How to Decorate Swan Cookies with Buttercream

Learn how to decorate swan cookies with vanilla buttercream frosting for your next swan themed party. Whether it’s a swan baby shower theme or for Valentine’s day, these swan sugar cookies will impress all.

These cookies aren’t just beautiful, but beyond delicious as well. Buttercream frosting is softer than royal icing, resulting in the perfect bite. Both adults and kids will love these sugar cookies.

So without further ado, let’s jump into the tutorial on these super cute swan cookies!

*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosure for further information.*

Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Swan Cookies

To decorate these cute swan sugar cookies, you will want to gather:

• 3 Icing bags
• 1 Coupler
• One Wilton #2 tip, one Wilton #4 tip, one Wilton #103 tip, and one PME #1.5 tip
• Swan cookie cutter – I got mine here
• Black and orange gel food dye
• Palette knife
• Ingredients for a crusting buttercream, find my crusting buttercream icing recipe here
• Ingredients for sugar cookie dough, find my no spread sugar cookies recipe here

Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up the Icing Bags

1. Roll, cut out, and bake your swan sugar cookies according to the recipe.
2. Make your buttercream icing and separate it into three bowls:
   • One bowl will contain about a quarter cup of the frosting; dye this bowl black
   • Another bowl will contain another quarter of a cup of frosting; dye this bowl orange
   • The remaining bowl will remain undyed/white
3. Set up your icing bags as follows:
   • Place a coupler into one bag and fill it with the white frosting. Attach the tip #4 to this icing bag for now. Place the tip #2 in a bag and fill the bag with orange frosting. Place the tip #1.5 into a bag and fill the bag with black frosting.

Part 3: Decorating the Swan Cookies

Check out the video tutorial for these beautiful swan cookies before following the step-by-step photo series tutorial below.

1. 1. Use the orange icing bag to outline and fill in the lower part of the swan’s beak.
   2. Use the black icing bag to outline and fill in the top part of the swan’s beak. Then, smooth out the beak with the palette knife.

1. Use the white frosting, with tip #4 attached, to outline and fill in the rest of the swan cookie.
2. Smooth the white frosting using the palette knife.
3. Use the black frosting to draw an eye/eyelashes onto the cookie.
4. Remove the tip #4 from the white frosting and replace it with the #103 tip. Hold the bag so that the wide side of the tip is toward the swan’s head and the thin side is toward the swan’s bottom. Pipe petal shapes to represent the swan’s feathers.
5. Lastly, outline the swan using the orange, black, and white frosting in respective places. Make sure to swap the petal tip on the white frosting for the #4 tip.

These swan cookies are so quick and perfect for beginners to tackle. For a swan baby shower theme, check out some of my baby shower tutorials for onesie cookies, strollers, and more. 

I decided to make these cookies for a Valentine’s Day cookie collaboration on Instagram so I made a pair of swans with a heart in between them. Simply flip half of the cookies over to decorate the bottom half and keep the remaining right-side-up when decorating.

You can find the tutorial for the ruffle hearts here.

I’d love to know in the comments below, have you decorated swan cookies before? Let me know if you try this tutorial. You can also follow me on YouTube for more cookie tutorials.

Save the Tutorial for These Swan Sugar Cookies

Use the image below to pin this tutorial for swan cookies to your baby shower, party, or birthday board on Pinterest. Alternatively, use any of the social share icons on the top of the page to share it to your favorite social media site.