Tunde Dugantsi – For the Love of Cookies

TUNDE’S SIMPLE ELEGANCE

April 29, 2023April 28, 2023sallybrLeave a comment

This is a delicate and beautiful set of cookies designed by Tunde Dugantsi, tutorial available once you join her Club Cookie Academy (totally worth it!). Visit her site (click here) for details and to come and play with us. As I told you in my previous post, cookie decorating is all about challenging yourself, and with this set I definitely pushed my limits a bit. The trickiest part of course, piping the central grid for the largest cookie. I found myself holding my breath and quite nervous, but I am glad I accepted the challenge!

Some of the steps to make the cookies are shown below… Tunde’s tutorial is very detailed and she makes it seem easy and straightforward to do, as if she is gently holding your hand. Her grid ends up with closer lines and a lot more finesse, but it is the kind of piping work that the more you do, the easier it gets. Pretty much like all in life, right?

What I love about this set is the use of a minimal number of colors: two tones of green, and ivory. That is all you need. The rest is patient piping of the details that do take the cookies to a higher level. If piping the grid feels like too much, you can use Sugarveil and make the grid that way, then glue to the cookie and pipe the design.

They would be perfect for Easter, for a Birthday party, a wedding set, or just to let someone know they are special to you!

Tunde has countless tutorials available for you once you become a member of her club, and she uploads new tutorial often, so come on over and be ready for some amazing cookie adventures!

ONE YEAR AGO: Dream Catcher Floral

TWO YEARS AGO: Fun with the Mini-Projector

TUNDE’S PLAYFUL EASTER COOKIES

March 17, 2023March 15, 2023sallybrLeave a comment

To join Tunde’s Cookie Club, visit her site with a click here.

Talk about an adorable set of cookies that would make any kid (or adult) smile? This is definitely it. Not terribly complicated to make, but challenging enough to make you feel accomplished once they are done. You will need a plaque cookie cutter (preferably large), a bunny, a large butterfly and a 6-petal flower cutter.

Starting with my favorite…

What a sweet, elegant cookie Tunde designed here! You make it in stages, the center part gets flooded and covered with sanding sugar first. Then the flooding on the adjacent area, once that sets, the details are incorporated. Tunde piped the roses with Royal icing in her tutorial, I went with fondant, and piped only the leaves. I just love this cookie so much!

These flowers open up a world of possible designs. I flooded the cookies the day before, then just needed white Royal icing in piping consistency and a tip #2. Fondant flowers for the centers.

How cute are those bunnies? You tell me! Very simple to decorate, flood, cover with sanding sugar and add the details. Once again I used fondant flowers and piped the leaves with icing. I had the eyes from a project last year, and put them to use for these babies, as Royal icing transfers. It’s always a good idea to save leftover transfers, you never know when they can come in handy.

The butterfly used brush embroidery, and I feel I could have done a better job, but I am still happy with it. The whole set goes so well together, it screams Easter and Spring!

Tunde, thank you so much for this super fun adventure! You style is so unique, and your videos are perfect for anyone to follow…

ONE YEAR AGO: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

TUNDE’S COOKIE BOX ADVENTURE

February 16, 2023February 15, 2023sallybrLeave a comment

To join Tunde’s Cookie Club, visit her site with a click here.

Another great online tutorial hosted by Tunde Dugantsi, I would classify it as a more advanced project because some assembly is needed. As you might see from my write-up, the sizing of the panels can make or break the design. I urge you to do all the proper filing and adjusting BEFORE you decorate the panels, and also make sure the base is large enough to accommodate the sides, leaving enough space around it so all the nice piping will show well.

Tunde provided all the templates to cut the cookies by hand, and the base was made with a large cookie cutter, which I happened to have in my basement. She also provided the little templates to pipe the designs: envelope, birds, and cupcakes. Not many colors were needed, pink, red, white, and light brown, all in small amounts, as the cookies are not fully iced. Some colors are needed in piping and flooding consistencies.

Each panel has a different design, which I find absolutely adorable… Then comes the assembly adventure, and that’s when things did not work very well for me. I ended up with a box in which the four corners weren’t meeting together nicely, and it was not possible to do the beautiful piping Tunde planned for the corners and bottom. I also stuck my finger into the envelope, and was quite upset about it. The box, as I first made it, just did not look good. I tried to ice the base after assembly to hide the imperfect junction, and that was the outcome…

I was truly unhappy with it, so I did the only sensible thing to do. Took a deep breath, separated all the pieces, removed the icing from the base, flipped the cookie to use the other side facing up, and painted it gold. These are all the pieces, after filing them, re-adjusting and waiting to be re-assembled.

And that clumsy finger disaster? Was taken care of with a strategic placement of heart sprinkles…. Sneaky Sally strikes again!

