Texturing Royal Icing for Basketball Cookies?

Basketballs actually do have tiny raised dots on them, so that would be an accurate depiction. It can be accomplished by using a tiny hole at the bottom of your piping bag so that the icing veritably drips out of the bag. Other than that, you can texturize icing by laying it on thick and then swirling it with a spatula--but I'm not sure that will look very realistic. I'm sure someone else will have a better idea, though...

You might be able to use a stencil, either flat with gel color or airbrushing, or a raised texture layer of icing. Good luck!

Maybe you could stipple it with thick-ish royal icing on the end of a broad brush? Again, not sure this would look as realistic as lots of small piped dots, but it would be faster.

You might be able to use sprinkles like non pareils or dragees, but will need a steady hand, and maybe tweezers, to make a pattern with them quickly before your icing dries.

If piping dots is difficult for you, maybe try a different icing consistency, small squeeze bottle, or making paper cones with tiny holes to pipe with?  Julia's videos on her blog and youtube do an excellent job of explaining how to make cones and to pipe tiny dots easily. If piping is not the problem, we may be able to suggest something else. Good luck!

Use a piece of mesh to airbrush with. Hope that makes sense

Thank you guys, all great suggestions! Unfortunately, I don't have an airbrush, so that is out. Stippling sounds like an interesting idea, might try that. Piping dots isn't hard, it just takes a long time! I don't mind spending some extra time to make something special, but dotty basketballs are just boring. 

And just to add - Julia's videos are my drug of choice lately. She's absolutely brilliant! I'm dreaming about multicoloured chocolate cake wraps at night, can't wait to try that myself, although for some reason I just know it won't look the same when I do it.

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us!

 

Darn it, because I think the airbrush method might be fastest and certainly most uniform. Maybe use a canned spray and stencil it?

Ahh, thanks so much! You've brightened my day!

I look forward to seeing your chocolate lace cake  - once those basketballs are done, that is! 

Stipple

Maybe you could try daubbing on orange luster dust over a stencil on a cookie with dry icing? It's a much smaller investment than an airbrush, lol. If you get a yellow and bright red (true red, or one leaning slightly towards hot pink-ish), you could mix your own orange. I love yellow luster dust, because you can use it to make a glow/halo under a piped candle flame. For that matter, you could also use a daubber with airbrush paint, gel color thinned with vodka, or your preferred method and a stencil.

Here's a nice stenciled/sprayed example that was posted to the site a couple of days ago: http://cookieconnection.juliau...basketball-cookies-6