Plum Perfect Cookies

A box of pretty plums at the grocery store inspired me to incorporate the shade into my cookie decorating. 

Color mixing is really one of the most important parts of cookie decorating and what I often find most challenging. The trick really is to have a visual of the color you want before you start mixing so with some purchased plums as my guide, I mixed up a wonderful shade using electric purple, royal blue, teal and fuchsia gel colors. Getting the shade I wanted took a while, since I added just the smallest touch of coloring at a time, but it was time well spent. I love the how the shade turned out. For more coloring mixing tips,  click here.

For the ombre plum cookies, I iced some with the original plum color using flood icing and a #2 tip. Then,  I added a bit of white for a lighter shade, and then even more white for an even lighter shade. If I am going for multiple shades of a color, I always find it easiest to start with the darkest shade and simply work off of that by adding white icing.

For the plum brushed embroidery, I first base coated some plaque shaped cookies with delphinium blue royal icing. After the base coat dried completely, I added the brushed embroidery. It's essential that the base coat be completely dry (this takes 8 or more hours) or the icing will crumble and crack as you add the brushed embroidery.

It's important that your icing be piping consistency, this is icing that's stiff enough to hold it's shape but doesn't hold a peak. Pipe the outline of a flower and then use a small square tip brush to pull the icing inward, without breaking the top edge of the original outline. Use water to clean your brush off periodically between strokes and be sure to pat it dry with a paper towel. After you've finished one row of petals, add another.

This cookie is almost done. Notice that the center petal looks a little too wet, that's because I didn't dry my brush off enough. The second row of petals will help hide it but it's something that you want to avoid.

Two down, more to go. This kind of decorating isn't hard but it does take time, so turn on some music and try to enjoy the process. The results will be worth it.