Tulip and Insect Cookies

Sugar Cookies Decorated with Royal Icing - Tulips, Leaves, and Insects

It's spring!  After a VERY cold, VERY snowy winter, it's finally here!

Tulips, leaves, butterflies, caterpillars, and ladybug cookies!  They make me happy.

Thanksgiving Cookies

Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies decorated with royal icing.

A little late for posting these!  I'm trying to catch up.

These were shipped off in November.  My "Cookies in a Jar".

They're two-inch rounds with fall flowers, leaves, turkeys, and pumpkin decorations.

Fall Cookie Decorating Class

I'll be teaching another Cookie Decorating class at The Kitchen Studio Cooking School in Frederick, MD on Thurs, November 7, 2013 at 6:30 pm. 

We'll be decorating the Fall cookies that you see in the photos below - some with colored icing, some in black and white so that the kids can color them at Thanksgiving! 

We'll talk about using common cookie cutters to get these designs, wet-on-wet, as well as wet-on-dry icing techniques. This class is both for beginners and those with some decorating experience. I hope you'll join me! You can sign up here.

Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing Glaze

This is the first set of cookies that I've made after returning from Cookie Con, where I was able to use a few things that I learned.

Surprisingly, the presentation from Glory of  Glorious Treats about photography influenced these cookies the most.

The tidbit that hit me the hardest wasn't even about photography really.

At one point, she showed photos of some very simple tulip cookies.  The photos ranged from being not great (shot on a cookie sheet) to being amazing (shot in pots of wheat grass).  She pointed out that the tulips were very simple cookies, yet still totally adorable.  That reminded me that I'm often attracted to the simplest of cookie designs.

I see so many fabulous tutorials out there, have tons of cutters that I'd love to play with and have all of these big plans for highly detailed cookies.  There are so many techniques and designs that I'm itching to try.  Sometimes when I'm decorating, I just can't stop.  I keep adding stuff!  Glory's presentation reminded me to keep things simple.  Simple can still be cute, beautiful, fun, etc.

Simple can also make decorating lots of cookies much more doable and enjoyable!

With that in mind, I came up with Thanksgiving cookies that I'll be offering this year.  I didn't go crazy with the number of colors or cutters.  I kept the designs simple.  That was almost hard.  I was tempted to add more details here and there but I held myself back.  I'm glad I did.

I actually adore this whole set.  I love the colors.

Here's Mr. Turkey.  I used a large flower cutter for his body, cut across the bottom and inserted a mini flower for his feet . . .

No extra details on Tom.

Three different pumpkins and a mini.  I thought about making the stems green, then adding leaves and tendrils.  Nope.  That would require another color, consistency, and tip.  Simple . . .

Fall flowers.  I was REALLY tempted to add details to the petals.  I wanted to pipe or paint lines from the centers.  Self control . . .

Fall Leaves.  My plan originally was to make them with three colors on each leaf and do some marbling.  I refrained.  The veins were done wet-on-wet.

The mini acorns.  Originally I was going to make two different colors of brown.  To simplify, I just went with one.  The tops needed a little something so I painted those lines on a la Arty McGoo.  She was another presenter at Cookie Con and showed us how to paint on cookies.  I really, really wanted to add painted touches on all of these cookies.  Once again, I refrained.  Dang, I didn't know I possessed such self control (or that self control was something needed in cookie decorating!).

Did you happen to notice my photos?  Not bad, huh?  Glory gave us some tips on lighting that really helped.  I also put more thought into the background.  Usually for me, it's always a white plate on a white background.  I was trying to keep *that* simple, but realize now that it was booooring.  I love the pop of orange behind the white dish!

I came away from Cookie Con totally inspired by the amazing instructors and ladies that attended.  The talent and the generosity to share their knowledge is pretty unbelievable.

I'm glad to be part of the cookie world!  :)

Ladybug and Leaves Sugar Cookies

More springtime edible goodness! Ladybug and Leaf sugar cookies decorated with royal icing.


















These were made with a ladybug cutter. I really wish that I had defined the wings - flooded one, let it dry, then flooded the other. I'll try it next time.

















These were made with a balloon cutter. Leave it to Sugarbelle of course.













I think that these are my favorites. So cute! But . . .

Keepin' it Real . . .

This is the section in my posts to show you the cookies that I'd really rather not. The cookies that didn't quite live up to the dream.

Little lady bugs marching around, leaving a cute little trail, right? That was the idea. Not as cute as I had hoped . . .

Maybe if the ladybugs had been bigger? The background had been green? The trail was done with a smaller tip? Meh.


Happy Spring!

