BAKING PROJECT

At last,  we managed to decorate the cookies made weeks before.. well kept in an airtight container.   It was a fun session, the cookies were mostly decorated by my daughter.  Just testing the theories and careless decorating (on my part).

I must say kudos to the authors of the book “Cookie Craft” below.  I love the book and it has all the information you need to get started.  I bought the book online but have seen it in Kinokuniya in KLCC. As you can see we really did go to town on the cookie decorating. Everyone loves a cookie, they are great to eat when you have a cup of tea, during a game of bingo and as a little treat before bed. With this book you can make them look really special as well as them tasting so good.

Also, check-out the website  Karen’s Cookies for excellent tutorials on cookie decorating. I’ve also bought some tools here and their service is good.

Basically, you need Royal icing (RI) to decorate the sugar cookies.  Here’s the recipe that I used, from the book above.

It is quite difficult to say exactly how many tablespoon of water you need coz the consistency depends on the weather or our kitchen temperature.  To make the outline, the RI have to be a bit thick, this acts like a dam to hold the flood icing.  For the flood icing (or flow icing) the consistency is similar to a heavy cream.  It shouldn’t be too thin like water or too thick that it won’t flow to fill up the cookies.   To make the flood icing, just add double the amount of water and test as you go.

For our little project, I did the outline with a round tip/ nozzle.

The best size to use  is round tip #2 or 3. For the blue one, I think the nozzle was bigger and the outline look too fat   . Start by outlining all the cookies, then go on to flood them. For the flood icing, it’s best to just use squeeze bottles.  Squeeze in the middle of the cookies and use a toothpick to guide the icing into narrow corners.

The colour of the outline and the flood icing should also be the same, you probably need to add a tiny bit of colouring to the flood icing.   Obviously I skip this step as you can see above. Anyway,  when the RI is still wet, you can make some designs. This is called Flooding on wet flood.  Squeeze a different colour of Flood icing – dots , lines, squiggles, etc then run a toothpick over the pattern.

Making feathered hearts :-

Have a look at this website where they used the marbling and feathering technique on coffee.. very interesting !

While the RI is still wet,you could also add sprinkles and such, then leave the cookie to dry for about 2 to 3 hours.  And its ready to eat

I guess cookie decorating does require some amount of patience.  After the flood icing is totally dry, you could go on to pipe more patterns using the Outline icing.  For the pattern below, I did another outline and then press the cookie on to some sugar sprinkles (or use sanding sugar).  Use a small brush to dust of the extra sugar.

Apart from Royal icing, you can also decorate the cookies with fondant.. which is much easier and less messy .. just cut out the fondant with the same cookie cutter and glue it to the cookie.

Overall, I do like to use Royal icing to decorate cookies, but this is not something you do in a hurry..    If you want to learn more,  please check out my Fancy cookie class, detail at the top page above.

Till then, take care and we’ll keep in touch in my Facebook.  Thanks.

I’ve actually made these a few weeks ago.. it’s lying in my tupperware somewhere in the kitchen. Been wanting to decorate it with Royal icing, but I still couldn’t find the time.  I am running here and there between preparing cakes for my second book, weekend classes and the usual housewife daily chores.  Anyway, here’s how I made these delicious cookies (the base for Decorated cookies).

There are loads of recipe out there, this is the one that I used:

Whisk the flour and add the salt into it.  Cream the butter and sugar until it is mixed, probably about 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the egg and essence.  Scrap and continue mixing until all is blended.  Turn the mixer to a slow speed, add the flour bit by bit until all is mix.  Do not overmix. Done. Now here is the tricky part.  The dough is very soft, you need to put it in the fridge for a while until it is hard enough to roll.

I am using parchment papers to ease the job.  Scrap the dough onto the parchment paper.  Then put another layer of parchment on top of the dough.  Roll and flattened it.

Make some space in your fridge.  I clear one whole shelf and transfer the whole thing, parchment paper with the dough in between, into the fridge.  Let it cool and hardened, I think at least for half an hour.

Preheat the oven, about 350F.  Remove the dough from the fridge and cut them with your cookie cutter.  Arrange on your cookie pan which has been lined with parchment or non stick baking sheet, leaving 1/2 inch between the cookies.  Bake for about 15 minutes until they turn golden around the edges.  If the dough turns too soft, put it in the fridge again and repeat the process.

Give it a try, not that difficult after all. Cheers .

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