Month: March 2023

ST. PATRICK LEPRECHAUN COOKIES

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This cute set was made after a tutorial from Shirlyn (you can find her info here). I consider this an advanced project, in which consistency of the Royal icing must be as close to perfect as possible. You will also need to make Royal icing transfers with quite a bit of detail, and finally use diluted gel dye to do shading on the transfers and the fully set icing. It is a labor of love, but as usual, I learned a lot from my boo-boos.

There they are, four little guys, one pretty happy with his huge beer… Judging by his smile, it was not his first! The cookies have many details that make them shine. Below I go through some of the steps to make them, all very well-explained in her video tutorials. It all starts with making the transfers and allowing them to set overnight. The basic design is added to each cookie (I used a mini-projector for that), and icing in 5 colors is prepared, each in the correct consistency for the job. Shirlyn uses a single consistency for piping and flooding, and that is the way to get more lift on the icing, but it requires quite a bit of skill to ensure a smooth surface. My icing was perhaps a little too thick in some cases.

The trickiest part for me were the hands. Shirlyn makes perfect fingers, I just could not do it like hers, but maybe next time it will be better. It is the kind details that requires the icing to be EXACTLY right. Mine was too thick, I diluted a bit and it got too thin right away. But I know people who get the cookies won’t be inspecting each little component of it.

My favorite guy is this one, I just adore all the little details!

Online cookie tutorials are a great way to improve your cookie skills, and I love that I can just have the videos available whenever is most convenient for me. If you don’t own the cookie cutters, you can always cut by hand using the images she provides. Just make sure your rolled out dough is VERY cold, preferably frozen and removed from the freezer for 5 minutes to get it just right.

ONE YEAR AGO: Tunde’s Needlepoint Cookies, Two Ways

TUNDE’S PLAYFUL EASTER COOKIES

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To join Tunde’s Cookie Club, visit her site with a click here.


Talk about an adorable set of cookies that would make any kid (or adult) smile? This is definitely it. Not terribly complicated to make, but challenging enough to make you feel accomplished once they are done. You will need a plaque cookie cutter (preferably large), a bunny, a large butterfly and a 6-petal flower cutter.

Starting with my favorite…

What a sweet, elegant cookie Tunde designed here! You make it in stages, the center part gets flooded and covered with sanding sugar first. Then the flooding on the adjacent area, once that sets, the details are incorporated. Tunde piped the roses with Royal icing in her tutorial, I went with fondant, and piped only the leaves. I just love this cookie so much!

These flowers open up a world of possible designs. I flooded the cookies the day before, then just needed white Royal icing in piping consistency and a tip #2. Fondant flowers for the centers.

How cute are those bunnies? You tell me! Very simple to decorate, flood, cover with sanding sugar and add the details. Once again I used fondant flowers and piped the leaves with icing. I had the eyes from a project last year, and put them to use for these babies, as Royal icing transfers. It’s always a good idea to save leftover transfers, you never know when they can come in handy.

The butterfly used brush embroidery, and I feel I could have done a better job, but I am still happy with it. The whole set goes so well together, it screams Easter and Spring!

Tunde, thank you so much for this super fun adventure! You style is so unique, and your videos are perfect for anyone to follow…

ONE YEAR AGO: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

MARLYN’S INSPIRATION FOR MARCH

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For this month, Marlyn proposed that we paint the dough with white before baking, to get the crackled white effect. That’s it. I went to work and made a few designs, with Spring in mind. What do you think?

The whole idea is to use AMERICOLOR WHITE to paint the dough before baking. I bake my cookies from frozen, so I paint them right after cutting, and then freeze. I had one additional design attempted – brush embroidery over the crackled base. That did to go well, maybe it explains why I have never seen it around…

All designs were simple, requiring just white or pink piping consistency icing for the details. The cherry blossom tree was a little more involved, as I used three tones of pink, brown for the tree, and had to pipe the dots in stages so they would not all join together. Still, pretty simple to put together.

Simple 6 petal flowers using a design inspired by Tunde Dugantsi (a blog post about it will come soon, stay tuned), and small butterflies.

Crackled base is another method to decorate that minimizes icing, and it is so easy. In theory, cookie dough with more leavening agent will originate a more dramatic look. My chocolate dough has no leavening at all, so the effect is subtle. Your kitchen, your rules!

