Sweets by Daniela: Blue Elephant Cookies

My Best Friend approached me last month and asked me if I could make her cookies for a baby shower. Of course, I immediately start thinking of what could be done. At first, i was going to make onesies that said "It's a Boy!" but then i thought thats been overdone.
So I continued to brainstorm until I saw some elephants done by Sweetopia. They were pretty adorable but I thought I would put my own spin on it.

so first THE SKETCH! Its important that you know what your design is going to be BEFORE you start piping away. Otherwise you'll be making A LOT of cookies (for mess-ups). Start with the outline of the shape and work from there. These sketches can later be used to cut the dough (WITHOUT A COOKIE CUTTER!!) Keep in mind that cookies are much more sturdy if they don't have any appendages (for example a skinny elephant trunk).

The next step would be to PLAN your cookie making process. You don't want to end up making 3 dozen cookies the night before, and staying up until 4 in the morning piping hearts. It is much better to plan it all out over a few days.

Here is what i did:
DAY 1: Prepare Royal Icing, let sit over night.
DAY 2: Bake 36 Cookies. Pipe Royal Icing Transfers, let sit overnight.
DAY 3: Pipe Blue Elephant, Drop in "heart" ear, pipe eye, little heart. let sit over night
DAY 4: Package.

As you can see, its quite a process and can take a few days. But my iPhone calendar helps me keep that on track so i don't forget anything. =)

Now onto the actual cookie making =)
Here is the shape of the cookie. As you can see no skinny appendage! Can't really tell they are elephants yet, I even had one person tell me they look like buffalo!

Then the piping of the royal icing transfers.

i used a piece of paper and traced a heart shape 36 times (for 36 cookies), and some extras just in case. Lay this paper on the counter. Place parchment paper over it, and tape it to the counter so it can not slide around.

Using your Royal Icing (piping, and flood icing) to make the hearts. its VERY important that you let these dry AT LEAST 24 HOURS otherwise, you may have some broken hearts! Once they are dry they will pop right off the parchment paper.

The next day its time to pipe the elephant! Using the teal blue royal icing (15 second icing...thinned out to honey consistency) I piped the entire elephant, outline AND filled all at once. While still wet, drop the "heart ears" into place. Using a very small tip, and black (flood) icing, pipe in eye. When the blue icing is somewhat dry, at the little heart detail using 15 sec. icing to the trunk.