Three Blue Heart Cookies

When it comes to cookie decorating, the possibilities are endless and I think that's the main reason why I love it so much. There's always something new to try and every attempt is an adventure in the kitchen.

These blue heart cookies are the result of a recent challenge I gave myself — Make three different heart cookies using just two colors of royal icing. So I sketched and pondered and came up with these three designs and I like them all but my favorite is the simplest heart that I just painted on using a brush and thinned royal icing.

In the past I've painted on cookies using food coloring but that creates a look more reminiscent of ink pens or a smooth watercolor. Using thinned royal icing adds a textural element that's more like acrylic paint and I like the look a lot. I also found that the thinned royal icing was easier than the food coloring to apply and control. I'm going to have to experiment with this some more.

In the meantime, here's how to make these Three Blue Heart Cookies:

Knitted Heart

This knitted heart effect took some time but really was easy to create. If you notice at the top of the cookie, the icing has settled a bit too much for my taste. Using a stiffer royal icing would have eliminated this problem. I remembered to test my icing by piping onto a plate first but I didn't wait and watch it for a bit to see if it would gradually settle.  Next time I'll do better — Proof that I make mistakes and am constantly learning every time I decorate cookies.

I added a base coat of white icing to a cookie that I imprinted with a heart cutter before baking. The icing fell into the imprint and left a nice guide for me to follow. After the base coat has dried, add a row of blue dots to the top of the heart.

Use a small square tip brush to swipe each dot downward and add another row of dots and repeat.

Keep working all the way down the heart and let the icing dry completely before serving or packaging.

Sparkly Brushed Embroidery Heart:

After your white base coat has dried, pipe a heart with stiff royal icing.

Use the side of a square tip brush to pull the icing inward, working around the whole outline and cleaning off your brush periodically. Add another heart outline on the inside and repeat adding the brushed embroidery technique.

Outline and fill a heart shape in the very center. Let this dry completely.

Using thinned royal icing and a brush, add a thin layer of icing to the top of the dried center heart. Immediately dip it in sanding sugar and use a soft clean brush to remove any excess bits of sugar. Wait for the coat of icing to dry completely before packaging or serving.

Royal Icing Painted Heart:

This was the easiest cookie to make and my favorite. Outline and fill a cookie with white royal icing. Let this dry completely. Thin blue royal icing with water to make a spreadable paint and simply paint it on in the shape of a heart. Just be sure that you use a brush that's for kitchen use only. Wilton sells a set of brushes that I really like. Let the heart dry completely before packaging or serving.

Quick Decorated Cookies

If you have your heart set on making decorated sugar cookies but don't have a lot of time, these simple mini cookies are the answer.

As I've mentioned before, decorated cookies are not something to be made last minute because they are time consuming to make and not just because of the baking and decorating. They take a full day just to dry.

Luckily there are exceptions and these Blue Mini Heart Cookies are one of them. Because the 1.5-inch heart is small, I was able to use a thicker flood icing to fill them which reduced the drying time to six hours.

Usually I flood cookies with 10 to 15-second icing which is icing that takes that long to settle back into place after drawing through it with the side of a spoon, but for these I was able to use 20-second icing.

Another time saver was that I didn't use a separate icing to outline the cookies. Instead, using the same 20-second icing,  I outlined and filled each cookie in one step. This kind of decorating goes really fast and in the end it took me just four hours to bake and decorate 100 cookies. They'll take another six hours to dry and then they are done and ready to package and/or serve.

Step 1: Make and bake the cookies.

Step 2: Mix 20-second icing and outline and fill the cookies. I like to decorate three cookies at a time. After filling, use a scribe tool or skewer to evenly distribute the icing and give each cookie a gentle shake to help the icing settle into place.

Step 3: Wait for the cookies to dry.

For added interest I went for an ombre look, using three shades of teal icing and I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Using different shades of icing is a nice way to add interest to a simple design.

These cookies are going to be served at this Saturday's Leonard Cohen Liturgy to benefit Hunger Ministries at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. I hope you can join us. Everyone is welcome and the event is free. It's great opportunity to enjoy wonderful live music and eat cookies.

Here's more infomation:

LEONARD COHEN LITURGY
Saturday, November 15, 6:00 p.m., Kempton Hall. Join Trinity for an alternative liturgy set to the songs of popular music’s saint of solitude, prophet of the heart and brother of mercy. From “Hallelujah” to “Tower of Song,” Leonard Cohen stands with Bob Dylan as one of the world’s most fascinating and prophetic songwriters. But this Alt.Liturgy will show that he also stands with David in the Psalms, constantly asking, “Can you hear my song?” A freewill offering will benefit Trinity’s hunger ministries.