. If you’ve been around my cookie blog, you probably know that I am a huge fan of the Zentangle method of drawing. The amount of inspiration available in Instagram, Pinterest, and the number of tutorials in youtube is quite amazing, so I advise you to grab a cup of tea and browse around. Not too long ago I found this youtube channel and fell in love with it. Every day, Kelli demonstrates one “tile” (Zentangle drawings are called tiles as they are usually made in 2 inch or larger square sheets of paper) that takes no longer than 15 minutes to make. Keep in mind that when doing it on paper, you can add a lot of shading and details, when I do it in cookies it is simpler and therefore faster. But equally relaxing and rewarding. I share with you today just a few examples using her tutorials, and some departures I did on my own. All cookies must be flooded and fully set, and then you need a fine tip black pen. I often use PME pearl spray to give the cookie a final shine, but that is not mandatory.
Then I made a second one using only two zentangle motifs from the first one…
Next, one of my favorites, following this TULIP tutorial from Kelli. It became one of my favorite designs!
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The top right is a pattern called TAXI, and you can see her demonstrating it here…..
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I love how changing the background color has a huge impact on the design, and even if you mess up something, it always ends up ok in the end. Or so I believe…
You have NO IDEA how excited I am about this! As I’ve mentioned before, without the aid of a mini-projector, my cookie decorating would be quite limited, as I cannot draw to save my life. However, not too long ago I was minding my own business when Facebook shared a little advertisement for an online course called “Pattern Painting”, by Yvette St Amant. I was intrigued, browsed a bit and decided to try it. A whole new universe opened up for me! It is basically playing with patterns, colors, shapes. No need for precision, or any drawing skill. It felt absolutely liberating, and what she taught on a white canvas, I started using on a Royal iced cookie base. With this post, I invite you to see some of the things I’ve played with lately. After each design, just a few words to explain the specific technique I used.
HEXAGONS
Hexagons iced in white. Food safe pens used to paint stripes and details. I inverted the colors in half of the cookies, to give it a bit of the yin-yang thing I love so much.
BLACK AND RED
I love this shape! Cookies were again iced with white, and after the background is fully set I used food safe pens to draw.
SUGARPRISM PAINTED FLORALS
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To help me with this design, I used a stencil, and scratched the outline of the flowers before painting with Sugarprism. Sugarprism goes well over even a dark background, making it perfect for this type of pattern.
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MODERN ABSTRACT, TWO WAYS
This was actually the first set of cookies I made using Yvette’s tutorials. For this set I used two different methods: adding the design with Royal icing piped in sections, or painting with Sugarprism Below, the steps for the first approach.
Decide on the pattern and do an outline with white. Fill the white areas right away, wait about 15 minutes and add the other colors, in this case green and pink. Let that set again for a few minutes, and finally cover the center with a contrasting color of your choice. In a few hours I added the black outline with a food safe pen.
. A totally different look for the same design, is achieved by flooding the whole cookie with white, then painting the pattern with Sugarprism.
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TURQUOISE CIRCLES
Another design idea I got from Yvette’s tutorials. Royal icing white for the background, and a food safe pen to add details. I love this type of abstract pattern, and intend to go on exploring it.
BEES AND VINES
I confess I did not know where I was going with these cookies, but love the way they turned out. Once again, Royal icing white for the background, and a food safe pen to do all the details.
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GEOMETRIC VIBES
These were my own design, maybe not exactly pattern painting, but a departure from the idea. I used a ruler to draw a few straight random lines on the cookie (iced in white), then painted the sections in contrasting colors. The outline was painted again after the colors were added, for a more polished look.
BLACK AND WHITE
Another design of my own, a mixture of zentangle with colors. Below you see how that came to life. The center was iced in pink, the margins in white. Next day the black details were painted with a food safe pen.
Another example of zentangle to close this series… Two black, two silver.
Super simple to draw, and no matter the boo-boos you might make, the cookie will look interesting in the end.
I hope you will consider pattern painting as a cool option to decorate cookies. No two will be alike and they are sure to bring a smile to anyone who gets them. And I do mean, anyone!
Yes, it is that time of the year, all we can think about in the cookie department is romance, hearts, reds and pinks. I have quite a few cookie ideas to share – as I followed several tutorials in the recent past – but today I launch this party with my own designs.
DESIGN #1 THE PUZZLED HEART
This cookie cutter was a gift from Tanya, my tent-baking friend. She used her 3D printer to bring it to life. Last year she made a stunning composition using it, and I decided to give it a try now. Several decorating methods were used: brush embroidery for the small heart off-center, texture with a fondant ball, wet-on-wet and air-brushing with stencil.
