These cookies were featured in one of my favorite baking cookbooks, Sprinkle Bakes: Dessert Recipes to Inspire your Inner Artist. The title says it all. The book if full of incredibly creative ideas, I love it, and highly recommend you get a copy. All things considered, these are not hard to make. Think three colors of Royal icing, black with piping consistency, white and red in flooding consistency. No complicated piping, no wet-on-wet work. What makes these cookies special is the use of fondant pieces to give extra dimension and pizzazz. In the book you’ll find templates to make life easier…

Below, a picture of the book with the template I made to make my cookies…

And a little overview of the process, which is pretty straightforward. I used a Wilton tip 3 to outline in black. And a white pearl for the earring, added right after flooding the white portion.

Once the cookie is fully set – I allowed it to sit overnight – the fondant pieces are rolled, cut, and painted, then glued with a small amount of Royal icing. All details are then added with a black, food safe pen.

You can change the expression by altering the shape of the lips or the way you place the eyes, but I must say I like the aura of introspection, maybe even a bit of sadness, that these cookies portray. Sometimes it is how I feel when I think about the world.

ONE YEAR AGO: Shark Attack!