butterfly

THE BUTTERFLY PUZZLE

sallybr1 Comment

Be prepared for serious cuteness overload! Marlyn did it again, came up with something absolutely adorable and unique, a puzzle cookie forming a butterfly image, using 4 square cookie cutters and…. an exclamation point! You can cut that by hand if you don’t own the cutter. The detailed tutorial is available on her Patreon site, which you can join with a click here.

Isn’t that the most adorable set of cookies in the known universe? I thought so. The whole process is fun and not overly complicated, as it is all done with wet-on-wet, but you do have to set the basic design with piping consistency in black to get a nice contrast of the edges. That is the trickiest part of the cookie, in my opinion. Since you will be using 4 colors for the wings, you’ll have to work fast so you can pull them with the needle before they set. But the area is small and the task is totally doable, even if you are a beginner. Marlyn’s video is perfect to guide you along. Below I show some of the steps involved.

I love the detail of the grass at the bottom, small details matter so much when you design a cookie. The butterfly wing will work with many different color compositions, so it is a perfect cookie to play with. Adding the small flowers is also another touch that completes this set nicely, plus as Marlyn says in the tutorial, it is a nice way to get a dozen cookies in the little box, just add small flowers all around it. I smiled all the way through the process, and hope this set also gave a smile to someone…

ONE YEAR AGO: Playing with Leaves

TWO YEARS AGO: For the Love of Ladybugs

METAMORPHOSIS, THE COOKIE

sallybr4 Comments

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

SPRINGTIME SPRINGERLE

sallybr2 Comments

A few weeks ago Amy from @seriouslysweet invited her followers to do a collaboration cookie project for Easter. We could do anything we wanted, keeping pastel colors and the overall Easter-spring atmosphere. She suggested that I contributed with Springerle, as not very many people in the group bake that type of cookie. I went to work, and made a small batch, then selected my favorite shape, the butterfly, as my contribution. You can see all the entries in this super cool video Amy assembled, clicking here. Sit back and enjoy the show!

The butterfly mold can be found here. I bought mine in 2020, and used it many times. For this project, I kept the colors very simple and light, but of course the butterfly is the type of image that you can take in many different directions as far as colors go.

All cookies were painted with luster powder and vodka, some were finished with a light spray of PME pearl.

Another great mold that is the little bee over the flower. I bought this one in 2021, but it is sold out at the present time.

My most recent acquisition is the mold Eva’s Lace (available here). I think it is super elegant, and even without any painting will make gorgeous cookies.

Not exactly springerle, but my favorite chocolate cookie dough, worked well with a very unusual mold that I fell in love with recently, the grasshopper. Grasshopper mold & cutter can be found here.

I was worried that the mold would be hard to use, with so many details and very unusual shape for the cutter, but as all molds I own from KitchenVixen, this one worked super well!

Amy, thank you for organizing this cool collaboration event, I look forward to the next!

ONE YEAR AGO: Haniela’s Mini Bird House