OF BEARS AND BUNNIES

Three designs straight from Marlyn (check the Facebook live here) the last one I modified a little bit, but the basic idea was hers. As I mentioned in my recent post with the Tiger Platter, writing with Royal icing was not easy for me. The only way to get better is by not running away from it, instead trying it again and again. So, the two first designs involved quite a bit of writing. Clearly, I still need a lot more practice… I hope you like them.

DESIGN #1
I LOVE YOU BEARY MUCH

A simple plaque cookie, iced with light brown, and air-brushed with a stencil provided by Marlyn in her Patreon site. The cookie is decorated with little bear faces made by Royal icing transfers, and the air-brushed writing is then used to guide piping in a contrasting color of your choice. The same overall process is used in the next design.

DESIGN #2
SOME BUNNY LOVES YOU

As you can tell, I wimped out in this one, and could not bring myself to pipe the writing, so I went with plan B, leaving the air-brushed showing, and just added a little outline with a food safe black pen, fine tip.

DESIGN #3
THE FRANKENBUNNY

I love the concept of frankencookies, in which two different cutters get together to produce a new shape. These were a lot of fun to make, simpler than the other two, but with some little details to make it special. Marlyn’s version was quite a bit more involved, the bunny is holding small flags forming the word HOP. Super cute. I simplified mine by adding sprinkles.

Now let me show you some of the steps involved in making these three designs… Royal icing transfers, and airbrushing… As you can see in the lower left picture, you can conceivably leave the air-brushing alone without doing anything else. It would still work. But gilding the lily is fun!

And below you see the steps for the Frankenbunny… A star-shaped cookie cutter is joined with the bunny head from Sugarbelle set of mini-cutters. They are baked together and then decorated.

SEE YOU NEXT TIME!

KEY TO MY HEART, A COOKIE DECORATING CLASS

To visit and join Amy’s Facebook group, click here

Last weekend I took an online class with the one and only Amy, from Seriously Sweet on Davis St. She usually holds 4 of these events per year, in a zoom type of setting. This set of six cookies centered on romance, as Valentine’s is just around the corner. With each cookie, she taught us a different technique or twist on a basic technique. Most people decorate as the class is going, some prefer to watch the video and do it later. Amy keeps a very nice pace, making sure no one is left behind. She does an outstanding job in planning the whole class, so that we work on one cookie, move to another one as the first dries, get a third cookie going. We are never sitting around doing nothing. Pure cookie decorating fun!

Let me show you one cookie at a time, and in the end of this post, you will find details about Amy’s classes online. Consider joining the fun next time!

This might be my favorite. The detail of the glitter in one side to give the impression of light hitting from the left, I find absolutely charming, and it was a trick I had never done in any cookie, using Diamond Dust. The hearts climbing on the pot were made of wafer paper by most participants, as they were included in the box of goodies that Amy sells for the class. Buying the box is not required to join. I decided to just use the things I have, so in this particular cookie I departed from the original and added Wilton heart sprinkles in several colors and sizes.

Loved this one also… Two layers of icing with a technique similar to brush embroidery but not quite (I don’t think I hit it correctly, but let’s not worry about it). Amy’s design was white, pink and red, I used gray just for fun. Arrow and bow made with fondant (the day before).

Totally smitten by the envelope. Amy showed the method to “age” it using a sponge. Which was also used in the key plate below.

In this cookie, we also learned how to create texture by agitating the cookie a few minutes after flooding. Super cool! I actually had to make that cookie twice, because my first one was slightly “over-stressed”. Think machine-gun + tornado. Enough said.

This pair of cookies were simple to decorate, but I did not quite get the consistency of my red icing thick enough, so I could not add the texture that Amy hoped for the design. To compensate for that, I painted details on the tulip. Please note the shape of the stem, that was a nice little trick demonstrated by Amy in class. The little seeds on the strawberry were black non-pareils added with tweezers, but the cookie can be simplified by painting black dots with a fine tip black pen once the icing is fully set.