Marlyn, I look forward to your next challenge! They are absolutely wonderful and help me a lot…

ONE YEAR AGO: Bear with Me

MOLDED COOKIES

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A small collection of cookies from the past few weeks, all using molds, either made of wood or silicone. Most of them I’ve had for a very long time, but you can find a lot available at etsy.com. Just search for fondant or cookie molds, or springerle molds and grab what screams your name. The advantage of molded cookies is that they need no icing. Painting is also optional but how can I avoid so much fun?

FLORALS

Normally I use this type of molds for Springerle cookies, but this time I just made sugar cookies flavored with hazelnut and orange. They were painted with luster powder + vodka.

BEE IN LOVE

These were painted with Sugarprism and the details of the hive painted with gold. Some steps shown below…

ELEPHANT LOVE

I just adore this mold (from Gingerhaus), a bit hard to find, it is now unavailable again. I had been flirting with it for the longest time, checking the store at etsy, until one day I got lucky and there were a couple for sale. It works well with any type of cookie, in this case I used strawberry flavored cookie dough with a touch of red dye. Details with luster gold and a spray with PME pearl. But even plain they are quite adorable, in my opinion.

I HEART YOU


Chocolate Dough + luster powders &vodka. Mold available here.



Super simple, just a brush with gold over naked chocolate cookies.

Silicone molds sold for fondant, but also work well to mold cookies, if your recipe is firm enough ad has no leavening agent, as the mold haste many details.

SPRINGERLE STYLE

Molds are a lot of fun to play with, and make decorating so easy. Even plain the cookies will look great.
I hope you could find some inspiration in this post.

ONE YEAR AGO: Four Little Chicks

A FESTIVAL OF HEARTS

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HAPPY 23rd ANNIVERSARY TO ME AND MY FOREVER HUSBAND!

February is over but love is not. Truth is, I ran out of time to share all the heart-shaped cookies that materialized in my kitchen in the past few weeks, so sit back and get some ideas for romance in cookie shape. Below each design just a few details of how they were made.

THE CLASSICS

Red, pink and white. Simple. Wet-on-wet, some with a modern, playful twist.


GOLD

Flooded dark brown, stencil + air-brush gold. Or naked cookie painted with luster gold + vodka.


PINK AND GOLD

Flooded pink, with brush embroidery edge, stencil + air-brush gold and fondant detail.


SUPER PINK

Simple solid flooding, or minimal icing with piping consistency details.


GOLFER’S LOVE

Flooded in white, air-brushed in green and blue, fondant detail.


MARLYN’S BEACH LOVE

From a recent tutorial (click here to watch it), a few details of the design after the picture.

Sand detail first, covered with gold sanding sugar. Three colors of blue + brush embroidery and fondant detail.


AMBER’S BLUE HEARTS

Simple flooding in two colors, brush embroidery with lighter blue. For tutorial, click here.


For these cookies I used strawberry-flavored cookie dough, with a touch of red dye.

That’s all for now, friends! As you may have noticed, I tend to make heart-shaped cookies often, so you won’t have to wait until February to see more… I hope you found something to inspire you when that romantic mood sets in…


ONE YEAR AGO: Montreal Confections and PYOC

MARCH GNOME AND FLORAL COMBO

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It is time to bring a new design by Amy from @seriouslysweet, in her cool series of matching gnome with flowers. In perfect tune with the month of March, here are my babies! Visit her site to join the fun, and get access to all the gnome-florals of 2023, past and future.

So many details in these cookies! I am particularly smitten by the shoes – what a clever way to make them! Same mold as the clover leaf, but cut in individual pieces and dyed black. And the a little golden coin on top. Kill me with cuteness, Amy! The other amazing detail is the beard, and finally the piping of the white roses branching down from the floral composition. Super cool. Below you see some of the steps in the preparation of this set.

All things considered, this is not a difficult cookie to make, and as Amy said in her tutorial video, it goes really fast, especially if you make the fondant pieces in advance. Not that many colors involved either, in fact for the gnome you only need black, green, and then a little terracota in thick consistency for the beard. The trickiest part was piping the white spiky bits to make the flowers, my hand was hurting a bit. But it was worth it!

Can you tell how much I loved this little project?

Amy, I look forward to what April will bring!

ONE YEAR AGO: From Christmas to Spring