Continue reading »]]> Growing up I couldn’t wait to get my Easter basket!  My parents never really splurged that much on us kids, but I always knew there was going to be a basket on Easter morning.  My sister and I would fight over who got the pink basket or the purple one.  I think I always lost out on that one because she was older and pulled rank! :)

Nowadays I watch my god-sons go on their hunt for eggs in the yard, and watch the sugar high build up…..scary!  Those jelly beans sure do pack a punch.  This year I thought why not add a game to the basket, and maybe the ingestion of sugar *might* slow down……ah, probably not!  But it was worth a try. :)

Start with 2 large square cookies.  Using royal icing colored pink and green, pipe on the grid.  Let it dry completely before flooding the squares with white royal icing.

For the tic-tac-toe pieces, I used mini cutters, and used a theme for each game.

Chicks & Eggs

Bunnies & Carrots

I packaged the cookies in cellophane bags and made up some tags. (Click  Here For The Free Printable)

And into the basket they went along with my Easter Chicks.

Will it reduce the sugar high?  Well, probably not.  They are sugar cookies after all.  But maybe they’ll slow ‘em down a bit???

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> This is my take on an Easter chick.  I found a little inspiration while perusing a new book I purchased called “Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh, My!“.

 The authors have a technique in the book using candy melts for one of their projects, and I thought why not use it for chicken wings???

The first step is to make the wings.  Melt the candy melts in the microwave at 1/2 power until melted.

Taking a plastic spoon….the cheaper the better because it needs to bend….dip the back of the spoon into the candy, getting a nice even coat.  Place the spoons onto a piece of wax paper and place in the refrigerator until set, or about 5 minutes.  Remove from the refrigerator and then slightly bend the spoon releasing the candy.

Next, take an oval cookie and flood it with yellow royal icing, adding  pre-made eyes and the wings while the icing is still wet.

Let the cookie dry, then add the beak and feet.  You can also add a tuft of hair on top of the head.

This was a super easy cookie that can add character to any plate of cookies.

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> Spring is coming and the birds are busy around here building their nests.  So let’s celebrate their hard work and make some bird’s nest cookies!

Items Needed:

Round Sugar Cookies (different sizes)

Black Royal Icing

Yellow Royal Icing

Jordan Almonds

Frosting (buttercream or gasp! canned)

Food Coloring

Coconut

Small Baggie

Piping Bag and #1 tip, #12 round tip (star tip optional)

#1 – Using the royal icing and the #1 tip, pipe the faces onto the Jordan Almonds.  Let dry.

#2 – After you decide what colors you want the nests to be, color your coconut.  Put a handful of coconut into the baggie, add a drop of food coloring, and then seal the bag with a little bit of air in it.

Now shake!  You might get some clumps of dark color on your coconut, but you can break that up with your fingers.  The result….pretty coconut.

#3 – Next, color your frosting.  You can go ahead and make your own buttercream, but if time and/or patience is a factor……patience is my downfall…..use the canned frosting.

I went the extra mile of laziness and picked up strawberry icing so I wouldn’t have to color any pink!

#4 – Put your colored icing into your bags that have either a large round tip, such as a #12 or a large star tip attached.

Pipe the icing onto the cookie, insert your little birdie, and then sprinkle with the coconut.

I love the pink ones, but these green ones are cute as well.  The color I used is Electric Green.

I hope you can give these cookies a try.  They’re super easy to do and fun to look at!

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> I was finally able to get myself some square scalloped edge cookie cutters.  I was so excited to make some new cookies with them!  But when I started putting down my base coat of royal icing, I had a hard time keeping that nice scalloped edge going and I couldn’t figure out how to do it!  Seriously, I was scratching my head.  I’m not sure if it’s because of the brain fog that I had going on…(hopefully some of you know what I’m talking about there)  :) or was it just that I hadn’t come across a tutorial on the cookie sites that I visit?  I think I’ll chalk it up to both.  My solution…..dots!

Using 10 second icing (great tutorial here from Sweetopia) and a #3 tip, I piped dots along all 4 edges first.

I then piped a line under the row of dots making sure that the icing line connected with the dots.

Now fill in the rest of the cookie.

And voila!  Your scalloped edge cookie is now ready for your artwork!

The cookie on the left has more pronounced dots because all 4 sides were piped with dots first, then connected with the line of icing.  This allowed the dots to set up a bit.  The cookie on the right was done 1 side at a time, dots, then line, dots, then line, etc. so the icing ran together quicker.  So personal preference whether you do dots first, or 1 side at a time.

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> It seems that my underlying theme on this blog is “keep it simple!”.  I am not an artist.  I really don’t think I have an artistic bone in my body, never have.  It’s very frustrating!!!!  But I try to find ways to compensate for that lack of talent.  My latest accomplishment?  The shamrock, or 3-leaf clover.

I began with finding an image of a clover, such as the one below, re-sizing it to what would fit on my cookie, then cut it out.

I placed the template onto a completely dried iced cookie and traced it with an edible marker.

From there, you can decorate your shamrock however you want!

FLOOD

COLOR WITH EDIBLE FOOD MARKER

OR PAINT

One template, 3 very different but simple cookies.  And not an ounce of drawing ability needed!

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> I have a neighbor across the street having her very first baby shower!  Her and her husband are from Czechoslovakia, and their idea of a baby shower is to celebrate with friends and have a nice evening.  So I asked the mother-to-be where they were registered…..and she just stared at me.  ”What is this registered?” she asked.

