Spring Decorated Cookies

Decorated Cookies! SO fun, but definitely not easy work.

I felt the urge to decorate some sugar cookies because it had been awhile. Probably since i did the blue christmas cookies with the buttercream frosting. i wanted to try royal icing again (after my mess up with the minnie mouse cookies). THIS time i was going to do it right!

Instead of using wilton food coloring, I discovered Americolor Soft Gel paste. No bitter taste in the frosting, you don't have to use so much, and it comes in a squeeze-bottle! i like to get the variety packs off ebay.

Anyway back to the cookies, i went with tulips, daisies, plain circles and umbrellas. For colors I chose Red, Yellow, and green royal icing. I should have done pink, but I really wanted to try out the Americolor "Red Red" I had just bought!

I used a heart shaped cookie cutter to make the tulip leaves by slicing the heart in half and baking them with the tulip shape. 

I use the basic Wilton recipe for Royal Icing:

3 tablespoons meringue powder

4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

5 -6 tablespoons lukewarm water

Directions:

1. Place sugar and Meringue powder in a bowl and stir at low speed.

2. Add water and mix on low to medium for 7-10 minutes, until icing loses its sheen.

3. To prevent drying out, keep the bowl and icing tips covered with a damp towel.

I personally don't sift my powdered sugar.  I just mix it around with the whisk attachment on the standmixer.  It always turns out fine. 

For dimension I thin the icing out with a spray water bottle to the consistency I call "15 second". When you run a spoon through it it should take approximately 15 seconds for the icing to lose its shape. This kind of icing is great for adding dimension to cookies. For these cookies I used mostly 15 second icing. I used them for the flower petals, the umbrellas, and the strawberries. 

You must pipe the outline first, and fill just like normal "piping" and "flood" icing. but you must alternate sections and give those sections time to dry before you move on to the next ones. This is how you get that 3-D look. 

For the polka-dots, i used a technique i learned from SweetSugarBelle's blog called "wet on wet". 
While the 15 second icing is still wet, you use a very small piping tip (#2) to pipe small dots. Just make sure you do it as soon as your done piping the base color. You don't want it to try out or the dots will lay on TOP of the base. 

They didn't turn out too bad. (except for the umbrella handles ;P)