With lots of seasonal holidays around the corner now is the perfect time to make your own edible eyes – perfect for decorating and adding fun personality to cookies, cupcakes, chocolate and more
This recipe is super simple, quick and so cost effective as you can make double the amount that you’d buy in the shops for a fraction of the price.
WHY YOU WILL LOVE THIS RECIPE
Quick and Easy | With the just 5 ingredients and only 10 minutes of preparation, making your own edible eyes at home has never been easier or quicker. The longest wait is the 24 hours it takes for them to dry.
Cost Effective | Most shop bought edible eyes come in small packs of 25g which is roughly 25 eyes. The approximate cost of these packet is £2.50 which means each eye is costing 1p. Sounds cheap but with homemade edible eyes you can quadruple the amount that you’d buy in the shops and be certain that each eye is costing a fraction of that price.
Fun Seasonal Activity | While Edible Eyes are found mostly on Halloween bakes for a fun and spooky twist, they are equally perfect for Christmas, Valentines and Easter baking meaning this recipe is a fun seasonal activity all year around.
INGREDIENTS AND TOOLS YOU WILL NEED
- ROYAL ICING | This makes up the bulk of the google eyes. I chose to use royal icing over standard icing sugar as found I got a much firmer set with royal icing. Make sure you sift the icing before using it to remove any lumps.
- CORNFLOUR | Cornflour helps thicken the icing mixture
- WATER | Mix in small amounts of water at a time until you have the right consistency. You don’t want it too thick that its hard to pipe and you don’t want it too runny that it doesn’t keep the round eye shape.
- VANILLA EXTRACT | The flavouring is completely optional to make the eyes taste a little more interesting.
- BLACK COCOA POWDER OR BLACK FOOD COLOURING | This will make the pupils of your edible eyes and I used black cocoa powder. The dark pigment works perfect in the recipe to create pitch black pupils but black food colouring also works well. If you’re using black food colouring choose gel colouring over anything else as this will get you the most pigmented colouring.
- MIXING BOWLS | You will need two mixing bowls. One to mix together all the ingredients, except the cocoa powder, and make the white bulk icing, and a second for when you need to make the mixture for the pupils.
- PIPING BAGS AND NOZZLES | You will need two piping bags and two small round tip writing piping nozzles. Ideally one of the round tip piping nozzles will be smaller than the other, this one will be for the pupils.
- BAKING TRAY | The mixture makes up to 100 edible eyes so you may need several flat baking trays to get all of them on
- NON STICK BAKING PAPER | Non-stick baking paper is the best for these as it will make it easier for the eyes to peel off once dried.
STEPS TO MAKE YOUR OWN EDIBLE EYES
See these step by step instructions with images but make sure you read the recipe card below for the full ingredients list & instructions!
1. Whisk together the royal icing, cornflour, water and flavouring (if using) into a smooth icing.
2. Remove a couple of tablespoons worth of the icing mixture into a separate bowl and add the cocoa powder or food colouring mixing it together well to create the black pupil colour.
3. Once the two colours have been properly mixed – add them to two different piping bags fitted with piping nozzles. Alternatively if you don’t have piping nozzles you can cut the ends to form small holes for piping, just make sure the black piping bag has a smaller piping hole since it’s for the pupil.
4. Pipe out rows of the small white dots first onto a lined baking tray until it’s full. You can opt to pipe them all the same size or do a variety of sizes, I like to do some larger versions but most of them were on the smaller size, either way make sure you pipe them in pairs so you always have two of each. Don’t worry about making them all uniform – that’s just part of the fun of googly eyes!
5. While the white dots are still wet, pipe the black colour on top of the white dots. These dots should be much smaller than the white and as central as you can get them. Continue until all of your whites have been filled.
6. Once you have finished piping, leave your eyes out to dry (about 24 hours) either room temperature or in the fridge. Then once fully set, gently peel the eyes from the baking paper paper and transfer to an airtight container and store somewhere cool and dry until you’re ready to use them.
PERFECT RECIPES TO USE YOUR EDIBLE EYES
Make your own Edible Eyes
Ingredients
- 125 g royal Icing
- 1 tbsp cornflour
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 30 ml water
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
Instructions
- Line a couple of large baking trays with non-stick baking paper and set aside.
- In a a medium sized mixing bowl combine the royal icing sugar, cornflour, vanilla and water until you have a smooth icing.
- Scoop out about 2-3 tablespoons of the icing and transfer to another small mixing bowl. Add the cocoa powder and mix until the cocoa powder have been completely mixed in and it's a consistency thick enough to pipe out of the bag.
- Transfer each mixture into two separate piping bags fitted with writing tip piping nozzles (one larger than the other)Pipe the white icing dots first. Feel free to pipe out different sizes – these do not need to be perfectly even but just make sure you try and get some evenly sized pairs.
- Once you've pipe out as much of the white icing as needed pipe out small black dots on top of the white dots to form the pupils. Continue piping until each eye has been filled.
- Leave the eyes somewhere to dry at room temperature or in the fridge for at least 24 hours until fully hard.
- Once set, you can carefully peel the eyes from the baking tray and transfer to an airtight container and store somewhere cool and dry until needed for decorations.
