Lavender Cookies

These lavender cookies are a design that I make over and over again because they come together quickly and although the design is simple, it's a standout.

To make them, you need just three colors of royal icing and absolutely no artistic ability. If you can pipe a line and a dot, you can make these. You also don't need a special cookie cutter...round, square, rectangle, any shape will do.  I used a plaque shaped cutter for these.

These lavender cookies are for my sweet friends at The Wednesday Community Meal. I miss them so much.

Basecoat some cookies with white royal icing and let them dry completely before moving onto the next step. 

With piping consistency green royal icing, pipe some stems and add a few "v's" to them. 

Using lavender piping consistency icing, pipe groups of dots above each of the "v's."

For a final touch,  pipe a few green lines at the base of the stems. 

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.

Baby Deer Cookies

These baby deer cookies are the final tutorial from my woodland cookie set.

My friend Cindy warned me that the deer cutter that caught my eye on our field trip to Blake's Decorette Shop might not be the best.

"It looks like it would be hard to get the dough out of those thin legs," she said.

I ignored reason and bought the cutter anyways because it was so darn cute, but Cindy was right. The thin legs were a big pain!

Patience, very cold cookie dough and the use of a small soft paint brush to easy the dough out of the cutter worked but gosh, I'd hate to make more than a dozen of these.

Luckily the decorating went smoothly. Only three colors were needed,  just brown and a small amount of white and black. And, brown was the only color that I needed a piping bag for. I applied the white and black details with a paint brush and scribe tool.

Here's how I made them:

Be patient and cut and bake your cookies. I couldn't have gotten the dough to release without applying some pressure from the brush. As you can see this leaves a few marks on the legs of the deer but these won't be noticeable after decorating.

I outlined and filled the cookie with brown icing using a pastry bag and #2 tip. Then I immediately added some small drops of thinned white icing using a scribe tool. Just touch the icing with the tip of the scribe and then touch it onto the deer's back. I let this dry completely before moving onto the next step.

Using white icing and a small brush add white to the tail, hooves, ears, chest and eye area.

Use the scribe tool to add a black nose, eye, lashes and lines on the bottom of the hooves. While the eye is still wet, use the scribe add the tiniest drop of white.

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!

Woodland Cookie Set

I had been thinking about designing a set of Woodland Cookies for nearly a year, but it was a recent trip with my friend Cindy to Blake's Decorette Shop that really pushed me into action.

I already owned the gnome and large mushroom cutter but found the smaller mushroom, deer and small plaque on our shopping trip and immediately couldn't wait to get started. 

I devoted a good amount of time to planning and designing the cookies, and two full days to baking and decorating them.

The mushroom and tree cookies were by far the easiest of the set to make. The deer was a little frustrating because it was hard to release the cookie dough out of its long thin legs. Cindy mentioned this might be a problem when I picked up the cutter at the store but the deer's cuteness won me over and trumped practicality.

Then there are the gnomes — The only way I could figure out how to bring them to life was to base coat them and then after that dried, add more details by painting on thinned royal icing. Each gnome took a good 40 minutes to decorate but despite the work, I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Stay tuned for detailed tutorials on how to make each cookie in this set. Up tomorrow will be the mushrooms.

Kilt Cookies

My friend Ginny asked me to make kilt cookies for a bridal shower and I'm so glad she did because I love a cookie challenge and I love baking for friends. The wedding dress cookies I made are also for Ginny and each of her guests will get one of each to take home.

It did take some time for me figure out how to create a plaid design on a cookie — At first I thought I could just pipe the lines but I then decided that method would look too bulky and not very realistic.  And, it would be very hard to pipe the lines thin enough and I was worried about smearing.

I also knew that I wanted the design to lay flat on the cookie, so my solution was to paint on the plaid using thinned royal icing and a very small brush.

Each of Ginny's guests will get an individually wrapped wedding dress and kilt cookie to take home.

Here's how I made them:

I used a 4-inch square cutter to cut the cookies and then trimmed the edges to make a trapezoid.

Cookies ready for the oven.

After baking, I outlined a cookie using flood consistency blue icing and a #2 tip.

And, I immediately filled in the cookie using the same icing and tip.

I used a scribe tool to evenly distribute the icing and gave the cookie a gentle shake to help the icing settle.

Once all of the cookies are outlined and filled, set them aside to dry completely. I let them dry overnight.

After the cookies have dried, paint on four lines of black using tinted and thinned royal icing and a small brush. Periodically clean off your brush by dipping it in water and patting it dry with a paper towel. Remember to make the lines perpendicular and not parallel to the sides of the cookie.

Once all of the cookies have the black lines added, mix up some thinned green royal icing and get ready to paint.

Add a line down the center.

Add a line on each side of the center line and a line outside of each of the black vertical lines.

Keep working until all of the cookies have five lines of green.

I then mixed up some thinned dark blue icing and added two horizontal lines on each side of the bottom black horizontal line. Do this to all of the cookies and let them dry completely.

Once the cookies are dry, it's time to add a final touch to the plaid. Paint white lines using thinned royal icing on top of the black vertical lines and add two horizontal lines above each of the dark blue lines.

Now it's time for a belt. Pipe two lines of medium consistency royal icing using a #2 tip.

Add more lines to fill it in. I purposely didn't use a scribe tool to manipulate the icing to flatten it since I wanted a textured look to the belt.

Add a belt to all of the cookies and let that dry.

Now for the very last step, using thinned white icing and a small brush, paint a buckle on the center of the belt. Let the cookies dry completely before packaging or serving.