Color Schemes

One of the biggest considerations when designing a cookie set (aside from the shapes themselves) is the color scheme. And I don’t know about you, but very rarely do I find myself using bottled color as-is without mixing and tweaking until it is just how I want it to be. Primary colors have their place, but it is not usually in my woodland baby shower cookie set, thank you very much. I have a vivid memory of middle school art class, when we were using colored pencils to flesh out the drawings we had done. Mine was a house perched atop rolling hills, so of course I grabbed the Green pencil and went to town. My art teacher almost had a stroke when she walked by and saw me industriously coloring with Green pencil—and only Green pencil. That woman snatched that pencil out of my hand so fast, I’m lucky I didn’t get a splinter. She then handed me several shades of green that we then used to color correct the Great Green Art Class Disaster of 1996, resulting in realism and layers of color I was never going to reach with just my trusty Green pencil. I went from a much more childish drawing using only primary/secondary colors to something with a lot more depth and wow factor, simply by changing up my color scheme. 

So I guess what it really comes down to is, what is the vibe you’re going for? Let’s look at some common themes and the types of colors people typically aim for.

Woodland anything—Add brown. 

Doesn’t have to be a lot! Even a drop in each color you make will give your set an earthier color and tie everything together more cohesively. This comes in very handy in the Fall for Autumn and Thanksgiving cookies.

Ocean/Water—Blues typically make sense here. 

Like in my Green example above, you don’t have to stop with one singular shade of Blue. I like to start by mixing one shade and then using that same bowl to mix my second shade (and my third, if I’m going nuts). If I’m starting with a True Blue base, perhaps my next color will add some black to move towards navy, or a little green to head towards turquoise. This is called the one-bowl-method, and it’s a great way to make sure your colors are more cohesive and blend well—the residual icing in the bowl will tint your new color just a smidge, enough to tie one shade to the next and keep you from asking yourself why the multiple shades of blue you made don’t seem like they really “go” together. Whether you are making bright blues, deep navies, or jewel-toned teals (or a combination thereof!), you can mix and layer these colors to create the many tones of the ocean/lake/pool you’re trying to achieve.

Baby—You generally can’t go wrong with pastels for baby-themed cookies. 

That being said, it’s often not enough to just use a tiny amount of your gel color to create a pastel, as it can just look a little dingy instead of intentionally light. Add a dollop of white gel to your mix, and you’ll immediately lighten up into a true pastel color that can be adjusted as needed. This technique is super useful for spring and Easter sets, as well.

Christmas—The obvious go-to here would be reds and greens, but that doesn’t mean you have to use Red-Red and Green-Green. 

Deepen up those colors with a dab of brown for an earthier vibe, or even a dab of black to get some darker shades. In the reds, add a little blue to make a more purple-y red for a funkier vibe. And forest green is my absolute favorite green to make, mixing Green with a little black and a little blue. Always start by adding just a dab of these colors, as you can’t remove color once you’ve added it, but you can always add more.

Skin tones—This can be a hard one for people to achieve with standard colors—or I should say, it’s one that people **think** is hard to achieve. 

As kids, who among us didn’t grab for the Apricot, Peach, and Brown crayons from the box when coloring people? Nowadays, Crayola has upped their game with a whole box of flesh-toned crayons, but that doesn’t mean you need 24 individual bottles of food coloring to make different skin tones. Really, I usually grab my bottles of brown, red, yellow, and orange and start experimenting. It completely depends on the skin tone you’re going for as to which of these colors you’ll use, and how much. If I am trying to match my own pasty Caucasian skintone, I will often hold my forearm over the icing bowl and see what tones are missing or need to be pumped up. Is it looking a little too sallow? Add a dab of red and brown to bring it to a more realistic flesh color. Is it looking a little too cartoony pink? Try brown and yellow. If you are making icing for a darker-skinned person, just dumping a bunch of brown into a bowl is not typically very true to life. People with darker skin still have undertones, so add a little bit of red or yellow to adjust the color as needed, or a tiny bit of black to get a deeper color. The key thing when making these colors is really to use your gel color very judiciously. Use a toothpick to add dabs of color, mix, and see where you need to go next.

Summer/Neon—Bright colors are the name of the game here. 

Adding a dab of bright yellow to your colors can give that neon vibe, as can making sure that your base icing had white mixed in to start. We don’t want any drab colors in our neon summer set, so amp up the opacity and make sure those bright colors stand out.

Wedding—Although white is typically part of the vibe for wedding sets, I always find that my couples want gold or silver elements to represent their rings, and I end up incorporating hand-painted elements to get that metallic effect.

 That being said, making sure you’re painting over a similar color tone can help your painting look better right off the bat. For gold, mix yellow with a dab of brown to make a gold royal icing base that can easily be painted on. For silver, a dab of black into white icing can start you off for a grey mixture, but it can often look purple-y; add a tiny dab of yellow to neutralize the purple and keep your icing a true grey.

These are just a few themes that come to mind that have color schemes that people go for time and time again. Feel free to share any others you can think of and how you would make those colors!