Caterpillar and Leaves Sugar Cookies

This is my entry into a Monthly Cookie Club Theme Challenge. The challenge is to exercise our creativity, to try new things, to share ideas, and learn from other cookie decorators.

The theme for March is "All About Boys". This was perfect for me because I have yet to actually make boy cookies! After digging through my cutters, I settled on a cute little caterpillar that I hadn't yet used and decided to create a set around him, something a young boy might like . . .


The details for my entry . . .

These are sugar cookies decorated with royal icing. I used one consistency for outlining and flooding. A 15-secondish icing. #2 tip to outline and flood. #1.5 tip for the dots and eyes.



I flooded alternating sections of the caterpillar, letting the first three sections dry before flooding the last three.


Stupid craters! Believe it or not, I actually dragged a toothpick through half of the caterpillar sections. I forgot to do so for the first half, so did it for the final three sections of both caterpillars. I thought that dragging through some of them would actually be a good experiment to be able to compare and see if it helped. As you can see, it didn't.






I had fun with these leaves! I used a straw to make bites and holes in the leaves before baking. I started decorating by flooding one half of each leaf. I let that dry for a little while then flooded the other sides.

After that dried for a little while, I made the tiny caterpillars by piping one dot at a time, letting each dry before adding the next. I used a food marker for the little eyes.

I think these came out really cute but I do wish that I had made the caterpillars larger. Those little guys can sure take big bites, huh?







I made these bite-size rounds to add just one more element to the collection. I always think it's nice to have a simple little bite to coordinate with the other cookies. It kinda rounds things out in my opinion.



So there you have it. "All About Boys"



Thanks for looking!

Frog and Daisy Sugar Cookies

Frog and daisy sugar cookies decorated with royal icing for sweet Megan's 16th birthday! She loves frogs so that was an easy choice. I added the daisies because they're pretty just like her. :)

Want to know how to do it? You'll need. . .

Green flood icing - 20-second, #2 tip
Green piping icing, #1.5 tip
White flood icing - 20-second, #2 and #1.5 tip
Black piping icing, #1.5 tip
Red or Pink piping icing, #1.5 tip
Yellow flood icing - 20-second, #2 tip

(20-seconds is the time it takes to come back together after being "cut" with a butter knife.)

Here's what I did. . .




For the square ones, before baking, make a light impression with the frog cookie cutter to help with the decorating later.

















Flood the heads with green. Allow to dry for a little while.


















Flood the bodies. Allow to dry for a little while.















Add the eyes. I did them a few different ways.





For these, make half circles with white flood icing. Immediately make half circles above the whites with green for the eye lids.












Here we have a winking frog. Ha! One eye is just green flood icing. The other is done the same way as above.



The froggie on the right has eyes simply made with white flood icing circles.








Time to add the legs. Once the legs were added, they started to really look like frogs!



After the whites of the eyes have dried for a while, use black piping icing to draw smaller circles (half circles actually if you can manage it).



Use a toothpick to add a small white highlight to each eye.






Using piping icing, add a green mouth, pink tongue and dots on the legs.

For the square cookie, flood the background with white.















On to the daisies. . .


Before baking(or immediately after if you're the forgetful type like me), make a light impression for the flower center with a small circle cutter (or a soda top if you're like me and don't have one small enough). Flood with yellow. Allow to dry for a while.












Flood the petals with white. Try not to think about sunny-side-up eggs. Allow to dry.













Use piping icing to outline the petals and to make dots around the centers of the flowers.


For the leaves, simply flood, allow to dry, pipe the details.


So pretty!













So what would I do differently next time? I'm thrilled to say "not much". Yay! I'm super pleased with the way these cookies turned out.

I do wish that I had used pink for the tongues. I think that the red just stands out too much.

I also wish that I had made some of the leaves mirror images of the others, instead of having the curve of the vein the same on all of them.

Pretty minor changes, huh? Woo hoo!

Before I go patting myself on the back too much. . .

I'm about to add something that may become an often recurring segment to my posts. I'll call it. . .

Keepin' it Real

I showed you what worked, so I should show you what didn't. . .




Since I had bumped the leg and the toe on two cookies, I used those to test out adding front legs. Oy. What are those? Flappers? Fins? Is he stuck somewhere between a tadpole and a frog?

Miss Frog on the right is included here because she's overdone it a bit with the false eyelashes. I really wanted to add a feminine touch to these frogs with eyelashes. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Those cookies aren't going to Megan. They're on the "you may eat these" tray for my guys to enjoy. Luckily the mistake cookies taste just as good as the others.

Well, these cookies were super fun to decorate and I can't believe how I pleased I am with them. If you make frogs like these, I would love to see them! Please leave me a link in the comments.

Thanks for visiting!