Decorating Cookies for Valentine's Day

Decorating cookies:  are you a fan?  For me, this is something that I have been slowly getting into.  While I love cooking and baking, I would say that my food tastes better than it looks ;)  I am also a believer in seasons of our lives, and that includes cooking and baking.  When our daughter was young, we decorated Christmas cookies every year for our annual Christmas Open House.  The process was pretty simple:  apply the Royal Icing; stick the red and green M&M candies to the icing.  As an early childhood educator, I think it is really important to keep baking and cooking fun for ourselves and for young children.  My season of cooking or baking with young ones has ended (for now), so that allows me to focus a bit more on the end product.  All of this is to say that it is important to consider who you are baking with (and to set your expectations accordingly).

 

 On first glance, they look pretty good, right?  In life and in cookie decorating, there is often more to the story than what you see at first glance.  In my life, I find that there is nearly always a "back story" to any success I have, and personally, I love to share the whole story, not just the successful part. For that reason, I have shared some of the cookies that I am not happy with, as well as the journey along the way.

 I had a lot of fun making these, but I also had some frustrations.  Let's just say that there was a big difference between my expectations and my reality ;)  Who knew that decorating cookies could be an opportunity for monitoring self-talk and expectations!

 

I started out by baking some sugar cookies.  I used a recipe from Canadian Living.  I found this one online, which is very similar to the one I found in my Canadian Living Baking Book. You may have your own version to try.  

 

 

The great thing about sugar cookies is that you can make them in stages.  For example, the dough typically needs to be refrigerated for an hour, but you can keep it in the fridge for up to a day.  Once the cookies are made, you can store them in the freezer or in an air-tight container for up to a week.  In other words, you can pace yourself and make and decorate the cookies in stages, if you want to.

 

 

For decorating, I like to use a royal icing, and I used a recipe that uses meringue powder instead of egg whites.  You can find lots of recipes online.  The one I used called for:  4 cups icing sugar, 3 Tb. Meringue Powder, 9-10 Tb. water (room temperature).  I beat this on high speed for close to 2 minutes.

 

 

When decorating, it is important to get the right consistency with the icing, and really, this takes time.  Again, there are plenty of videos you can watch online.  Really, it is about trial and error (and side note: being careful with the fact that it is not always going to turn out the way you want it to).  With this icing, I was concerned right away that it was too thin.  I added 1/2 cup of icing sugar, and thought I would adjust the texture once I had mixed in the food coloring.  Great plan, except that I forgot that! ;)

I started by separating the icing into four bowls:  white, pink, purple, and red.  I must admit that I was not happy with the colours, and I quickly realized that I was going to have to let go of my expectations for the colour.  I have been using gel food colouring, but did not have the range of colours I needed.  This is where I should add that I had been watching a lot of videos on decorating cookies.  Let's just say that the designs do depend on good colours.  That said, I did a shift in my expectations and kept going.

 

 I did pick up these disposable bags, that are also called, "Tipless Bags", meaning that you do not need a specific icing tip in the bag.  I love this idea!  Basically, you just cut the tip when you are ready to ice.  It is important to cut a very small amount.  I found these at Scoop 'n Save Cake Decorating Supplies in Kamloops, BC., but you can order from them online, too.  The staff are super helpful, too.  One question I had was if you could use the same bag of icing for both the outline of the cookie and the fill.  When watching videos, it was hard to tell.  The answer was yes. You simply apply more pressure to fill in the cookie.

 

Okay, so remember at the beginning when I talked about expectations?  These were my first cookies to make. I had some specific ideas and expectations, and my reality did not meet my expectation in any way.  For one of the cookies above, I had used a technique I had seen online, where you gently drop the cookie on the flat surface so the icing sinks in a bit.  What happened?  My cookie broke! Ha! Again, remember that there is always a back story.  I love to take photos. Some of my photos turn out well.  Hundreds do not.  Perspective.
 

 

This is one tool that is worth picking up.  Once you apply the icing, sometimes there are small gaps or bubbles. This little tool is used to move the icing around. You could also use a toothpick.  Firstly, I outlined the shape of the cookie; then I filled in the icing, using the same bag.  As I mentioned, I forgot that I was going to check the consistency of the icing.  However, for the white icing, I did remember, and I added a bit of water at a time, until I had the right consistency. This made a real difference, and next time, I hope I do that for the coloured icing. too.

 

Here is a good example of white icing that is the right consistency.  You can tell because once secondary icing is applied (onto the wet white icing), it sinks into the icing instead of staying on top, raised.  This is an easy technique for decorating:  applying dots to the wet icing, then taking that same tool and moving through the dots to create hearts.
 

Finished cookie (wet)

Finished cookie (dry) - you can see that the coloured icing is on the same level as the white icing.  It is good to let the cookies dry for about 8 hours.

 

This was a fun technique to try:  I simply piped larger dots of the coloured icing and then used a spreader to push the icing down (dragging it toward the bottom of the cookie).  I did this one line at a time.  I will do this again.

This cookie looks like it is black, but it is actually purple.  If you look closely, you can see that the purple icing is not completely flat. This is because it was a bit too thick.  I did have some fun with some free style hearts, and finished it by piping dots around the edge of the heart and then moving the tool through them to create a heart effect.

Again, very free-style.  This technique of piping on top of wet icing was totally new to me, and one I will try again.  I love that the hearts are flat and not raised.

Same thing here with this cookie:  the icing was a bit too thick.  I do like the simple design, though :)

Just remember that videos that you watch online make things look so much simpler!

Using the dots and heart technique

Revisiting one that definitely did not meet my expectations...this looks more like a Captain America shield then a heart, but that is okay, right?  ;)

Thank you for coming on my cookie decorating journey with me.  Believe it or not, I had fun, but I still had to keep aware of my self-talk, manage expectations, and be creative.  Remember, there is always a back story ;)