Easy Cherry Decorated Cookie How-To (2024)

It seems that I’m partial to making decorated fruit cookies lately, with these citrus slice cookies from last week, and now these cherry fellas. (Yes, I think I just did call my cookies fellas). Besides being fitting for this time of the year (sweet, tart, tasty cherries have always been a happy reminder of summer for me), there’s a beautiful reason behind why I made these.

And it has to do with cherries (in my case), KitchenAid and this beautiful plate:

Let me back up a bit and explain.

KitchenAid, as a part of their 1,000 Cooks for the Cure efforts,has invited us to host a party (of any kind) at our homes any time from July 20th-July 29th. Rather than bringing a housewarming gift, food or wine, guests could instead bring a small donation for Susan G. Komen for the Cure to help the fight against breast cancer. Their goal is to reach 1,000 homes and offices in the one week period!

I decided to invite my family members to participate, and made the party theme a cherry one, to match the beautiful plate featuring artwork created by award-winning cooking show host, Jacques Pepin. Villeroy & Broch and Pepin have teamed up to produce 5,000 of these limited edition plates. Besides the artwork, the beauty of this plate is that when you purchase or receive it, make a favorite recipe, put it on the plate and pass it to a friend, each time the plate is passed and registered, KitchenAid will make a $5 donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Any party host that raises $50 or more will receive a free plate designed by Jacques Pepin in the mail, and anyone who hosts a party and registers it on KitchenAid’s website will automatically be entered to receive the ultimate “thank you” from Jacques Pepin himself!

Join me on this sweet journey by hosting your own cherry (or anything) kind of gathering. I’ve got a cherry cookie decorating tutorial for you below, and the recipe for these cherry coconut cupcakes is coming soon. (Update – Recipe can be found here).

Here are the links to help you get started:

Host a Party during 1,000 Cooks for the Cure
Share the Love with Pass the Plate

Another way to help out the cause too is to purchase pink KitchenAid products (don’t have to convince me to buy anything pink!). A donation is made for each Cook for the Cure product sold.

A special thank you goes out to Jamie and Eric Border of ecrandal copper cookie cuttersfor donating the beautiful, handmade cherry cookie cutters used to make these cookies. Every one of their copper cutters are hand-crafted by Eric, without the use of any automated machinery. You can tell that meticulous attention to detail is given to desiging each unique one, and I’m so thrilled to be able to add these to my collection. You can find another example of cookies I’ve made using their cutters here, and if you’d like to find their cherry cutters, click here.

Before we get into the cookie decorating, a little about the cookies themselves:

I used my gingerbread recipe as I wasn’t quite ready with my cherry cookie recipe at the time of the party, but have finished it now. You can find it below.
These cookies are fragile due to their long (but beautiful) stem. Best served on a platter or as a favorin a cute, clear box supported with sizzle, rather than in a cellophane bag.
I used this ball tool (below) to help me gently remove the cookies from the cutter. You can see the indentations in the cookie, but it was the best solution I could think of to help remove the cookie without breaking it. Dipping the cutter in a bit of flour first helps a bit too. Happy to hear more suggestions if you have them!

The small indentations could be covered with icing if you like. I did that for some of my cookies, but ended up liking a slim line of icing for the cherry stem instead (which doesn’t cover the indents up).

Click on the item below to find it online:

What you’ll need

Cherry Cookie Recipe
Gingerbread or Sugar Cookie
Cherry Cookie Cutters
Royal Icing Recipe
Piping Bags (3)

What you’ll need

How to Ice the Cherry Cookies

Here’s a pictorial summary for you:

Step 1. –Outlining– Using a #3 piping tip, outline the cherry with red royal icing. I like using a larger piping tip to outline and fill in larger areas, as the ‘flooding’ goes faster.

Step 2. –Flooding– Fill in the center of your cookie with the same piping bag and icing, either right away to help the icing melt into each other, or 10 minutes later if you’d like to see a distinct outline. I use the same icing to outline and fill in, as it saves time.Here’s a videoif you’d like to see how.

Step 3.–Shaking– Shake gently to help smooth icing over. A couple of tips – You need to be gentle with the cookie while you’re shaking it, so that it doesn’t break, and working quickly is important so that the base doesn’t start to dry.

Step 4: –Wet on Wet Technique– Using a #3 piping tip and white icing, pipe a small semi-circle close to one edge of the cherry, to try and simulate the look of a reflection. Shake gently.

Step 5: – Piping the Stem – Using a #2 tip, pipe either a single line for the stem or a thicker line (covering the whole surface of the cookie stem). Outline the leaf and flood immediately.

Step 7. –Drying–Let your icing dry for 12-24 hours.If you’d like to see a video on drying decorated cookiesclick here.

A few notes about the cherry cookies:

Adapted from my shortbread recipe.
You could leave the maraschino cherries out (or chop them finer than I did!)
Add maraschino juice and cherries to this sugar cookierecipe for a sturdier cookie. I’m enjoying the melt-in-your mouth flavour of the shortbread right now, so really wanted to adapt that one. If you try the sugar cookie version, if your dough is too sticky once you add the cherry juice, slowly add more flour until you’re happy wth the texture
The recipe isn’t sweet… The icing on the top of the cookie is meant to add sweetness, while the cookie is meant to have a melt-in-your-mouth texture/base.