In case you are interested in joining future online classes with Amy, here’s how it works. First you must join her Facebook group page (click here) About a month before the event you can buy a box with all you need to make the cookies: cutters, gel colors, sprinkles, fondant, molds. If you don’t want to get the box, you can use your own things and improvise when needed. The day before class she usually goes live on Facebook to make sure we all know what needs to be ready. For this particular class, we had to start from a set like the one I show below:


All cookies baked, two of them iced in white (with a texture in the case of the key plate) and the fondant decorations made and painted. I made two options for the envelope, went with the little heart for the final cookie. Before class starts, you also need to have all colors of Royal icing ready to go in piping bags. For the most part she uses tipless bags, which makes it all a lot easier.

Those were some of the steps of decoration during the event… time goes by quickly, and before you know it, you’ll be staring at six wonderful cookies and asking “did I really make all these????”

Amy, thank you for your great class and all the free tutorials you set up online often!

THE YEAR OF THE TIGER COOKIE PLATTER

The Chinese New Year starts on the second New Moon after the Winter solstice, therefore it is celebrated usually between Jan 21st and Feb 20th. This year, the two-week festivities will start in China on Feb 1st. To make this cookie platter designed by Marlyn (check her step-by-step tutorial here), I meditated for a few hours, took 2022 deep breaths, and hoped for the best. I cannot lie, it was by far the most complex cookie adventure I’ve ever faced. A few little issues here and there – but I don’t think they affected the outcome. I am thrilled to share today, my little platter of cookies to welcome The Year of the Tiger…

Starting from the cookie shapes, this is the cookie cutter set you will need to make this platter. Or you can cut the shapes by hand, and use a round cutter for the center. Make sure to use a cookie recipe that won’t spread, with little to no leavening agent, so they will fit nicely together like this:

The day before, or several days in advance, you can make the tiger heads by Royal icing transfers. Marlyn is much more experienced and she just piped the heads straight on the iced cookie, then air-brushed the details once it all set. But I just could not bring myself to take that route. Too risky. I made more little tiger heads than I would need, so I could mess some up and still have enough to do the platter. The orange color is also air-brushed lightly on the edges once the pattern is dry.

One of the details to pay attention to, is making sure the head is not too big for the cookie. I realize I could have made my a bit smaller. But still fit ok, and had enough space for the final decorations.

The other components all get airbrushed using Marlyn’s stencils, to facilitate piping all designs… My favorite part? The ideograms…

Airbrushing with a stencil is a very nice way to guide piping details, especially if the cookie involves a repeating pattern. It is hard to pipe with Royal icing using a projector because you cannot move the cookie as you do it. Air-brushing solve that problem. Or you can also use a pen to draw the design using the stencil to guide you.

Once all the components are ready, all that is left to do is painting the yellow parts with gold. That step is optional but it does add a lot of drama to the composition. You know, the good kind of drama.

The trickiest part of the cookie set for me was writing Happy New Year… very VERY tough. I need practice. Other than that, I had a reasonably smooth ride. It is the kind of project that cannot be rushed. Pick a weekend, go slowly, and enjoy the ride.

I had a few extra little tiger heads, and incorporated them in another, simple cookie. I iced the cookie with red, let that dry completely, air-brushed the design with a stencil using gold. Then I glued the tiger head in the center, and finished the cookie with a black border.

So there you have it,
The Year of the Tiger Cookie Platter!

SMITTEN KITTEN MITTENS

Winter is here to stay for a while. Time to get warm, sit by the fireplace, perhaps with a kitten cuddling nearby. Kitten-Mittens were born following a tutorial from Marlyn, blue mittens were my departure from her basic design from another of her instructional videos.

This is actually the second time I’ve made these cookies, the first time (about 8 months ago) I did not have a stencil cutter, so my design was compromised, the facial features too big. Now that I am the happy owner of a Cricut, I could use Marlyn’s stencils to air-brush the eyes, nose, and whiskers.

As you can see, air-brushing does two things for the design: guides the piping, and creates a nice little “shadow” underneath. With Marlyn, it’s all about details!

Closing this post, a couple of mittens made during my recent Snowflake adventure

That is all for now, stay warm, and bake some cookies!