It is very important to use a recipe without any leavening agent when making a cookie puzzle in which the pieces should join together nicely after baking. I baked them slightly apart from each other, and used my default chocolate cookie recipe which has no baking powder. Once that is done, the decorating fun can begin. All the wet-on-wet and the brush embroidery can be finalized once the cookies are cold. The air-brushing requires many hours for setting the base, even better if you do it the following day. The texture is added about 30 minutes after flooding, but you must be gentle and carefully test it. You don’t want to break the skin, just form a nice rounded indentation. However, don’t worry if it cracks at certain spots, in the end it won’t be a problem.
DESIGN #2 MODERN HEARTS
I like this type of design because it is so exotic and unique. I used this set of cutter + stencil. Very high quality cutter, it comes with two stencils, I’ve only tried one of them so far. Cookies are flooded in different colors, then the pattern is air-brushed. All that’s left to do is pipe the design with a Wilton 3 tip, to get thick lines.
In a similar spirit, but with a free-hand approach, my duo of “Game of Thrones” inspired hearts…
I did not know exactly where I was going with them, but in the end, I loved the combination of gray and fuchsia. I flooded the cookies in white, piped a simple design, and then used luster powder + vodka to paint the different sections.
DESIGN #3 BRUSH EMBROIDERY
In this set I used chocolate cookies because I find that the brush embroidery looks particularly interesting with a dark background. Very easy to decorate, once you do the embroidery, just flood the center in any color of your choice, and add dots while still wet. I like to pipe dots of different sizes because then a random pattern looks nice. When the dots are all the same size, the spacing needs to be more carefully planned, as the ones below.
Same style in red and white, and a little departure using fine lines to make a lace ribbon in the center. After that the upper and lower regions are flooded with red. It is a bit more work, so making a dozen of those would be time consuming and tedious maybe. But I made only a couple, to practice the fine lines. I try to incorporate a design with fine lines in some of my weekly bakes.
Another style, super simple. Gray at the edges, white to flood the center, and when that sets a red food pen is used to make the red stitches. Easier than piping, but you can definitely pipe Royal icing if you prefer.
DESIGN #4 ZENTANGLES
Cannot stop making those at every change I get… They closed my latest post with the Gnomes, and now they show up again. The one above is my favorite Zentangle pattern because it is easy and fast to do, but it gives the impression of being labor-intensive.
Not quite zentangles, but in the same style of repetitive pattern…
DESIGN #5 LOVE MESSAGE
These were imagined by my beloved husband, and transformed into cookies by yours truly. It turns out that I have a little daily routine with Buck, our 14 year old Jack Russell: I hold him and keep telling him over and over… “I love you to pieces”. Phil thought it would be cool to make a little series celebrating different pets. I used a mini-projector for all except the kitten, which was – very bravely – drawn free-hand, from a cartoon I found online.
DESIGN #6 THE BAROQUE HEART
For this set of cookies, I used Cricut to cut a stencil exactly in the shape of the cookie. Then all that’s needed is flooding the base, allowing to to fully set, then air-brush the design. I used fuchsia from Sugarflair as the base, and air-brushed purple, which I also used later to make a beaded border. With PME tip #2.
The trickiest part is air-brushing. To minimize the possibility of smudging, I use a screen placed on top of the stencil, but that makes it hard to judge how well the dye is reaching the cookie. It is not very easy to get all cookies with exactly the same intensity of color, but maybe that’s part of their charm… never two exactly alike!
This closes the series of hearts I’ve made since the year started. In the next blog post, I will share versions made following tutorials online.
If you don’t know the meaning of zentangles and how I like to adapt them for cookies, read my previous post on the subject. Today I share a few more, and include my first adventure with Instagram reels showing how I make my very favorite kind because is is so simple and the end result always pleases me. The cookie can be left simple or further decorated with fondant, modeling chocolate, or Royal icing transfers. Below, fondant stars painted silver. Purple and silver, the colors of our university, in the zentangle way.
I like the intensity of the purple but this type of design works well in any color…
A second addition of the same pattern inside each little square changes it completely but it is still quite straightforward to do…
A variation on the same type of curved line…
And now for a few adventures on patterns and colors, some turned out the way I wanted, some I consider “work in progress”.
The one below is my representation of a brain with insomnia: busy with many thoughts, not necessarily connected…
Here’s looking at you, kid!
Whenever I make sugar cookies, I always make sure to flood a few with any color I have leftover. Then, all I have to do is choose a pattern out of the thousands available out there, or make a composite design. I love the zentangle path…
For the Love of Cookies 