are plentiful acorn-shaped cookie cutters on the marker. Don’t worry if you don’t have the exact shape I used. This decorating design is easily adaptable to any acorn shape. Bake the cookies using one of my tested cut-out cookie recipes.

ROYAL ICING COLORS AND CONSISTENCIES

• Light Green: 15-second consistency
• Dark Green: 15-second consistency
• White: 15-second consistency
• Ivory: 15-20 second consistency (cap/cupule), Piping to a thick consistency (brush embroidery)
• Brown – 20 second consistency (stem)

DECORATE ACORN COOKIES

Start by outlining and flooding the cap (cupule) with 15-20 second consistency ivory icing (steps 1-5). Let it crust.

USE TWO-TONE ICING

We will start with darker green icing on the side and ice a small area of the cookie (steps 1-6).

You don’t need to wait for the icing to crust. Take a lighter shade of green and ice the remaining area with icing. Use a scribe tool to distribute the icing evenly across the cookie (steps 1-4). Immediately, take white icing and pipe a highlight on the left side (steps 5-8).

Piping the stem with 20-second brown icing.

BRUSH EMBROIDERY

I used a simple dotted brush embroidery technique. It’s straightforward and nearly effortless to execute.

• You need:
• A small paintbrush (a small square or a liner works well).
• A thicker consistency of royal icing (piping to thick icing) colored with ivory food coloring.
• Piping tip #2 or #3
• Water – to dampen and clean the paintbrush
• Paper Towel or Kitchen Towel – to remove access water from the paintbrush

• Pipe a short line of medium-sized dots- don’t make the dots too small (steps 1-2).
• With a lightly damp paintbrush, move about 1/3 of each piped dot toward the top of the acorn cap (steps 3-4).
• Continue piping dots, using the paintbrush to create a brush embroidery design. If icing is sticking to the bristles, clean the brush in water and dab it onto a paper towel to absorb excess water (steps 5-6).
• Pipe 3-4 rows of dots, depending on the size of the dots, until you cover the whole acorn cap (steps 7-8).

GOLD LUSTER DUST

Mix gold or bronze luster dust with vodka or Everclear and paint a dry brown stem (step 1-3)

As you can see, you can decorate many different acorn shapes.

VIDEO TUTORIAL

In this video tutorial, you can view acorn cookies decorated with various techniques.

MORE FALL DECORATED COOKIES

• Colorful Fall Leaves Cookies
• Easy Marbled Leaves Cookies
• Table-Setting Textured Leaf Cookies
• Simple Fall Cookies

ACORN COOKIES FROM THE PAST

Below is a set of cookies I was asked to make for a Fall horseriding event.

This cookie decorating tutorial was published on October 18, 2012. On September 4, 2024, I updated it with new step-by-step pictures, written text, and a video.