Winter

INTRODUCING THE GNOME & FLORAL ADVENTURE

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If you’ve been following my cookie blog, you are familiar with all the online classes taught by Amy from Seriouslysweet. For the new year, she came up with a very fun series: each month we get to make two cookies, one gnome and one floral, with a similar color scheme so that they go together like a perfect match. January started with Frosty Gnome and his blue-tone flower. I cannot tell you how much fun it was to bring these cookies to life, and you can do it too! Just join her site (link below) and sign up for the whole series. You will need the cookie cutters also, although you could conceivably cut them by hand or use a similar cutter you already own. The videos are all pre-recorded and the classes follow her usual format, so you will also receive a little card with all the specific things you need for each cookie.

To join Amy’s online tutorials, visit her site clicking here.

I love when cookies make me smile, and these gnomes do it, big time! So many details… First, you need to make the nose with fondant or modeling chocolate, once that is ready you can start piping the different sections and adding all the bells and whistles.

Apart from the fondant noses, you’ll need little snowflakes made with wafer paper and a small punch type cutter, but if you don’t have that, you can add snow-shaped sprinkles. The paper creates a nice lift, though. The gloves get some texture with the needle, and the beard is made using one of Amy’s favorite techniques, which I don’t feel it is right to share, as the class is a paid event. The final touch is a large snowflake made with fondant, and spray painted with Wilton pearl Color Mist. I made a little heart to go with that set also… Aren’t the gnomes the cutest?

The matching flowers are much simpler to make, even if they seem complicated. All you need is Royal icing in the right consistency (thick), a petal and a leaf piping tips. I added some sprinkles to the center and once the icing was fully set I painted the edges with luster powder, white for the petals and copper for the leaves.

I’ve enjoyed every single online class from Amy, but this one has got to be one of my favorites of all times! It was wonderful to see that little gnome taking shape, and although it is not a class for beginners – you need to be comfortable making and handling Royal icing in several different consistencies – it is not over the top advanced.

If you’d like to challenge your cookie decorating a bit, I urge you to join Amy’s site and sign up for the upcoming classes. Her group on Facebook keeps getting bigger and bigger, it is great to see everybody making progress in their own path of decorating cookies.

Amy, I look forward to February and its set of gnome and floral!

ONE YEAR AGO: The Year of the Tiger Cookie Platter

WREATHS AND TREES

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With this post, I will finally close the chapter on Christmas designs… Last year I made wreath designs using the appropriate cookie cutters, this time I decided to improvise and use two round cookie cutters instead. Scalloped edges give a touch of elegance, although I admit, icing that is a little more tedious. I used two different methods to decorate – adding texture with a fondant baller, or adding a delicate pattern with stencil and air-brush. I honestly do not now which one I prefer, so you decide!

All the cookies get flooded with green. Two of them were allowed to set overnight, or for at least 6 hours. The other two had the surface textured once the icing starts to crust. It is hard to tell exactly how long to wait, as it will depend on the consistency of your icing, the humidity of the environment, and of course the recipe of icing you use. But you can wait for 30 minutes and try one spot, see how it behaves You want the icing to give in but not crack. The second design was air-brushed in gold using a stencil. All of them got the same decoration, a little fondant painted with food gel + vodka.

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I used the exact same color of green to make a tree to match the wreath,
and added a couple of fondant decorations just for fun.

Another combo of tree and wreath with a slightly darker shade of green…

I ended up making quite a few of the wreaths, because I loved the design so much… As to trees, they were for the most part quite simple and straightforward…


Flooded in green, texture with fondant baller, and a few dots of red + sparkle of luster gold diluted in vodka.

Two tones of green, allowed to crust for a while, then the edges of two colors pressed with a fondant baller, next day painted in gold.

Super simple designs again, just a little brush embroidery with white Royal icing on the top ones, and even more basic design on the bottom.


Finally, for something completely different, a pink tree, design suggested by my friend Toni. Just flood with pink, wait for it to crust well, and add swirls with piping consistency pink, I used a slightly darker shade. Add sprinkles, and you are done! Many other colors will work too, and you can also do the swirls in a contrasting color instead of keeping it monochromatic, although I prefer this way, I think it is quite charming and elegant.

Save these ideas for next year! I can always say I was THE FIRST to blog on Christmas cookies in 2023! HA!

ONE YEAR AGO: For the Love of Snowflakes

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW…

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I am totally, completely, absolutely, overwhelmingly in love with these cookies! Why? Because they were painted free-hand, thanks to the guidance of the one and only Michelle, inventor of Sugarprism. She hosted a Facebook event where several members of her group got busy decorating with her in real time. I had so much fun bringing these two guys to cookie-life.

