How to Make Flamingo Cookies

Written by Mike Tamplin • May 27, 2018

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Take your cookie decorating to the next level!

Trace cookie designs with ease with the Akaso mini projector.

Hello from the other side of the country!

It's been about a month since I moved from California to Florida, and I was eager start baking again. After moving into the new house, one thought I was wary of was how the new oven would perform compared to my previous one. However, this oven tip shared by Sweet Sugarbelle was super helpful and eased my mind. Using an oven thermometer, I found out my new oven was running 25 degrees cooler! The oven is now calibrated and batches of underbaked cookies were prevented.

Another thought I was anxious about was how would decorating cookies in Florida's humid climate be like. I heard about the headaches of colors bleeding due to the moisture in the air. Luckily, I had no issues with this first batch. Even with wet-on-wet decorating techniques, the colors seemed to stay put without bleeding onto each other. I'm crossing my fingers my luck continues!

To commemorate my recent Florida move, I thought flamingo cookies would be fun and appropriate. I also threw in retro camper and pineapple cookies to give this set a tropical suburban feel that reminds me the Floridian lifestyle.

Flamingo Cookie Cutters

Added to the shop are three new cookie cutters: a flamingo, a vintage camper, and a pineapple design.

For this tutorial, I'll be focusing mainly on decorating the flamingo cookie cutter.

The flamingo cutter has the neck and beak sections reinforced by having them attached to the main body. A flamingo's legs are very skinny. I opted to add a "bubble boundary" around them so the cookie remained sturdy overall.

For size references, I used the LARGE flamingo, the LARGE vintage camper, and the REGULAR pineapple cookie cutters in this set.

Flamingo Cookie Template

To help with the decorating process, I provided a downloadable template for the design ideas shown below. In this template file, I've included the flamingo, as well as the vintage camper and pineapple designs.

You can download the flamingo cookies template HERE.

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are good to go. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by cutting out the template and tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Decorating Process

To decorate these flamingo cookies, you will need the following suggested colors:

Turquoise flood icing (I mixed equal parts Americolor Turquoise and Teal.)
Deep Pink piping and flood icing (I mixed Wilton Rose with a small sampling of the turquoise icing above to dull down the intensity.)
Light Pink icing (I mixed the deep pink icing above with more plain white icing.)
Yellow icing (I mixed Americolor Lemon Yellow and Egg Yellow.)
White icing (I used Americolor Bright White.)
Black icing (I used Americolor Super Black.)

Step 1

With turquoise flood icing and a food-only paintbrush, begin by painting the bottom half of the cookie, as shown below. Let the icing dry completely (about 30 minutes to an hour).

Step 2

Next, mark where the outline of the flamingo head and body sections should be. I made a template from the template file above and used a scribe tool to etch the guideline onto the cookie.

(I opted not to use a food marker this time because I didn't want the marker lines to show on the finished cookies.)

Step 3

Outline over the body guidelines with deep pink icing. Let it set up for about 15 minutes before moving on.

Once the body icing is set, add the black tip of the beak then quickly add the white part of the beak afterwards. With the scribe tool, drag a smile line from the black icing into the white, as shown.