Heart Tropical Fish Cookie

Heart-shaped cookie cutters get most of their use around Valentine's Day, but there are so many other things you can do with hearts. One large heart and two small hearts make an adorable tropical fish. This project gave me a great excuse to make my own royal icing for the first time! Affiliate links below. 

Heart Tropical Fish Cookie

Materials:

• sugar cookie dough
• nested heart cookie cutters
• parchment paper
• powdered sugar
• Wilton meringue powder
• Wilton food color
• Wilton candy eyeballs
• Wilton piping bag
• Wilton round piping tip/coupler
• cookie scribe

Steps: 

Prepare your cookie dough, either from scratch (my preferred recipe linked above) or purchased. For each fish, cut one large heart and two small hearts. Bake the cookies and let them cool completely. Set the cooled cookies and the candy eyeballs on a piece of parchment paper.

Make royal icing and color it as desired. Put it into a piping bag and cover each cookie, leaving a small edge around each cookie. Use the scribe tool to pop any bubbles or drag the icing as needed. Let the icing harden. 

To assemble the cookies, use a bit more royal icing to 'glue' one small heart onto the large heart to make the fin. Add the eyeball above that, then 'glue' the tail fin behind the large heart. Let the icing set before moving the cookies. 

I'm so happy with how these came out! I kept the fish really simple for my first time making my own royal icing, but you can use a variety of colors, or add spots, stripes, or other designs to your fish. There are endless possibilities! I will definitely be experimenting again in the near future.