Today marks the 4th anniversary of my Mom’s death.
I think she would have loved these cookies…

Ladybugs are adorable. We must ignore the sad fact that they can bite, although as stated in the link “they prefer not to.” I find that statement almost as adorable as ladybugs themselves… These cookies were made following a quick video of Haniela, a cookie artist who lives in Spain. I used my default recipe for neat-edges sugar cookies. These were perfumed with chai extract from Olive Nation. Make the ladybugs the day before, and follow the self-explanatory pictures to decorate them or the IG video from Hani. Air-brushing the edges is optional, the cookies look fine without it.

Let’s get started!

The day before, make your little ladybug friends…. I did not use a template, just eye-balled a red body and a little black head. You can make many more than you’ll need, as they keep forever.

Let them sit at room temperature overnight, then gently add the details with a black food pen…

Now, let’s work on the cookies…

Start outlining the edge and the empty spaces… You can eye-ball it all, or draw with a food pen to guide you. Keep in mind you will need to pipe a central vein on the leaf, so plan your empty spots accordingly.

Flood with green royal icing…

Let that set for 30 minutes or so, add details with piping consistency black icing…

Let that set for 10 minutes and pipe little decorative dots all around the empty spaces.

The basic cookie is ready… Now add the ladybug with a small dot of royal icing as glue, and if you like, air-brush a slightly darker green around the edges. I did, but it is a bit hard to notice (check the first or the last picture of this post).

I think those turned out pretty cute, and were not at all complicated to make. I still struggle with the fine lines, and feel that there’s a lot of room for improvement, but I try to have fun on my path to reach Nirvana.