Gnome Cookies

I like my gnome cookies but they also turned out to be one of the most labor intensive cookies I've ever made.

And, after all the work, I have to report that there was a sad casualty. You see, I was so pumped with how they turned out that I lined them up for a final photo and in my excitement, dropped my camera on one of the poor guys. He was pretty messed up and sadly there was no way to resuscitate him.

With a good 40 minutes devoted to decorating each gnome, I'd have to say these are cookies you should make for the experience or for very very good friend. With the time spent on them, I'd have to charge $15 a cookie if I sold them and I can't imagine anyone would want to pay that.

If you want to make each kind of cookie from my woodland set, make extra mushrooms and just a handful of these little guys.

Here's how:

I knew it would be all in the details when it came making the gnome cookies come to life. Before I started decorating, I traced my cutter and sketched multiple designs on paper. I always find my results are better if I have a solid decorating plan on paper. Trust me, it's time well spent.

I started by outlining and flooding the hats.

Then I outlined and flooded the boots and used an edible ink marker to break up the face, shirt and pant sections and draw where I wanted the gnome's hands to be placed.

I added the face and hands. As you can see, I decided to move the placement of the hands down a bit.

Then I outline and flooded the pants, going around the hands so that that they look like they are inside pockets.

Outline and flood the shirt.

Add the eyes, eye brows and beard with white icing.

White the white icing is wet, add the ears and nose. Let this dry completely before moving on.

Once the icing is dry, use a brush and thinned icing to add details — black above the eyes and for the mouth; a bit of pink to highlight the cheeks, ears, nose and mouth; and more skin colored icing under the eyes and on the ears and under the mouth.

I used a brush and thinned black/blue icing to add details to the shirt and mark the gnome's arms.

The addition of two tiny drops of blue on the eyes brings the gnome to life. I used a scribe tool to add it.

Now it's time for some textured details on the pants and hat, again using thinned icings and a small brush. As you can see, I decided to bring the hat down farther on the gnome's head and covered its original eyebrows.

I also brushed on some darker brown icing on the boots.

Now it's beard detail time —  Using piping consistency icing and a #1 tip, add strands of hair.

Also add piped hair to the mustache and add new eyebrows.

Looking good!

Woodland Cookie Set

I had been thinking about designing a set of Woodland Cookies for nearly a year, but it was a recent trip with my friend Cindy to Blake's Decorette Shop that really pushed me into action.

I already owned the gnome and large mushroom cutter but found the smaller mushroom, deer and small plaque on our shopping trip and immediately couldn't wait to get started. 

I devoted a good amount of time to planning and designing the cookies, and two full days to baking and decorating them.

The mushroom and tree cookies were by far the easiest of the set to make. The deer was a little frustrating because it was hard to release the cookie dough out of its long thin legs. Cindy mentioned this might be a problem when I picked up the cutter at the store but the deer's cuteness won me over and trumped practicality.

Then there are the gnomes — The only way I could figure out how to bring them to life was to base coat them and then after that dried, add more details by painting on thinned royal icing. Each gnome took a good 40 minutes to decorate but despite the work, I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Stay tuned for detailed tutorials on how to make each cookie in this set. Up tomorrow will be the mushrooms.