DIWALI-INSPIRED GINGERBREAD COOKIES

When I look outside and it’s all covered in snow, I miss the colors of Spring. In this batch of cookies, I brought vivid colors to play together. Inspiration came from my friend and former graduate student Aritri. I think she would have loved them. She was The Queen of Color.

To make these cookies, I used a paisley-shape cutter, and flooded with purple or turquoise. Let that set for a few hours, then made small batches of several colors of Royal icing, piping consistency.

Once that is done, it’s all a matter of letting the patterns freely form…

The candy corn is a nice shape to play with also… The cookies below were designed to minimize the amount of icing. This first cookie was sprayed with PME pearl luster, and the set below painted with TruColor Blue Turquoise.

I hope you like these cookies, I really loved making them…

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA!

A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

For a little IG video on this pizza box concoction, click here
(I am still learning my way through the reels)

We need something to counteract winter. Valentine’s is just around the corner. Two reasons to make a flower bouquet composition. There is a little story behind it, though. Marlyn, Cookie-Guru-Extraordinaire, asked members of her group what they would like to learn in 2022. Several of us (yours truly included) said that creating our own stuff was a big issue. Unless I see a cookie design to follow, I get paralyzed. A couple of days later Marlyn posted a pizza-box cookie sketch, and suggested we used that as a starting point to come up with our own design. I will share her sketch at the end of the post. In a way, this blog post is like a homework assignment…

For the cookies, I used this recipe (I omitted the black cocoa, used the full amount of Dutch processed). Following Marlyn’s sketch, I used my Cricut to cut a piece of cardboard to use as a template for the cookies (base and little card). Regular mini-cookie cutters were used to make flowers. Everything was baked and then the real adventure began…

From this point, I worked on the pieces of the base and the little card, as they needed to fully set before continuing. The wrap was iced with Chefmaster Gold + Cork, then a piece of crumbled parchment was placed on the still wet surface. The paper is removed next day, revealing the structure underneath. Next, I lightly brushed some copper luster powder in a few spots of the wrap.

The lateral cookies were iced with Laurel green, then air-brushed with gold. I also air-brushed the central base, without any icing. The little card was painted with food safe pen, using a stencil to guide the writing. Then the flowers were decorated, and a little heart added just because… The whole process is shown below.

This was challenging but fun… I now share the initial sketch planned by Marlyn so you can see the starting point.

It was fun to put to use several different techniques to make this box. I debated whether to add leaves, but I like the look with the flowers only. If I used royal icing to pipe leaves, it would be messy to eat the cookies, as I would have to pipe them in between the pieces. So there you have it, a little shout-out for Spring, with romance in the background.

Huge thank you to Marlyn for taking the time to devise this challenge…

SPRINGERLE COOKIES

For a little tutorial on painting the cookies, visit my youtube channel here.

Baking Springerle turned into an annual tradition for me. I love the slow pace, the patience involved. The dough takes a bit of time to put together, whisking the eggs to achieve maximum volume, slowly incorporating flour, then rolling, pressing the molds, and letting the cut cookies sit and dry for a couple of days before baking them. In gentle heat, so they never get dark. For my default recipe and to learn a little more about these delicate cookies, click here . And now let me share some of the biscuits I made this past holiday season.

My recipe starts with 3 eggs, and that makes a large enough batch for about 30 cookies, although of course it depends on their size. Once they are baked and cold, it is time to paint them…

My favorite method is mixing luster powder with alcohol, either vodka or everclear. Vodka dries a little slower, so it is more forgiving to use. This year I got to play with a new color, called Mermaid (featured in my recent In My Kitchen post).

The same design will look quite different depending on the color scheme you choose.

One of my favorite shapes is the Flower Staff mold because is is so unusual…

You can see it better here, next to another favorite of mine, a special mold I received as a gift years ago…

In every batch I like to mix some modern shapes with the classics, because they can be fun too…

Here they are, sitting in the sun on a winter day…

Springerle is perfect to bake romantic, flowery motifs… Think Valentine’s!

