Woodland Mushroom Cookies

Of all the cookies in my woodland set, these mushrooms took the least amount of time. I could have easily made more of them and trust me, I don't feel that way about too many cookies.

For the smaller mushroom, I just outlined and flooded the stem with white icing and outlined and flooded the top with red. While the red icing was still wet, I immediately dropped on small and large dots of white icing.

For the large mushroom, I outlined and flooded the stem with white icing and the top with brown. Then, I let that set for at least 30 minutes before adding detail with some piping consistency ivory icing.

I could have stopped there, but decided to add some green grass at the base of the mushrooms after the icing dried overnight. As paint, I used thinned green icing and I applied it with a small soft brush.

Here are more details:

Outline and fill the stem.

Outline and fill the top and have your white icing ready for dropping on the dots.

For the large mushroom, I outlined the stem with white icing and the top with brown. Then I let the icing dry for 30 minutes before adding details with ivory piping consistency icing and a #2 tip.  With the ivory icing, I outlined the stem and then piped some lines for the gills.

I let the mushroom cookies dry completely before I added the grass at the base.

For the grass I painted on thinned royal icing using a small soft paint brush. I tinted the icing with leaf green and moss green gel coloring.

All done!

Make Ahead Cake Decorations

When I decorate cookies, I often have leftover royal icing and instead of tossing it, I use it to make rose decorations that I keep on hand for decorating cakes in a pinch.

Just let the royal icing roses dry completely and then store them in an airtight container. They'll keep for months and they are so handy to have on hand.  And, they're so pretty that no one will even think for a second that they were made in advance and your cake was a breeze to decorate.

Here's how:
Whip the royal icing until it is very stiff and tint it using gel coloring. I like to make two-toned roses so I tinted some rose and some cream. Fit a pastry bag with a petal tip. My preference is a Wilton #103.

I used a rubber scraper to spread some rose colored royal icing on the inside of my piping bag.

Then I dropped in the cream colored icing. This will give me a nice two-toned effect and keep the pink color just on the edges of the petals.

Adhere a small piece of parchment to a flower nail. Pipe a dollop of icing on the center.

Add a petal around the dollop. When you use a petal tip, it's essential that the narrow end of the tip be up as you pipe. This gives you realistic looking thin-edged petals.

Keep working around your dollop of icing and add two more petals to completely go around the dollop which is the center of the rose.

Add another layer of petals. I stopped after the second layer since I wanted small roses but you can keep going if you want to make a bigger rose.

Set the roses on a sheetpan to dry completely. I let mine dry for two full days and then I removed them from the parchement and put them in a single layer in an airtight container.

Using a #67 Wilton tip, I also made some leaves.

Before I add my handy dandy rose and leaf decorations to a cake, I experiment with placement on a sheetpan first to get them exactly how I want them.

A pretty cake that was a cinch to decorate.

Baseball Cookies

These baseball cookies are perfect for summer and a fun design for beginning decorators.

You need just two colors of royal icing to decorate them — white for the base and dark red for the stitching. Making them is a two-day project though since it's important to let the white base coat dry completely before adding the stitching details.

Here's how:

Outline the cookies using a #2 tip and flood consistency royal icing. Let the outline dry for at least 15 minutes before filling them.

Fill the cookie using the same white flood icing and #2 tip. Let the cookies dry overnight.

The next day, after the cookie base coats have dried completely, mix and color the red icing for the stitching. I used a baseball as my guide to get the correct color and got it by mixing red with a touch of black.

Make a template to mark where the stitching should go on the cookie. You'll also need a food-safe red pen.

Lay the template on the cookie and mark with small dots using the food-safe pen.

It will look like this.

Then you just start adding stitches using a #1 tip and medium consistency royal icing.

All done.

Let the cookies dry completely before serving or packaging.