In my mind, cookie decorating has similarities with riding a bike. I am at the stage of riding with training wheels, insecure to let them go and find my balance. I rely on tutorials, on things I see and try to mimic. This post is one rare example in which I tried to let the training wheels go to make something out of my own imagination. The cookies were designed as a Birthday gift for someone who adores his puppy. I did my best to “cookie it.”
Once again, the recipe was my default: Grown-Up Spicy Chocolate Cookies, baked in two shapes, round and oval. Due to my complete inability to draw, I rely on images found in the internet to project on the cookies. A very fine black tip food pen, and then the fun part begins, painting them .
I used luster powder in several tones of beige, brown and copper, mixed with Everclear. Once the paint dries, the food pen comes back to refresh the outlines, as some parts are inevitably covered with paint. The birthday cake was a bonus cookie in the set…
This was my first time making 12 custom-designed cookies. It was a bit stressful, but I am happy with the way they turned out.
To wrap up this post, a few of the practice cookies I was playing with before settling on the final ones.
I also like the plain, black and white outlined cookies, but it’s too hard to resist the appeal of colors. Painting is just so relaxing, I love it.
Hopefully I will be letting go of the training wheels a little more often. Then I might share my productions with you. Assuming they don’t have to be consumed as evidence of decorating crimes…
For the Love of Cookies 
Those are so cute! You are really taking off on all things cookie, so I have to ask about your icing. I have trouble getting that 15 second icing, but I’ve also found taste issues with royal icing. Any tips up your sleeve?
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I have been adding fresh lemon juice to my icing, and that is a very helpful thing with the taste. If you use fresh egg whites (or pasteurized) the taste is more delicate than meringue powder – however, the meringue powder brand also influences the outcome. When I do meringue powder, I use Genie’s Dream and it is way better than WIlton or other brands. Take a look at this recipe from Haniela that uses fresh lemon juice – I also add vanilla to it.
https://www.hanielas.com/fresh-lemon-royal-icing/
it is hard to beat how fresh and bright it tastes. You don’t need even to use the full amount of lemon juice, I sometimes just squeeze one lemon and top with water if I don’t have enough. Just a little bit does the trick.
As to the consistency, I can only tell you it is practice, practice, practice- we have a tendency in the beginning to dilute the icing too much. I don’t have issues anymore with flooding but the fine lines? They torture me, and I get very insecure.
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Thanks for the tips on taste, you give me hope…and using fresh eggs instead of powder is a light bulb game changer moment!
One tip that’s helped me on constancy is using a spray bottle to add water a little at a time. Now I just have to figure out the feel of what’s going to work. Ugh.
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yes, I think the spray bottle is a must, it is the only thing I use. I am forcing myself to practice thin lines with leftover Royal icing and I think it’s helping a bit to “feel” the consistency – but I also tend to read a lot and watch videos, you never know when someone will say something that will make total sense for you, and make the dark clouds go away
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I need to practice more!
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