The Flower Staff in a more subtle coloring…

Finally, a very special mold, the center one below, a gift from Phil. It is not easy to find molds made from real wood, those are pretty much antiques. He managed to find one, and it is so so beautiful, the intricate details… I love it!

Painting Springerle is one of the most relaxing activities…

Traditionally these cookies are flavored with anise oil, which for some is not a very pleasant flavor. If you like the overall look but prefer a different flavor, orange oil is a great alternative.

FOR THE LOVE OF SNOWFLAKES

Snowflakes are one of the coolest cookies to decorate, plus you can find cutters with so many different shapes, the possibilities for fun are endless. Today I share several ideas, some with barely any icing, so that everyone can be pleased. Some got inspiration from Marlyn (Montreal Confections), some from Tunde (Tunde’s Creations), but most were my own. Let’s start this party!

I love this shade of blue, which I made mixing Royal blue with a hint of black. Flood, let it dry for a few hours, then draw designs with white icing in piping consistency. I used a PME 1.5 tip. The color combination and design of two of the cookies were straight from Marlyn’s tutorials.

Of course, some might prefer snowflakes to be white, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it…

For the top and bottom cookies below, I sprinkled some sanding sugar after piping the design. It gives the cookie a different look, and if you mess up those lines, sanding sugar is the perfect cosmetic surgery for it!

White can also be coupled with different colors. Depending on the colors you choose the effect can be subtle or dramatic… your cookie, your choice…

I could not resist including some star shapes with snowflake-inspired decorations, and a flower got in the mix too. I have no logical explanation for that one.


Below, one of my favorite sets… I loved the combination of golden with brown…

Now for those who prefer less icing, you can skip the flooding and simply add designs with piping consistency…

The subtle shine in some is obtained with a light spray of PME pearl luster, but of course that is optional, the cookies look fine without it.

Another way to decorate with little icing is painting the surface of the cookie in different colors. You can use regular gel dye diluted with water or vodka, or you can use a product I absolutely love, called TRUECOLOR (found at etsy.com).

Here is a little step-by-step with a Truecolor turquoise shine… Pretty much any repeating pattern will look ok in the end, just go with the flow… Inspiration for the turquoise sets came straight from Tunde’s Creations.

One of my favorites is a base of Truecolor Red Shine…

I hope you enjoyed this little sampling of snowflake cookies, and found some inspiration for your upcoming cookie adventures…

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE SNOWY VILLAGE!

This set of cookies was fun to make but a little challenging in some ways. You must be attentive to the dimension of the roof components, particularly the thickness of the cookie. Those parts cannot be rolled too thick, they won’t look good and won’t assemble properly. The whole design was conceived and demonstrated by Marlyn (livestream video available in two parts, here and here). I simplified mine a bit, eliminating wafer paper decorations on the edge of the roof. One of my favorite parts of this set was making the rocky path in front of the door. Check out Marlyn’s version to be amazed!

When I first made the cookies, the roof components would not align properly on top of the house, bringing back nightmares of what happened to me in a certain tent. Catastrophic developments that later were broadcast to a few million viewers. Family members and friends included. I quickly donated those roof parts for three very happy pups, and re-made them with more attention to overall dimensions. I used my roller cutter the second time around, and it worked like a charm.

Another component I had to re-make was the snowman. First I used a mini cookie cutter from Sugarbelle, but it ended up too big. The snowman looked like a giant in front of the house. I decided to cut the shape by hand instead.

Each set then takes a base (I used a tumbstone shape), a big triangle for the face of the house, two sticks for the roof, and either a small snowman or a tree to decorate the front. The pebble path is of course optional, but I loved making it.

The roof parts got painted with a light coating of Royal icing, and the front of the house was flooded in red, leaving an opening for the door that was iced with purple. White and green Royal icing in piping consistency were used for all details.

I hate to sound repetitive, but if you want to take your cookie decorating to a higher place, consider joining Marlyn’s site at Patreon. It is one of the best investments you can make, the only “problem” is that she is so productive and shares so many interesting projects that it’s hard to decide what to do next. So stay tuned for more adventures in cookie decorating as 2022 rolls around… Soon this little baby blog of mine will turn 1 year old!