Birthday Cookies

Happy Birthday!!  Who doesn't like balloons, presents and cupcakes?  Made out of cookies!  Yum!

I used are the cookie cutters above for the shapes.  I used baked cookies, white royal icing that was also dyed green and blue, and edible markers.

Let's start with the presents. I outlined and filled the box part of the present with blue icing and let it dry for about 30-40 minutes.  When it had crust over enough I made the triangle shaped bow part and the "ribbon" down the front of it.

**Now this is important, I needed to let those parts crust over so when I pipe the rest of the bow, there are lines separating the different parts.  If I didn't do this the icing would just merge together and I didn't want that look.**

After those parts crusted, I filled in the middle part of the bow, let that crust, and then the 2 tails.  Let it all dry for about 24 hours and it is done!

Looking back, I would have done the tails first and then the middle, I think that would have looked nicer.

Onto the balloons.  To get the balloon shape, before baking I used the ice cream cutter and used a pizza cutter to trim off the side ruffles of the ice cream and it kind of looked like an upside down rain drop.  So since I had a blue and green theme, I used those colors for the balloons.  I used an edible marker to draw a circle on the rounded part of the cookie.  I followed that with the royal icing to outline an fill the round balloon part.

**Now I didn't do this, but I wish I had.  Here is a good time to add the white reflection on the balloon.  I waited to do it and so the white didn't sink into the icing.  Personally, I think it would look better if it did sink into the icing.**

When that is crusted over I make the tied off portion of the balloon by piping and filling a triangle on the bottom of the balloon.  Then when that is crusted over, add the white string to the balloon.  This was when I also added the white reflection, but as I said above, it would have looked better if I added earlier.

Now we have the cupcakes.  I looked at different cupcake clip art to find the style I wanted for the swirl on top.  I used blue for the wrapper and white for the frosting.  Before pipping I drew what I wanted the cupcake to look like with edible marker.  When you ice a cupcake the wrapper is already on, so that is how I did the cookies too, the wrapper first and the icing second.  That way if the icing bulges over the wrapper a bit that would look just fine.  I then picked blue icing and pipped every other section.  After it crusted for about 20-30 minutes (depending on how runny the icing is) I finished the other sections.  This gave it the lines between the sections like a real wrapper.  When the wrapper is crusted over I did the same technique for the frosting.  Every other section at a time and allowing it to crust before filling sections touching it.  And there are a cupcakes!

Here is the Happy Birthday sign.  After outlining, flooding the cookies and letting them dry, I decorated around the edges keeping the space open for the words I wanted to write.  With a black edible marker I wrote my words.  And there you have it!

Happy Birthday Cookies!

Summer Cookies

These are some cookies I made for summer.  I used rolled cookie dough, flower cookie cutter, grave cookie cutter, ice cream cookie cutter, 6 pointed star cookie cutter, circle cookie cutter, royal icing, chocolate royal, and edible markers.

I'll start with the sunflower:

I used a flower cookie cutter to make the flower cookies.

Next I  made a circle with royal icing dyed yellow and then outlined every other petal.  Next I outlined the top of rest of the petals and let them crust.

I then took some of the chocolate royal icing and dyed it a bit darker.  Next I pipped 1-2 lines in each petal, depending on how much room there was, starting at the circle.  I made sure they were different lengths, petals of flowers are not the same.  Nature is beautiful that way.

Then I filled in every other petal with the yellow royal icing and let them crust before filling in the rest.

Next comes the middle.  I used chocolate royal icing to pipe ball shapes for the seeds.  This will take a bit, because if any of the icing touches others and it is still wet, they will merge.  So I needed to make sure none of the "seeds" touched and also wait for them to harden.  You can see in the flower on the right there are a lot of "seeds" to pipe.

And we have a sunflower!

The sun is next:

I used a 6 pointed star cookie cutter to make the sun shape.  After they were baked, I used a circle cookie cutter and a light colored edible marker to trace the middle of the sun.  Using a dark one is easier to see, but with light colored icing, it can easily show through.

I then used that circle as my guide, I outlined and filled 3 of the points with a yellow/orange royal icing.  Then I let them crust and finished with the last 3 points.

Sorry, I forgot to take a pic of my next step.  But after letting all the points crust I filled the center with a yellow royal icing and let it completely dry, around 24 hours.

When that is done, I used a black edible marker to draw sunglasses and a smile!

And TA-DA!!  A sun!

We all scream for ice cream. . . cones:

So, for these, I used an ice cream cone cookie cutter.  When they were baked and cooled, I used some chocolate royal icing to outline and fill the whole cone part.  I then had to wait for that to crust before I could pipe lines in a criss-cross to make it look like a waffle cone.

After the cone crusted, I outlined and filled the top of the ice cream cone with white royal icing.  I thought it would look better if I made it look like the ice cream came over the top of the cone a bit.  And I have a yummy ice cream cone!!

Lastly, a nice cool drink of lemonade:

So for this one I used a grave cookie cutter and cut off the top.  I thought this would make a great shape for a cup.

So I took some chocolate royal icing and outlined the cup making sure to make an oval for the top of the cup.  I then took yellow royal icing and made a squiggle about 3/4 of the way up and filled the whole bottom portion.  Immediately, I filled the whole top with white royal icing.  Waiting too long will make a line between the icings because of crusting, and I didn't want that.  The cookie then needed to dry completely.

When it was dry, I used a black edible marker to draw some ice cubes.  And we have some lemonade!

Those are my summer cookies!

Have fun decorating!!