PrintAny tips for decorating cookies?
I have a fabulous recipe for sugar cookies and have agreed to bake cookies for a friends wedding. I would love to use royal icing, or fondant. Any tips? Which one do you recommend and why? These cookies are going to be small little heart shaped cookies. I was thinking of using edible gold, or something elegant to decorate them with. I'm up for suggestions!
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8 Comments:
I would reccomend royal icing if you want a smooth finish. The fondant will overpower the delicate cookies. If you end of making your own royal icing Wilton sells meringue powder which is very helpfull as then you don't have to deal with egg whites. I made royal icing for some cookies over the weekend and they turned out well, but don't skimp on adding water if it looks dry, as then you will end up with a more buttercream consistency.
Wilton products are available in most craft stores if they have a cake decorating section. Or you can look online I think it is just wilton.com
Good luck with your cookies and the gold will be really nice on them!!!
Sarahrm at 12:25PM on 04/13/07
I thought of that, what I like about the fondant is that you can mold it into shapes, but royal icing with the gold sounds spectacular...
Lilartist at 12:53PM on 04/13/07
I know this isn't a fancy idea but whenever i decorate sugar cookies I do it the cheap and simple way but they end up looking really nice if you take the time to do it right-
All you need is food coloring along with some powdered sugar and water or milk. I use water-
Just mix the water and powdered sugar to whatever thickness you want icing and add whichever food coloring you want. Then play around with it. Once it dries it looks really professional.
Sarah P. at 2:35PM on 04/13/07
I been using the same formula forever. I use 10X sugar a spot of milk and a eyedropper drop of flavoring. Lemon oil, orange oil, anise oil, almond oil and vanilla. I mix them in disposable cups and I use a toothpick to tinge them with paste food color. Less is better at first. You cna always add more for a deeper shade. It is not royal icing, but dries firm and you flavor it however you want. I use a pastry brush to coat the cookies and then I set them out to dry.
Make sure you use a plastic fork to mix the contents of your cups. One color per cup. Mix it good so it has no lumps. Let it sit 1 minute after you mix so the bubbles come to the top.
Do not make it too thin or too thick. You want to be able to brush it on and have it stick. It dries smooth.
JerzeeTomato at 3:14PM on 04/13/07
Monograms or the couples initials are nice designs. Dotted swiss dots are elegant, a simple flower in a single color.
granjan at 2:40AM on 04/14/07
I suggest using true royal icing and using the flooding technique. You make the icing in a medium-thin consistancy and put it in pastry bags with small plain tips. Make an outline of the cookie's shape and then fill in the space inside the outline. The icing will dry hard with a semi-gloss finish. It would be easy to make a contrasting heart echoing the shape of the cookie by piping a circle of contrasting color in the middle of wet icing. Then just pull a toothpick from just above the center of the dot in the direction you'd like the bottom of the heart to point. It's simple, fast and looks very nice. With royal icing you can pipe icing on top of hardened icing to form initials or any shape.
A couple of other things that look great are making half of the cookies with an even smaller heart cut out of the middle. When they are baked and cooled spread a layer of seedless raspberry jam on the solid cookies and top with the ones with the opening. Very lovely to look at, and eat!
Another thought is that you can buy (or make!) sugared violets and some other types of edible flowers. They are very beautiful, grownup and upscale. These would look great with a touch of gold leaf, too.
Calichef at 7:13AM on 04/14/07
I thought of sugared violets! I will have to do some hunting in my town to find them. I am not to sure about buying them online, how would they hold up? I do believe that royal icing is the way to go. I think Calichef is right that flooding would be great to. Thanks for you help guys! These cookies are going to look fabulous! Time to start baking...
Lilartist at 2:37PM on 04/14/07
i use tempered chocolate to coat my sugar cookies. i use white chocolate and temper. then i use powdered food coloring that is used for chocolate. i use belgium chocolate. but u can use merkens and they hv colors available in disks. u can find the colors on line. any cake decorating website has. check: www.fancyflours.com
when the chocolate is tempered put in a shallow bowl, take one had and between your thumb and middle finger, dunk the top in and then shake off any residue and lay flat on parchment paper. when dry you can pipe in chocolate in any design u want. i use luster dust when dry. if u mk a heart, u can even do dk. chocolate and when dry, take a brush and dip in some gold luster dust that has been mixed with a bit of white drinking alcohol and do brush strokes on the edges. looks really nice.
lynnar at 4:10PM on 04/20/07