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!
