As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. In addition, I participate in several other affiliate programs that allow me to earn while I recommend products I love.
These golf cookies are the perfect treat for Father’s Day or for your favorite golfer’s birthday. They’re also incredibly easy to make, with just a circle cookie cutter, and no crazy decorating skills needed.
Golf cookies are a great way to show your favorite golfer that you care, and they’re really easy to do – so easy you could get the kids to help you easily or make it a family event.
You don’t need any ninja decorating skills or years of experience, just a willingness to learn and play around with royal icing.
In this tutorial for golf course cookies, I’m going to walk you step by step through what you will need, how to make them, and how to decorate these golf cookies.
These golf cookies are:
- fun and different
- super easy to make
- great as a gift for a golfer or for a Father’s Day present paired with a Father’s Day cake
- delicious and tasty, with no crumbling
What You’ll Need to Make Decorated Golf Cookies
To make golf cookies, you’ll need to make both the sugar cookie bases and the royal icing which is used to decorate.
The sugar cookie recipe can be found on my site, and is the best one I’ve ever found to make sugar cookies that hold their shape and don’t spread.
You don’t want them to spread, as if they spread then you’ll end up with a blob rather than a cookie.
The ingredients for the sugar cookie recipe are basic, like flour, butter, and eggs, but the real magic is in how you combine the ingredients and chill the dough, which you can read about more in the recipe.
For the royal icing recipe, you’ll need powdered sugar, meringue powder, water, and vanilla extract for flavoring.
I use meringue powder instead of egg whites for my royal icing because it’s safer for everyone to consume, including pregnant women who are advised against consuming raw egg whites, and I like the outcome better.
As for the tools and colors you’ll need, I recommend:
- black or brown food coloring – use gel food coloring instead of liquid for better results
- green food coloring
- red food coloring
- edible black food marker – the best one is here
- piping bags – I use this brand
- a scribe or toothpick – find the scribe I use here
- circle cookie cutter
How Do I Store Golf Cookies?
Storing sugar cookies made with royal icing with meringue powder is easy, as you just need to store them at room temperature in an airtight container for a couple of weeks.
You don’t want to freeze them after they’ve been decorated as the royal icing may not hold up and you run the risk of ruining your designs.
You can refrigerate golf cookies if you really want to, but there’s no need as these cookies are meant to be enjoyed at room temperature.
Can I Substitute Ingredients in Golf Cookies?
Keep in mind baking is a science and that means that it’s a bit less able to be manipulated on the fly than in cooking where you can be a bit more creative.
This recipe is meant to be enjoyed as is, so substitute at your own risk!
If you do want a particular type of cookie, ie gluten free or keto or something else, you would be better off using a recipe that has been specifically designed for that purpose and then using my decorating tips.
How to Make Golf Cookies
Golf cookies start with a delicious base, and that’s the cut-out sugar cookie!
They’re called cut-out sugar cookies because they are meant to hold their shape in the shape you cut them out in instead of spreading like a regular sugar cookie would do.
If you use this cut-out sugar cookie recipe and follow the instructions for chilling, you’ll end up with gorgeous cookies that don’t spread and still look like what you intended.
It’s important to follow the recipe though, as if you try and skip steps like not chilling the shapes after you cut them, you increase your chance of ruining your batch in the oven.
Like I said, baking is a science and there is a procedure to follow for the best results!
I bake mine for about 8 minutes and then take them out when they are slightly looking golden on the edges.
I prefer my cookies to be soft when you bite into it – these aren’t melt in your mouth cookies (they wouldn’t keep their shape!), but they’re not crunchy either.
Just a nice blend between firm and deliciously smooth.
Once you bake them, you need to let them cool for as long as possible.
They shouldn’t be warm to the touch at all when you go to decorate, or you’ll have a mess on your hands.
How to Make Royal Icing for Golf Cookies
The component of the cookies that make it all come together, the royal icing, is important to play around with and get right to make sure you have a smooth finish!
Royal icing can be intimidating to new bakers, as it’s not as easy as buttercream to just slather on, but I guarantee you that it is really actually easy to make and once you practice a few times, you’ll be good to go.
You can also always make it thicker with powdered sugar or thinner with water so you can’t really ruin a batch of it.
Use my royal icing recipe to create the icing for this recipe.
I use 12 second consistency icing for this, which means that if you drag a knife through the icing, it takes about 12 seconds for the line to disappear.
You can also do two consistencies, a thicker one for the “outline” and a thinner one for the “flood,” but I prefer the look of a single consistency better and it’s way faster to use.
When you’ve got the royal icing how you want it, separate it out into bowls to add the food coloring and then put it in piping bags.
I use tipless piping bags and just cut the end off instead of using different tips, but if you have a thin tip, you can use that too.
How to Decorate Golf Cookies with Royal Icing
Here comes the fun part – the decoration!
To start, color in a small circle with an edible black food marker – it doesn’t have to be perfect, as you’re going to pipe around it and can cut off any bits that are jagged.
This is going to be the hole.
Pipe a small circle around the black marker area, as well as piping an outline around the entire cookie.
Fill the cookie with green icing in everywhere but the hole – this will always stay black and won’t be touched with icing.
Let this dry for a couple of hours, the longer the better.
You are going to add some detail on top, and you don’t want that icing sinking into the cookie.
When ready, pipe a line using black or brown to make the golf pole right next to the hole, going up towards the top of the cookie.
Then, using red icing, pipe a small flag.
Then, using your black food marker, draw a squiggly line that starts on the left side of the cookie and ends up near the hole.
It’s important to make sure that the icing is truly dry and set, otherwise the marker may poke through the icing if it’s only dried on the top layer.
Finally, pipe a golf ball with white icing on top of where the line ends near the hole by simply keeping your tip on the spot and pressing the icing until it balloons up to a ball the size you want it.
And there you go – the perfect golf course cookies!