Find Michelle’s info through her IG page with a click here.

Below you see some of the steps in the painting process, that happened on a naked cookie, no Royal icing at all… Michelle uses little guiding dots to space the different portions of the design, so that everything ends up with perfect proportion in the end. Even to paint the star, she had a cute method so that the points would end up exactly where they are supposed to. We started making a blue background darker in the edges and lighter in the center, and then slowly painted all the components on top.

As usual, her classes are fun, light, and make you feel super empowered – that feeling of – I PAINTED THAT – did not leave me for a long, long time!

Another advantage of this method is that you will use no Royal icing at all. Sugarprism has excellent coverage even on the naked cookie, and its delicious vanilla flavor won’t negatively interfere with your bake.

I am not sure I will ever be able to paint something without a guiding hand to lay out the path for me, but maybe one day I might be able to look at a painting and figure out how to do it myself. Could be a little goal for the new year…

ONE YEAR AGO: Christmas Cookies

MARLYN’S INSPIRATION POST FOR DECEMBER

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Once again, the task for the month of December was very simply stated: use metallics to decorate your cookies. There are two ways to do it, you can air-brush or spray paint using products available from Wilton (such as this one) or from PME (such as this one). When you consider how fast the spray painting can go, it is a super efficient way to decorate many cookies at the same time. Of course, if you are going to gild the lily with extra piping or sprinkles, that will add a bit more time and effort, but in my opinion it is totally worth it.


For all the designs I used flooding either with Americolor Gold (to spray gold later) or Americolor Gun Metal (to spray silver). Once that base is set, I added details in piping consistency using either a similar color or white. That then gets painted with luster powder. If you start from white flooding, the metallic effect will be less pronounced, and the final color a bit more faded.

A similar approach will also work with silver…


I also like pairing silver and gold…


Of course, other shapes benefit from metallic decoration also… For the light bulb, I coupled Wilton Silver spray with luster powder bronze for the top and gold for the streak of light on the left side. The modern tree got gold on silver.

Bells also love a little shine, the one below quite simple to decorate, with a border using brush embroidery.


Solid gold pairs nicely with some sprinkles, in this case to make a real ornament that can be hung from a Christmas tree…

So many possibilities, including adding a metallic finish to Springerle cookies….

I loved this month’s inspiration challenge, and confess it was hard for me to stop making more designs…



I hope you’ll consider incorporating metallics into your cookie decorating, I am already dreaming about some serious shine for Valentine’s!

ONE YEAR AGO: Amy’s Christmas Cookies

GINGERBREAD PEOPLE

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Probably the most popular shape for the season, these days you can find super cute cutters with all sorts of twists on the classic. But these? These are the classic, simple shape, made special by the little details as Royal icing transfers. Who else but Marlyn could come up with all that, right? To see her recent live on this design click here. To have access to her template sheets to pipe the decorations in the correct size for the cookie, you’ll need to join her Patreon site.


Aren’t those adorable? Marlyn made chocolate cookies with gingerbread color icing, but I opted for gingerbread cookies, and used my default recipe that is available on my food blog (click here). The cookies are very very big, part of Wilton 101 cookies. The price in amazon is ridiculous. I found it at Michael’s for less, but I am offering you the link so you can see what to look for.

It all starts by piping the transfers. I made icing in black, red and green, but the little hearts for the mouth I made in white and then painted with pink gel dye.

The final touch is to add a little blush to the cheeks with a soft brush….


The cookies are really big, but you could adapt the same style of decoration to smaller cookies, as long as you decrease the size of the details proportionally. Or you can just draw them with a pen or even use wet-on-wet. It will still look pretty cute.


I also made a little variation on the theme, this time for a very small cookie… but the overall idea is the same.



ONE YEAR AGO: Christmas Time Macarons

OF BELLS, CANES AND ACORNS

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No more holding back! The holiday season is here to stay, at least for a while, because truth is, we will blink our eyes twice and Valentine’s will be peeking from the corner. Today I share three cookie shapes very popular for the season.

HOLIDAY GOLDEN BELLS

This beautiful design comes from a recent Facebook live from Marlyn. You can watch it with a click here. I want to repeat these cookies making a composite like she suggested, and also using the same spray she did to get the golden coverage. I ordered a can, but it has not arrived yet. For this batch I used my air-brush but the gold is not very strong. I painted the details with luster powder to make the gold more evident.

I love everything about this design, if you make it, try to get a bigger curvature at the bottom, so that the inside of the bell is more evident. Every detail you pay attention to can make the cookie look better in the end. I just find it hard to cover all the details on the first time, it is hard for me to see the “bigger picture.”

