This weekend we celebrated birthdays with two girls: S who turned 4 (post on her cookies coming soon) and my niece N who turned 6 this week and is staying with us for the weekend. I love the idea of having the first initial and the number with simple, decorative designs, alongside a small number of feature cookies (subtext: a bunch of fast cookies and just a few that take longer). So Ns and 6s it is. I opted for a few butterfly cookies to go with them.
I'm still trying to decide how long one can keep royal icing around before you have to make a new batch. I had a bunch leftover from Valentine's cookies that were decorated eight days prior. I added a bit of water and stirred up the three colors I wanted to use. Then I decided this was more trouble than it would have been to just make new icing. Note to self: don't save colored icing for a week again. The consistency wasn't awesome, though I'm happy with the results.
For much of 2013 I surfed around Pinterest looking at amazing Royal Icing cookies. I wanted to learn how to make some in time for The Girl's first birthday. I LOVED these for her farm themed party. Well, that didn't happen. I kept pinning adorable cookies. I kept surfing through cookie blogs. I found the recipes I wanted to try. I found the supply list for the necessary supplies.
The First Cookies
In October 2013 I pulled the trigger. I used some birthday money and placed the order for supplies to get started. I decided on two colors with the help of The Boy and I went to work. My biggest initial challenge was the icing consistency, but I was generally happy with the result. I decided that I love wet-on-wet designs, both because I'm a little impatient and there's no need to wait for a layer to dry and because, even with some imperfections, marbling is fast and easy and it has a big impact. It reminded me of my days years ago making marbled paper. I wonder if I have any of that around here anymore. Hm.
The REAL First Cookies
So my sister pointed out that I had actually made a set of cookies long before that October 2013 batch. Back in September 2010 (when most of us hadn't even heard of Pinterest yet!), I hosted my sister's bridal shower. It was a travel theme and I made some decorated sugar cookies with their names and Eiffel Towers as party favors. There was a lot I didn't know about the art of cookie decorating back then.
There was an unfortunate cookie-ing situation in December where I made and decorated 12 dozen cookies and came down with a stomach bug the night I finished them. I just couldn't bring myself to give my friends their holiday gift that could be laced with the virus that leveled me. The cookies sat on the counter for weeks. I took more pictures. Then they went in the trash.
The Boy and I decided that after New Year's we would make dinosaur cookies for our good buddies. As we inched closer and closer it because apparent that those dinosaurs would be a Valentine's gift. So naturally we made some hearts as well.
Just cause I find data fascinating, last weekend I spent three hours baking 100 cookies (two batches, half of which are in my freezer to decorate next week), and Monday night I spent three hours making icing and mixing 10 different colors/consistencies. Then Tuesday morning there were three of us decorating cookies for about three hours. In that time I decorated 14 dinosaurs and 9 hearts, in addition to miscellaneous toddler wrangling. We decorated 50 cookies total.
The Dinosaurs
I was pleased to be able to get a 20-second flood icing consistency to be able to pipe the outline and flood with the same bottle of icing. I love the smooth finished look. I never cease to be amazed at how flashy wet-on-wet designs can be... like the marbling on some of Sharon's heart cookies below.
So I decorated my 14 dinosaurs with flood icing. (Note the stegosaurus with no tail. Oops.)
They were so cute. I loved them! I just had to add the details. I went for minimalist, an eye and a mouth (using my piping consistency icing) for each dino. The details just took a couple minutes, but made such a difference!
My red flood icing was a little thick, but overall I was very happy with the results. I can't wait to make more of them! What colors should I use next time? Oh, and that heart cookie, that's my last little bit of dough. No waste. I always roll out the last bit so I have another cookie to practice on. When I thinned out my red flood icing to fix it that was my first cookie. In honor of Valentine's Day I made it a heart.
The Hearts
The Boy likes to help. His preferred method is for me to flood the cookie. Then he puts in wet-on-wet dots of other colors. Then he "scrambles" with a toothpick. I saved the last seven hearts for him to decorate since I did the rest of the batch while he was at school.