Despite the winter holidays passing, cookie decorating is a great skill to have for anytime of the year.  My favorite technique is marbling them!  It’s pretty, and wonderful for any occasion.  Decorating cookies is a great skill to have because you can do it for anything, and it’s impressive!  The marble technique is really easy, and elegant.  My friend and I made and decorated cookies for a bake sale of the Make A Wish Foundation Club in our school.  Together, we made Martha Stewart’s royal icing which is actually gluten free and vegan depending on the meringue powder you use.  Everyone was so amazed by how beautiful they all were!

So, are you ready to marbleize some cookies?

Instructions:
Step 1:  Separate a quarter of the icing, and dye it with food coloring.  (In these pictures, we did not use natural food coloring.  If you want to, I recommend these.)

Step 2:   After making your icings, fill a bottle for each color you use, such as these.

Step 3:  Make a border with the non-dyed icing, and fill the inside in zig zag motions.  Border the outside of the cookie slowly, and exerting even force throughout.  Then, pipe zig zags with the icing within the border, leaving some spaces blank.

Step 4:  Using a toothpick, even out the icing, covering the negative spaces.  After smoothing it out as much as possible, gently tapping the cookie on the counter top to make the icing settle.

Step 4:  Using the colored icing, pipe an asterisk onto the wet non-dyed icing. 

Step 5:  Starting on a colored mark on the outside, use your toothpick, and slowly circle around the cookie, and into a spiral shape toward the center.  This will create a marble look.

Step 6:  Let the icing settle.

And there you have it – gorgeous, festive, and impressive marbleized cookies!