For the Love of Cookies

I am absolutely, totally, completely thrilled by these! There is no icing, no fondant, these are JUST dough, dyed and molded, then placed on the cutout cookies right before baking. For those who do not care for icing, but still like to have a decorated concoction in their hands, these will be perfect. It is not that hard to make either, you need to pay attention to a few details, but I will share them with you…

So, first things first. The recipe. It needs to have little to no leavening agent. I used this one and reduced the baking powder to 1/8 tsp. Once that is done, choose the silicone molds you want to use, making sure they have some depth. If they are very shallow, it is harder to get the dough to come out nicely and much harder to handle it. Go for large flowers, hearts, or small roses that have some depth like the ones I used. Divide small portions of dough to dye in appropriate colors. You need just a little bit. Keep in mind you can also marble two different tones of red, pink, and use that for variety. Add the dough into the mold, trying to keep the colors in the right places. I start with the big rose, and add the leaves after, so that they come from the background in the final baked detail. The most important step: FREEZE the mold with the cookie for 10 minutes. That will allow the pieces to come out with all the nice details preserved.

Once you are done making all the pieces, freeze them again so that they don’t get distorted as you handle them.

Roll out your dough, using a regular pin or an embossed pin, them place the pieces where you want them to go. Keep in mind you can add details with a food pen after they are baked.

At this point, FREEZE them again. You absolutely need to work to preserve all the features, so take your time and do not rush. Just 10 minutes in the freezer will be enough.

Now the cookies are ready, and you can either leave them alone, or add a bit of luster powder with vodka for a bit of bling. Which, obviously is what I did!

The extra painting make the features more evident.

Particularly in the heart, without the extra painting the details were barely visible, so I ended up with a more golden heart, rather than bright red. Definitely worth playing around with the color of the dough, sometimes lighter might be better.

These would be great for Mother’s Day, so keep that in mind, there’s still time until Sunday!

I hope you give this technique a try. I saw it on Instagram not too long ago, but there were no tutorials or explanation of the method. I decided to try them myself and was surprised by how well it all worked for a first time. The pieces of cookie dough can be frozen for later use, just like you would do with Royal icing transfers or fondant. Very convenient.

ONE YEAR AGO: For the Love of Florals

TWO YEARS AGO: Happy Mother’s Day!

THREE YEARS AGO: Stained Glass Sugar Cookies