How to Make Flower Centers - Royal Icing Sugar Cookies

Do you find it difficult to create royal icing circle centers on your flower cookies? It's not easy to make them consistently the same size.  It's also not easy to get a perfect circle!  Would you like a trick to help you out?

Here's a quick little tutorial on how to do it......

I made this platter of flowers, cupcakes, mini flowers and mini rounds for a lady's 50th birthday party.  I wanted to mute the colors a little to make them more sophisticated so I added a touch of ivory to everything.  I'm liking it.

How to create the flower centers.....

The simple little trick is to make a round impression on each of the raw cookie dough cut outs.  Just find something round, the appropriate size, and make a very slight impression into the dough.  The photo above shows them after they were baked.

There have been a few times that I forgot to make the impressions before baking.  If that happens to you, and you remember as you're pulling them out of the oven, it's not too late.  You can imprint the cookies while they're still warm and pliable.  Just be gentle.

Are you wondering what I use to make the circles?

A soda bottle top, lip balm top and a coupler base.



The soda top and  lip balm top are stored in the bin that holds my flower cutters. 



After I use them, they get washed up and put back just like the cutters.

 


Now it's easy to decorate those centers! 




Just outline over the impression with royal icing and flood.







 








Let the centers dry for a while before flooding the petals.  Let that dry too.



Outline the petal details, add dots around the centers and you're done.



 Easy!

Easter Sugar Cookies

I made Easter sugar cookies decorated with royal icing.

I made Easter cookies a few months ago as samples for my Cookie Class. (which was awesome, by the way. More on that later.)

These are just so bright and happy. I love them.

I also love that I wasn't decorating alone this time. My neighbor and her 16 year-old daughter came over to decorate a few cookies. They stayed and decorated for four hours! They left with a tray of super cute Easter cookies. Good thing I made a double batch! I texted my neighbor a photo of my finished cookies the next morning and just guess what she was doing at the time? Shopping online for cutters! I just may have a cookie buddy! One that lives right across the street! Woo hoo!




These hatching bunnies might just be my favorites. I really like the simplicity of the white polka dots on the bright colors.




This cutter is part of the Wilton set. It also came with two hatching chicks that I'm not very fond of. The proportions seem off to me. This cutter I love!










Tulip and daisy mini cookies.



Oh how I love minis! One perfect bite and just adorable. I always reach for a mini. Just my speed.










Sweet little chicks.


















Of course bunnies and carrots.




I don't know why the carrots are one of my favorites. I don't normally think of carrots as being cute but these are!











I just picked this cutter up last week. I was really unsure as to how to decorate those ears.

The area seemed too wide for just one ear, so I added that back one.

I don't know. These cookies don't thrill me. Kinda cute I suppose.

I do like the tails though. They're little dots over the flooded area.


Happy Easter cookie friends!

Team Sugar Cookies - Tennis Balls, Pennants and Megaphones

Sugar cookies decorated with royal icing for the tennis team!

My neighbor's daughter plays high school tennis. Parents provide snacks to the players on game days to keep their energy up during those long matches that they're not playing. My neighbor asked me to make cookies to go along with some healthier snacks. Yay!






The pennants and megaphones were fun to decorate.

OK, so they don't have cheerleaders shouting through megaphones for tennis teams, but they should! Megaphones aren't exactly associated with tennis, but I thought they'd be a fun "Go Team!" addition.









You'd think that tennis balls would be super simple to decorate, huh?


I think these were too yellow. I added just a touch of green, but was afraid to go too far with it.

The white piping lines should have been wider. I used a #2 tip. Should have been a #3.








I put sets of 2 into cello bags.




I was told that the girls and coaches enjoyed them. Score!

50th Birthday Sugar Cookies

It's a 50th Birthday Party! I made sugar cookies decorated with royal icing.



These were for my neighbor's brother. He's Irish so they requested two shades of green.




I made a "Happy Birthday" message cookie. My writing doesn't look so bad! Purposely making the letters crooked definitely helps!



I wanted to make a "50" cookie but wasn't sure that putting the two numbers together would work. I used the 5 cutter to cut into the 0 a little bit. Then I snuggled that 5 right in there. It worked perfectly.









The cupcakes came out quite well. I piped more lines on the wrapper than the last time. I'm liking it!










There are birthday candles and small rounds with "50" on them.


Then there are the balloon. Balloons with very lame 50s piped on. I used a 1.5 tip. I should have used a larger one or outlined chunky numbers and flooded them. Something. Anything to give them a little more weight.


The numbers on the balloons are the only thing in this collection that I really wish I had done differently.

Overall, I'm quite pleased. These were fun to make!