Striped Double Decker Heart Cookies

I've been working hard for weeks now, making a wide variety of decorated cookies for an upcoming fundraiser to benefit The Wednesday Community Meal.

But after looking at my completed cookies yesterday morning, I realized there was definitely something lacking in the assortment. There were no cookies for the guys! Valentine's Day is for everyone and I needed to create a more masculine cookie option.

So that's how these striped double decker heart cookies came about and I couldn't be more pleased. Although they were easy to make, I think they turned out quite striking and prove that simple can be super cute!

Here's how I made them:

Make an equal number of rectangle or square base cookies and small hearts. Outline and fill the hearts with red royal icing and set them aside to dry.

Mix up flood consistency white royal icing and a small amount of flood consistency blue icing. Place them each in pastry bags fitted with #2 tips. Working on just one base cookie at a time, outline and fill it with white icing.

Use a scribe tool to evenly distribute the icing and give the cookie a gentle shake to help it settle.

Starting in the center, pipe a blue stripe and about 1/4-inch below pipe another one.

Keep adding evenly spaced stripes until you get to the bottom of the cookie.

Rotate the cookie so you can more easily add the remaining stripes. At least for me, working down is more comfortable than working up.

Add the stripes. It takes a few minutes, but they will all settle into the base icing for a flat look.

Set the cookies aside to dry completely and be sure to reserve a bit stiff icing for adhering the hearts.

Once the base cookies are dry, pipe a bit of stiff royal icing onto the back of a heart cookie and stick it to the base. Let them dry completely before serving or packaging.

Jack-o'-lantern Cookies

If you are a beginning cookie decorator looking for a simple design that makes use of multiple decorating techniques, Jack-o'-lantern cookies are for you!

There's some brush work, edible ink work and some segmented piping and it's all basic and easy to do.

To get started, bake mini pumpkin cookies and an equal number of larger base cookies and also have ready a black edible ink marker, a small "food only" brush, a batch of royal icing, gel colorings (I used orange, delphinium blue and moss green) and two pastry bags fitted with #2 tips.


Here's how to decorate them:

Start off by outlining and flooding the base cookies with white royal icing using one the pastry bags and a #2 tip.  Let the base cookies dry completely before moving onto the next step.

Once the base cookies are dry, mix up some blue royal icing and thin it to medium consistency. Drop about a teaspoon full onto the cookie and use your brush to spread it out evenly. It won't look perfectly smooth but that's the point, you want to add a textural look to the cookie.

After you have covered all of the base cookies, set them aside to dry. Reserve any leftover icing to use as "glue" when it's time to stick the cookies together.

Now it's time for the mini pumpkins, mix up a very small amount of medium consistency moss green royal icing.

Paint the stem of all of the pumpkins.

Mix up some medium consistency orange icing and place it a pastry bag fitted with a #2 tip. Following the curves of the cookie add orange to just the center segment. Do this to all of the pumpkins and let them dry for at least 20 minutes.

Add orange to the outside segments. This segmented piping adds so much texture and realism to the pumpkin. Let the icing dry completely before moving onto the next step.

Add a dollop of icing to back of the pumpkins and stick them onto the base cookies.

It will look like this.

Now for the fun part, get out your edible ink marker and turn the pumpkins into Jack-o'-lanterns.

Let the ink and the "cookie glue" dry completely before packaging.

Double Decker Ghost Cookies

These double decker ghost cookies are a favorite of mine. They were quick to make and I think they're super cute too.

I cut the ghosts using a mini-cutter from a Halloween set that my mom gave me more than 15-years ago. No worries though, mini-cutter sets are still easy to find in stores today and online. Two stores where I've had good luck finding the sets are Michael's and Cost Plus World Market.

When making double decker cookies, my one tip is to cut the top cookies about half of the thickness of the base cookies— This just keeps the cookie from looking too bulky. The ghosts are 1/8-inch thick and the base cookies are 1/4-inch thick.

Here's how I made them:

Outline and flood base cookies and set them aside to dry completely.

Outline and flood ghost cookies with white icing and while the icing is still wet, drop on the eyes and mouth using black medium consistency icing and a #2 tip. Let the ghosts dry completely before moving onto the next step.

Once the base cookies and ghost cookies are dry, adhere them together using piping consistency royal icing as glue. A little goes a long way, so don't add too much or it will squish out and ruin the look. Use an edible ink marker to write "Boo!" and pipe a border.

Wait for the royal icing "glue" and border dry completely before packaging.

Double-Decker Easter Cookies

These double-decker Easter cookies are really quite simple to make. I honestly find the hardest part deciding what colors to use.

The patterns on the base cookies were creating using the wet-on-wet technique of dropping icing onto a wet base and then you can leave the icing as is or draw through it to create a chevron pattern or marbling.

Here's how I made them:

First off, have all your basecoat icings in piping bags ready to go. I chose to use light blue, medium blue and pink. Outline a base cookie with flood consistency icing and immediately fill it in.

Use a skewer or scribe tool to evenly distribute the icing.

While the base coat is wet, add lines.

You can leave the lines as is or draw through them in alternating directions to create a chevron pattern. Be sure to wipe off your tool off after each swipe through the icing.

Or, you could add dots. It's fun to be creative.

Once your base cookies are decorated, set them aside to dry. They need to dry completely before you adhere another cookie to them.

The larger plaque cookies will be topped with carrots and the smaller round cookies will be topped with bunnies.

For the carrots, I outlined the tops with green icing and sprinkled on tinted graham cracker crumbs. You could also use green sprinkles or sanding sugar.

I wanted to create a textured effect so I outlined and flooded the top and bottom third of the carrots and let that dry for a bit.

Then I filled in the middle sections and once the top and bottom sections were dry enough, I piped on a few lines of icing and spread them gently with a soft brush to create even more texture. Once the middle section had dried enough, I did the same to it.

Once the carrot and base cookie were dry, I stuck them together using a bit of royal icing as glue.

For the bunny cookies,  I got out some "daisy" sprinkles to create their fluffy tails.

I outlined and flood the bunnies with white royal icing and immediately added the tail. Let the cookies dry completely before adding more details.

I added a bow and nose on the bunnies with pink royal icing and drew on an eye with an edible ink marker. Once the bunnies were completely dry, I adhered them to the base cookies with royal icing. Be sure the icing glue is completely dry before packaging. Happy Easter!