Cookie Decorating

Royal Icing decorated cookies

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N turns 6This 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.

Birthday Butterflies

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.

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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

purple and turquoise1In 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.

purple and turquoise2
Piping proved a little more challenging than the wet-on-wet designs for me.
The Boy did the fill and dots on this one.
His first cookie: The Boy did the fill and dots on this one.

The REAL First Cookies

travel themed bridal shower
travel themed bridal shower

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.

Jenn and Jeff cookiesEiffel Tower cookies

 

 

 

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Happy Valentine's Day
Happy Valentine's Day

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 setup for coloring the icing
the setup for coloring the icing
ready to roll
ready to roll

The Dinosaurs

20-second icing to flood the dinosaur cookies
20-second icing to flood the dinosaur cookies

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.)

dinosaur cookies part 1They 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!

finished dinosaur cookiesMy 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.

stegosaurus cookie

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.

wet-on-wet "scrambled" heart cookies by The Boy
wet-on-wet "scrambled" heart cookies by The Boy
cookies by Margie
cookies by Margie
cookies by Sharon
cookies by Sharon
cookies by me
cookies by me

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