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GINGERBREAD BELLS

These are my own design. All details of these cookies are made with piping consistency icing, either over a naked cookie, or on a fully set background of icing in the color of your choice. The light shine on the cookies is a coating with PME pearl spray, which I think does a nice job particularly on the naked cookie. I also played with a different color combination, using black piping consistency for the details.

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DIPPED MARBLED HOLIDAY CANES


These cookies, like the golden bells, also come from Marlyn. For a quick tutorial to see exactly how to make them, check this video. These are fun and simple to make. Marbling in many cases calls for drops of food gel on the surface of runny icing, but that method has some drawbacks. The density of the dye and the icing is different, if there is accumulation of dye in some spots it won’t look very smooth. The trick that Marlyn uses is to make royal icing in the colors to be marbled and add that to the surface instead. Works like a charm! Once you do that marbling, the cookies already look pretty cute, and you can be done. But of course, if you have time and want to add the further embellishment, go for it. You’ll need piping consistency icing. I used Gold from Americolor and then painted with luster powder, exactly as demonstrated in the video.



ACORNS


Definitely the simplest of all designs, all you need is flooding with brown, same color of icing in piping consistency for the details. Once it is all set, I brushed some copper luster powder on the piped area, and called it a day!

I hope you enjoyed this small set of holiday-inspired cookies. I have many things planned and looking at the calendar, I am not sure I’ll be able to get to them all this year. Way too many cookies, way too little time!

ONE YEAR AGO: Let the Holiday Bakes Begin!

CARDINALS IN A TREE: A PIZZA BOX SET

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Marlyn first shared this tutorial last August in her Patreon site (you can also watch a simplified version here). At the time I felt a bit intimidated by all the details, and kept postponing the making of it. I said to myself “maybe I can do it before the end of this coming winter.” With a little more than 1 month to spare, I finally went for it… And now of course, I think I should have done it sooner!

Let me walk you through the steps… It all starts with baking the base cookies cutting them according to the template that Marlyn designed. Additionally, two cardinal cookies that will fit together, and the decorative corner pieces.

Added details are the cute acorn pieces, made by coating brown M&Ms with Royal icing, using a small petal tip. And if you look closer, you’ll see she uses a technique to add white splatter on the blue base, mimicking snow falling.

The corner pieces are decorated with piping consistency green and brown…

And of course, the most important component is the cardinal couple…

The whole design is very clever… The branches are piped following the separation between the base components, and once that is fully set, Marlyn gilds the lily further: piping green leaves and adding a little snow on top of the branches, white icing + sanding sugar.

Of course, the cardinal cookies stand alone without any problem… I love them so much!

SMITTEN KITTEN MITTENS

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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!

FOR THE LOVE OF SNOWFLAKES

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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…

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!

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We have not had any snow yet, but to quote a certain series… Winter is coming, better be ready for it. And for snowmen, nothing brings more happiness than plenty of snowflakes falling from the skies above.

A gingerbread cookie, with a simple decoration, flood the base in red, the globe in light blue, and let it set. Then pipe the body with thicker icing, add black pearls for the buttons, and let that set for an hour or so (thicker consistency dries a bit faster, and if you are gentle enough you can continue with the additional details). The snowballs should be added in stages so they don’t join together. Finally, the arms, scarf, smile and blush on the cheeks close the design.

Moving on, a little series I really enjoyed, inspired by Kathy, from Art Projects for Kids.

I love their different expressions and movements… Starting with flooded rectangles fully set, I drew the different snowmen with a food pen, then used Sugarprism watercolor to add the background. While that was still wet, I showered some white non-pareils.

Another very simple design for a snowman, uses a cookie cutter from Sugarbelle, in which each shape comes with appropriate stencils to help you decorate.

Two colors needed, white and blue. Starting with the band on the hat, so that you can add sanding sugar to that part, the rest is quite straightforward.

The stencil really helps quite a bit. I have a hard time judging how to space details in a cookie, so for me a set like this one from Sugarbelle makes life a lot easier.

From the same set, this little angel also materialized in our kitchen….

Closing this post, how could I not include Snowmen Macarons? These were filled with Pistachio-Lemon Buttercream, a slightly more decorated version from the ones I made last year.

After baking, all details were added with Royal icing in bright colors, plus the mouth and eyes with a food pen.

I often like to pipe some mini-macs just for fun, these were air-brushed with a stencil.

I loved making these! Some were a bit chubby, some had funny expressions, but they turned out as a happy family. And they have a message for you, now that a new year is about to start…