Whale Cookies

I created these whale cookies for a dear friend's baby shower.

When I first started planning and sketching out the design, I went a little too crazy with the details — adding a pectoral fin, blowhole and eyelashes. I wasn't pleased and decided to pull back and simplify, which I find in most cases, is always best.

The cleaner design made the whales look sweeter, cuter and just what I wanted for a baby shower.

Taking the time to sketch your designs first really pays off. It's much better to test your designs on paper instead of on a cookie!

Here's how I made them:

Bake some whale cookies.

Use an edible ink marker to trace an outline for the belly of the whale. To keep it consistent on all of the cookies,  you may want to make a paper template that you can trace.

Mix up some flood consistency blue icing, white icing and a small amount of black icing. This is wet-on-wet decorating so you need to have all your icings mixed before you start.

Outline and fill in the belly of the whale using a pastry bag fitted with a #2 tip.

With a #2 tip, outline the rest of the whale in blue.

Fill it in with the blue icing and use a scribe tool or skewer to help evenly distribute it.

Drop on a dot of black for the eye.

Add a drop of white icing inside the black.

Let the whales dry for at least 30 minutes before proceeding to the next step.

Add some lines of white icing to the belly.

Add some lines of blue icing to the tail.

All done! Let the cookies dry completely before serving or packaging.