How to Make Flying Bird Cookies

Every mom should feel like royalty on Mother's Day. One gift idea that might make her feel like a queen is this fairytale-themed cookie set. Inspired right from the pages of my favorite childhood storybooks, this flying bird and cloth banner cookie pairing makes for the perfect edible announcement.

This set was made for Mother's Day, but I can see this working great for other occasions like Valentine's Day, Weddings, and even birthdays.

For this tutorial, I'll be focusing on decorating the flying bird cookie. Below are the steps I broke down so you can recreate this design on your own.

I just want to note, these birds are relatively easy to decorate. However, the details are somewhat intricate. For character or cartoony designs like this one, I highly recommend a projector to guide you on the piping process. A projector will speed up the decorating steps and will save you your sanity when you have to decorate a good number of these.

Flying Bird Cookie Cutter

New this spring season is this flying bird cookie cutter. It pairs with the square and wide versions of the cloth banner cookie cutter.

The REGULAR Bird and the SQUARE Cloth Banner fit in this BRP cookie box (9.5" x 6" x 1.5").

The LARGE Bird and the WIDE Cloth Banner fit in this  BRP long cookie box (12″ x 5″ x 1.5″).

For this tutorial, I'll be decorating the large version. To get the right bird, flip the cookie dough cutout over before baking. The same decorating steps apply to both birds.

Template for the Flying Bird Cookies

To help with the decorating process, I made a PDF template of all of the new Mother's Day cookie cutters, including this flying bird and cloth banner designs.

You can download all the 2021 Mother's Day cookie templates 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 tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Decorating Process

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

• Blue piping and flood icing (I mixed two parts Americolor Teal and one part Americolor Sky Blue.)
• Light Blue flood icing (I mixed the blue above with more white icing.)
• White medium icing (I used Americolor Bright White.)
• Black icing (I used Americolor Super Black.)
• Yellow medium icing. (I used Americolor Egg Yellow.)

Step 1

Begin by filling in the light blue areas around the eye and on the belly. Then immediately follow with the darker blue icing and fill in the head body and front wing, as shown.

Once that icing sets, fill in the back wing. Add a thin layer of black where the mouth is located. Let this icing dry for at least an hour.

Step 2

After the base layer of icing had time to dry, add the white and back eye detail. Also add the yellow lower part of the beak.

Then add the black eye lid line, the upper beak, and the body outline details.

Video Tutorial

The steps above are summarized in this time-lapsed video I put together.

When it comes to selecting the cookie cutter sizes and their coordinating boxes, it can be a little confusing. So let me show you my recommendations below.

First is this smaller cookie set option. It's a combination of the REGULAR Bird and the SQUARE Cloth Banner. These two fit in this BRP cookie box (9.5" x 6" x 1.5").

If you would like the cookies a little larger, here's another option. It's a combo of the LARGE Bird and the WIDE Cloth Banner, which fit in this  BRP long cookie box (12″ x 5″ x 1.5″).

For the messages on the banners, I used my projector to guide me with piping the letters. I included these two Mother's Day messages in the above PDF template if you would like to use the same ones.