So I explained to her that they can go to a store, register, and create a wish list of what they wanted and needed for the baby, thus making it easy on the guests to shop.  Her reply was…..”just get us gift card”.  ”No No No….you’re doing it wrong!” was my reply!  ”Getting a gift card takes all the joy out of it for the guests!  We want to oohhh and ahhhhh when we buy your present!”  And really, isn’t it my duty as an American to bestow upon them the commercialization aspect of expecting a child?????

But I digress, mainly because there’s more to this story than I care to type right now…   :)  But since this was her first baby shower, I wanted to do something special.  And taking a page out of Marian’s (Sweetopia) notebook…book…bible???…I decided to make cookies using the zebra on the baby blanket that I had bought for the occasion.

I think they turned out fairly well for being my first animal themed cookie.

I started with drawing the outline on the cookie using a food marker, then outlining in black icing, flooding the inside of the cookie, and then adding the stripes and details.

Since I didn’t have room on the cookie for the palm tree and grass, I just made those separate cookies.

I was so happy that these turned out as well as they did.  I also did some duckies that might show up in another post, if I can figure out how to tweak the lighting on the pictures!  And my friends really appreciated that I took the time to recreate the zebra, so hopefully I added to their wonderful baby shower experience.

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> Mmmmmmm…..time to take my new cinnamon sugar cookie recipe and make Valentine’s Day hearts with it.

I used the simple toothpick drag technique, so if you’re in a time crunch to get some cookies done, these are for you!

I took red and white flood icing, and used a #3 tip.  Put stripes on the cookie, alternating the colors.

While the icing is wet, take a toothpick and drag it through the icing from left to right, then go down a little bit and drag the toothpick from right to left, then left to right…..you get the picture.

Let the cookie dry overnight.  Simple!  You can also add other colors, as well as creating different patterns before dragging the toothpick through the icing.

I thought heartbeats would be cute as well.  It’s just one single line of white icing across the cookie and the toothpick dragged up,down,up.

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> A friend approached me about doing some cookies for her, and that started me thinking on making some test cookies for her to taste and see which ones she liked best.  Nothing fancy, mind you.  Just making batches of  my Quick Sugar Cookie Recipe and changing the extracts to give different flavors.  Then it dawned on me……cinnamon.  Why not?  People love snickerdoodles, so what if I just added cinnamon to my recipe? *  Easy!

So I made myself a batch of cookies to test it out.  Did I add enough cinnamon?  Did I add too much?  How will the cookie taste with royal icing on top?  Would the icing make it too sweet??  I just didn’t know.  One thing I didn’t expect was the smell of the cookie wafting up to my nose as I was applying the icing.  Heavenly! …and a bit distracting.  :)

So the next morning it was time for my taste test.  I ate a plain cinnamon cookie first, then an iced one.  Both were pretty good, but I’m a tough critic.  So I knew it was time for the ultimate test……my neighbor Ron.  I took a couple cookies over to him to try…….and they got a thumbs up.  Along with the “Where are the rest of them?  Is this all I get?”   So….WINNER!!!!

Cinnamon Sugar Cookie Recipe

3 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1 cup butter (cold)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla or flavoring of your choice (almond, lemon)

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Sift together flour, baking powder and cinnamon; set aside.  Cut the butter into smaller pieces and put into a mixing bowl.  Keeping the butter cold is why we won’t have to chill the dough.)  Start beating the butter.  Slowly add the sugar and beat until well mixed.  Beat in the egg and vanilla.  Add the flour mixture one cup at a time, mixing after each addition.  Keep beating until the dough forms a loose ball.  Do not chill dough.  Divide dough into 2 balls.  On a floured surface, roll each ball out to about ¼ inch thick.  Cut with cookie cutters into desired shapes; place on ungreased cookie sheets and place on middle rack of oven.  Bake for 6 to 7 minutes or until the cookies are lightly brown on the edges.

Yields: Approx. 36 – 3” round cookies

*If you have your own sugar cookie recipe that you want to use, just add 1/4 tsp of cinnamon per 1 cup of flour.

Click Here for Cinnamon Sugar Cookie Recipe PDF

Happy Baking! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> Here I go again with a simple cookie using sprinkles!  Does my use of sprinkles make me lazy??? Or smart? ;)

The larger sprinkles really make decorating a cookie fast and simple.  You can find tons online or at your local craft store.  They’re even showing up in grocery stores.

I thought a heart tree would be cute.  I outlined and flooded the cookie with royal icing and let it dry overnight.  I took a “food only” paintbrush and dipped it into some brown gel coloring that I watered down with a drop of water.  Painted on the tree structure and let it dry for a couple of minutes.  The last step is to apply the “Fill Your Heart Sprinkles” to the cookie using a dab of royal icing.  The sprinkles are easily moved around to any position you want using a toothpick.

You can also use an edible food writer pen to draw on the tree trunk and limbs.

Happy Decorating! – Linda

Continue reading »]]> These cookies are so simple even my dog could make them…if I wanted to eat a hair cookie that is!  Seriously….she sheds a lot!

I’ll admit it…..sprinkles are my friends.  Especially when they are large like the ones I used on these cookies.  I found them at my local cake decorating store.

Or you can find them here.

First I outlined the cookie using my flood icing, filled it in, and while it was still wet, dropped a heart into the icing.  If you’re not a “master dropper”……you can do what I did and take a toothpick to move the heart around to put it where you want.

Seriously….even my dog Kali could do it if I let her…and she wasn’t so busy tearing up stuff. :)

Happy Decorating! – Linda