These orange slice cookies are incredibly simple to make and a big hit as part of a larger citrus cookies display. You don’t need any decorating experience, but a willingness to learn – oh, and a circle cookie cutter!
When it’s summer and the living is easy, there’s nothing that screams days in the sun playing sports than orange slices!
They are such a quintessential part of sports practice, and they look awesome when paired up with lemon slice cookies and watermelon cookies.
They are also a great place to start when learning how to decorate cookies, as they don’t have any crazy details and couldn’t be easier to make.
In this tutorial for orange slice cookies, I’m going to walk you step by step through what you will need, how to make them, and how to decorate these orange slice cookies.
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These orange slice cookies are:
- fun to make
- delicious and tasty with no crumbling of the cookie
- great to learn how to decorate with royal icing
- vibrantly colored
Must-Have Baking Tools (seriously)
- Silicone baking mats – I use this brand and my cookies slide right off without burning!
- a cookie scoop – get this one. It makes the perfect rounded cookies every time!
- silicone spatula – try this set. It’s the best way to get the most out of your dough and batters
- rolling pin guides – I use this one. Genius way to roll your dough out evenly!
What You’ll Need to Make Decorated Orange Slice Cookies
Making orange slice cookies is incredibly easy, and you don’t need anything crazy in terms of ingredients to make them either if you’re prepared with your royal icing ingredients.
For the royal icing, I use a mix of meringue powder, water, vanilla extract and powdered sugar.
The cookie dough is a combination of butter, salt, flour, powdered sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder, eggs, and vanilla extract. You can find the cut-out sugar cookie dough recipe here.
You could also use an orange infused cookie dough.
As for the tools and colors you’ll need, I recommend:
- orange food coloring – gel food coloring like this is always better than liquid for icing
- piping bags – I use these and they’re great
- a scribe or toothpick – this is the best one
- circle cookie cutter
How Do I Store Orange Slice Cookies?
The great thing about cookies decorated with royal icing is that you can store them at room temperature in an airtight container for up to two weeks.
If you heat seal them in packaging, they last for every longer.
You can freeze the cookies if you freeze them before decorating.
Once decorated, you don’t really want to freeze the completed cookie as royal icing doesn’t freeze incredibly well and you could ruin your decorations.
Can I Substitute Ingredients in Orange Slice Cookies?
I don’t often recommend substituting any ingredients in cookies or royal icing as they are made with very specific measurements and you could inadvertedly mess that up if you substitute things.
However, for these, you can add some orange flavoring to the royal icing or to the cookies themselves as long as you’re aware of not adding too much.
For other substitutions, like if you want to make keto cookies or low calorie cookies, your best bet is to find a recipe that works for you and then follow the decorating tutorial below.
How to Make Orange Slice Cookies
You can’t decorate an orange slice without the actual cookie!
Use the cut-out sugar cookie recipe to create the orange slices.
The reason you want a cut-out recipe specifically is because it’s designed so that the cookies don’t spread in the oven.
You want crisp and clean edges, and if you use just any random recipe, you run a real risk that you won’t get that.
Roll the dough out to the thickness you want (I use rolling guides, but you can also use two dowels placed alongside each edges of the dough) and cut circle shapes.
Then, using a knife, cut the circle in half to make a half moon shape which will be your base.
Bake the cookies for about 8 minutes, taking them out when they’re just turning slightly golden at the edges.
Once they actually go brown at the edges, you’ve gone too far and will have a harder cookie!
Let the cookies cool completely before icing them.
Must-Have Decorating Tools
- Piping bags – I use and love these ones
- Gel food coloring – much better than liquid food coloring
- Meringue powder – I use this kind for my royal icing
- Scribe – for awesome detail and clean up
How to Make Royal Icing for Orange Slice Cookies
Royal icing is a great icing to use for these cookies as it dries smooth and you can really get creative with the colors and techniques that you use.
To make the royal icing, following the royal icing recipe and ensure you have decided if you want to use the single consistency method or double consistency method.
For single consistency, you want it to be a bit thicker than honey, but not as stiff as toothpaste.
It should flow, but not so much that it’s dripping off the cookie.
A good way to measure this is to do the “12 second rule” and cut a line in the icing with a knife and then count how many seconds it takes for it to disappear.
Once you get the right consistency, it will be about 12 seconds from drawing the line to disappearing.
You can also do two different consistencies, one like toothpaste and one like honey.
The thicker one is your “outline” icing that you use to outline the cookie, and then the thinner one is your “flood” icing to fill in the base.
Once you have what consistency you want, add the food coloring in and put it in your piping bag.
I use tipless piping bags and just cut off the end for more control, so you don’t need to buy any fancy tips.
How to Decorate Orange Slice Cookies with Royal Icing
Decorating an orange slice cookie with royal icing is one of the easiest royal icing jobs out there.
First, outline the wedge with orange icing and then immediately flood in the base with more orange icing.
Let that dry for a solid hour or so, then come in with your white icing and create a sort of wheel-spoke design, which is essentially just outlining the wedge again in white and then adding some lines connecting to the middle of the flat portion of the circle.
And there you go – that’s literally it! You’re done!
You’ve just decorated an orange slice cookie!
Now enjoy!
Decorated Orange Slice Cookie
These decorated orange slice cookies are as tasty as they are beautiful, made with royal icing and sugar cookie dough.
Ingredients
- 24 cookies using cut-out sugar cookie dough
- 1 batch of royal icing, separated in the colors you want to decorate
Instructions
- Bake the orange slice cookies using the sugar cut-out cookie recipe (circles cut in half)
- Make a batch of royal icing using the royal icing recipe
- Separate out the royal icing into orange and white and put into piping bags
- Outline the half circle in orange
- Wait 2 to 3 hours for it to dry and add the detail with white on top, outlining the entire slice and adding 3 lines to create orange sections
- Let dry for 12 hours
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