So here are the four sides of my little box, once all the cosmetic surgery was done…

I guess the main lesson of this project is to not give up, and if you feel there is a way to improve what you did, go for it. Work around the boo-boos, and that will make you ready for a next time in which you won’t make the same mistakes.

You can adapt the box to any special celebration by using different designs on the side panels, and filling the box with different cookies, or you can just make your life easier and buy candy at the store.

I learned quite a bit through this cute box project, and will definitely make it again, perhaps at Easter…. Stay tuned!

Tunde, thank you once again for coming up with such gorgeous work!

ONE YEAR AGO: Gingerbread Heart Cookies

VALENTINE’S COOKIES BY TUNDE DUGANTSI

February 6, 2023February 5, 2023sallybr2 Comments

For Tunde’s Cookie Club information, click here

If you are familiar with Tunde’s work, you know her cookies are the essence of elegance. They often rely on piping fine detail lines, so if you are beginning your cookie decorating adventures, they might be a bit tricky to get right. Still, the overall design will work without those details, in case you feel intimidated but still want to give them a try. It took me a long time to face the challenge of fine line piping, and there is still a lot of room for improvement, but at least I am a bit more confident now. This online tutorial had a set of six cookies, some large and some small. I honestly cannot pick a favorite, I love them all, but the three below could share the first prize…

To make the set of six cookies we needed Royal icing in red, two shades of pink and white. White icing was prepared in two consistencies, flood and piping for fine lines. I cannot share specific details as the tutorials are for members of her online club, but if you would like to join and have access to all past and future tutorials click here. Some of the steps are included in the composite picture below.

Tunde makes the whole process very efficient, as you work on the cookies sequentially, allowing a few areas to dry as you work on another cookie. The central details can be made as a Royal icing transfer or fondant. I opted for fondant, because I prefer the look of the rose when formed in a mold rather than piped. And it is such a small amount that even if someone does not care for the taste of fondant, it won’t ruin the cookie.

All cookies benefit from a beaded border. The more I decorate cookies, the more I enjoy the beaded border because they make the design quite a bit more polished. It does take a little practice to get not only the right consistency in the icing but also the size of the opening and the movement of the hand. A cookie turntable makes the process easier, and I recently bought a turntable I like a lot. Click here for details.

I had two extra cookies baked and decided to attempt my own design in two of them. First wet-on-wet… A yin-yang Valentine…

The second cookie I flooded in red and next day used a stencil and black air-brushing…

I still have a few Valentine’s designs waiting to be shared in this little blog of mine, so stay tuned!
Tunde, thank you for another great series, as usual I learn a ton from you!

ONE YEAR AGO: Following my Heart

TUNDE’S BEAUTIFUL BLUE COOKIES

January 21, 2023January 20, 2023sallybr2 Comments

This online tutorial by Tunde Dugantsi was posted on January 5th, but I was away on a trip. The moment I came back I went to work, baking the seven hexagon cookies and making enough icing to play with them all. Truth is, after being away I was a bit rusty, and struggled a little with a couple of the designs. Still, I love this set, and felt that the class was at the same time challenging and fun. Tunde has a very soothing voice and is quite reassuring, plus she gives many tips to help you navigate all the different techniques. In this set, we had to master fine lines (very fine, to pipe a grid on two cookies), brush embroidery, border piping, and of course, smooth flooding.

To join Tunde’s Facebook page and learn about her upcoming classes, click here.

Tunde planned the whole class in a very efficient way. We started by flooding two cookies in a single color (light and dark blue), and the others had a design scratched on the surface, so that two colors would be used to flood, in stages. or a single color leaving a round circle in the center to pipe the grid. Some of the steps are shown in the composite picture below.

After I baked the cookies, I realized that my hexagons were a little bit smaller than the ones Tunde used. It was no big deal for most of the patterns, but for the grid, bigger would have worked better. We were supposed to pipe a beautiful snowflake design, but I did not have enough squares in my grid to do that, so I improvised a much simpler pattern. You can see them below….

For the brush embroidery, Tunde showed two different designs, but I could only make one of them work. I will definitely try the second one in the near future. The four cookies below were definitely my favorites!

I find the combination of dark and light blue pretty magical,
and the white details take it all to a higher level.

I had a few hexagon cookies left, and a couple of days later I decided to bring the center cookie back to life with a different color scheme.

I really want to re-visit this whole class, now that I am back into the swing of decorating. My goal is to make the snowflake design on the grid, and then tackle the second embroidery cookie, which has a beautiful single rose in the center, with a long stem. The shaping of the petals is not that easy for me, but I want to make that happen.

Tunde, thank you for another great tutorial, I learned a lot with this one…