Usually, I use the outline-and-flood method for frosting my sugar cookies. But I decided to try something new: 20-Second Icing. Sweet Sugarbelle has a fantastic tutorial on achieving this consistency, somewhere between outlining and flooding consistencies. (click to see tutorial) Using 20-second icing, I can eliminate decorating bags and just use squeeze bottles. It's a lot faster! The frosting is runny enough to flow nicely and dry smoothly, but it's stiff enough to stay where you put it.
By the time I finished adding the wings, the beaks were dry enough to outline in black. I waited about a half hour before frosting the rest of the bird to give everything else a chance to dry a bit. It doesn't have to be completely dry, just dry enough to not flow together.
20-Second Icing wasn't the only new thing I tried for these cookies. I tried making them gluten-free. I've made a couple other attempts at gluten-free sugar cookies with disastrous results. These are actually pretty good. I'm going to tinker a bit more with the recipe to get the taste a little sweeter and less dry before I share the recipe. Stay tuned!