For the Love of Cookies

This cookie was quite a labor of love, and I actually made it twice because I was not very happy with my first attempt. The cookie was designed by Adriana Alvera and a very detailed tutorial published in the March issue of the online magazine D’licious (click here to see all issues available). Originally, it is a very large cookie, but I reduced the template in my computer a little bit.

I fell in love with the whole concept, and could not wait to try and make it. Basically, one side of the butterfly is decorated as a stained-glass component, and the other is piped with Royal icing and painted. Below, some of the steps involved. The cookie as shown in the magazine started with both sides flooded white, but later the background of one side was painted in light blue. I decided to just flood in a very light blue-green pastel tone so I would not have to paint the background.

I used the projector to draw the images on both sides, and then piped the outline in black with an icing tip PME 1. The other side I used a pipeless bag and medium consistency icing, in white. Once that was all set, I painted all features, the stained glass side using a mixture of 50:50 Everclear and honey to dilute the gel dye.

My first attempt had a few boo-boos, the main one was not centering the body of the butterfly correctly, and also messing up a bit the design because I could not adjust the size of the image correctly with the projector (long story, I fixed that on my second attempt). As you can see below, the body did not end symmetrical. My main advice is to pipe the body first, and then make sure both wings are placed symmetrically on each side.

This basic design of two different styles in the same cookie is very cool, and can be applied to many different images. I intend to explore that in the future.

It is definitely not a cookie you can make a dozen of to share, but let’s suppose you want to gift a special Spring-inspired cookie box, this could be included as a centerpiece.

Many thanks to Adriana Alvera for writing such a detailed tutorial and providing all templates to bring this cookie to life!

ONE YEAR AGO: Marbled Cookie Dough