Heart Valentine Cookie Tutorial

Here is another quick cookie tutorial I did. These cookies were for my daughter to give our for valentines as her favors. She has Dora valentines but I decided I did not want to do Dora face cookies cause lets be honest the 3/4 year-olds will not even care so I didn't want to put all that time into it. :)

These came together pretty fast. I tried these in two different orders and this way was FOR SURE easier. 

What I used:

• Heart shaped impression cookie cutter (I bought mine at Zurchers for .63 cents)
• Stiff icing in Pink
• Flood icing in red and hot pink
• Hot pink nonpareils

Using this cookie cutter gives you the guidelines, super easy.

 

Outline and fill in the middle hear with hot pink icing.

Pour on nonpareils candies to cover icing.

 Then hold cookie upside down so excess candies fall off.  I do this on a paper plate because you can easily bend plate to filter these little buggers back into their bottle.

 You can then immediately flood in the center heart or wait a while if you want. I did these two steps to 15 cookies then did the last step. I did not let them dry any longer.

I used a Wilton 101 tip to do the ribbon edge with stiff pink icing. remember that the wide edge of the tip needs to be on the cookie and the you use use a back forth motion to make the ribbon edge.

Once the edge was dry I used a spatula to move the cookie back on a pan to dry for a few hours or over night so that I did not mess up the ruffle edge by trying to pick it up with my hand. Don't do it, you will mess it up I promise!

After I let them dry over night I put them in bags sealed them and they are ready to be passes out at the valentines party!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Valentines - TMNT - Cookie tutorial

My son had TMNT valentines to give out this year and so I wanted to do cookie to go with as his favor. I have seen lots of TMNT cookies but wanted to just do a simple face and not the whole thing. Some other cookiers gave me ideas and I was just going to do it on a round cookie but then I saw this post on the Semi Sweet blog and knew I had to do heart TMNT's. 

I thought I would share my process this time.

What I used:

• Heart shape cookie cutter
• Flood icing in green, red, yellow, blue, purple and white
• Piping icing in black
• Black sugar peals 4mm
• Food coloring pen

First make your dough, roll, cut out heart cookies.

Find a picture of a turtle you want to use. I used my KopyKake to trace image of mask onto the cookie using a food coloring pen. I could have just done the icing onto the cookie while under the KK but I think it is faster to just trace onto the cookies then put all cookies on  a pan and then fill them there. Plus you don't have your KK running very long.  You could also cut out template of mask and trace onto cookie.

Outline and fill in the green parts of the face first. Put under a fan for a few minutes to dry. I was doing two dozen cookies, so I just did one step on all the cookies at a time by the time I was done with #24 I could do the next step to the first one and so on.

Next fill with mask with colors red, yellow, blue and purple.

Fill in the eyes with white.

Now here you could use black icing to make the eyes but I just used CK black sugar pearls.
Place in the candy eyes.

Put a dot of white on the black for the eye shine. Let dry for about 20 minutes.

Then pipe the details on with black piping icing.

Let the cookie dry completely for a few hours or over night. Bag and you are ready to go!

 

I made these early, sealed them and froze them.

Have a Cowabunga Valentines!

Carpel tunnel - A cookie problem!

***tutorial video added further down in the post***

Do any of you out there who ice cookies have the problem with your wrist and hand hurting after squeezing icing bags and bottles? I sure do. I am totally amazed by those cookiers out there that put out dozens and dozens of cookies a week! My hand would be gone!! I have the tendency to already have carpel tunnel with out doing cookies and then spend a few hours squeezing out icing and I have to have my husband give me a hand massage. Not that there is anything wrong with that! :)

A couple of years ago Sugarbelle shared a blog post from Created by Diane and I thought it was an awesome awesome idea. You can see that specific post here. 

The first time I tried this out was on a huge corporate order I did over a year ago of 200+ cookies. There was no way I wanted to flood all those cookies so I just dipped them instead and then added an icing image. It went fast. I think the bagging and tying the ribbons took longer! :)

 

I have used these technique numerous time to save time and my hand!

Last month I decided to take some pictures of the process and thought I would share with you what I have found to be helpful.

First you need to thin your icing out to about a 5 count flow. If you need to know about icing count you can see The Bearfoot Bakers post on doing that here. She covers a bunch of different counts of icing.

I am doing just white in this pictures because I was lazy and did not color my icing so I just airbrushed my cookies after I iced them to get the colors I wanted. :)

It would be best to let your icing stand for about 20 minutes after thinning so that you can let the air bubbles rise but if you are like me you are too impatient and so I try to force my bubbles out right after thinning by pounding them out!

I take my container and just drop or better yet pound it down onto my counter to force the air bubbles up to the top and out.

You can put a lid on the container and REALLY go for it. The lid will keep the icing in the container.

After you got out some frustrations you are ready to go.

I take my cookie and then dip the surface of the cookie into the frosting just until it is covered and then pull it up and shake down slightly to help get off the excess icing. (If you have too much icing on your cookie when you flip it back over onto your drying surface the icing could spill of the edge of your cookie.)

Then I just cut off the flow on the side of my container.

Then lay it on your pan to dry. In this pic you can see I have air bubbles which are the biggest con to this technique, this icing I did not pound out the bubbles prior to dipping. Not that pounding will get rid of all possible bubbles but it is much much better if you do.

I just take a toothpick and pop the bubbles.

The other problem you may have is something that can be totally avoided by having a smooth surface cookie. Here is a a cookie that you can see did not have a smooth surface which is cause by my laziness in rolling and cutting the cookies.
See how the icing did not cover the crack that was in my cookie.

Once again I just take a toothpick and work the icing over the crack and all is well.

These 43 cookies were covered in about 10-15 minutes. If I recall correctly and my hand was pain free.

One day I did these Sugarbelle pie minis and I think there were 112 of them. I wanted to get these done fast and it took me just under 20 minutes to have the base covered. I have no idea if that is slow or fast for any of you out there but it sure did save my hand from the squeezing pressure. I then went and took a shower and got ready for the day and then I was able to do the details on these mini pie slices.

A few days later I had to do another 100 or so of these minis and I did the same technique.

Here are the pro and cons

PRO
Saves time
Saves your hand from pain

CON
air-bubbles
coverage problem (if surface of cookie is not smooth)


If you need to see the dipping technique take a look at this youtube tutorial. Or click here to see it on YouTube.

Some people may not like the look of this technique but if you are wanting to get the icing clear to the edge of the cookie or a capped look this is a great way to achieve that. I rather like the look.

Here are just some of the cookies I have done this technique on for flooding my base.

      

  

This may not be for everyone but it is something that I love because it saves my hand and I hope to be able to make cookies for many more years! Hopefully this info will be helpful to someone out there in cyber land!

Firework Cookie (Tutorial)

Had to do some cookies and thought I would do something patriotic, since July will be here before I am ready. I turn 40 two days prior to the 4th and so this year July will come faster than I really want it to!

This is my first tutorial so forgive me if it is a little rough. These are simple to do. You can purchase a firework cookie cutter like this one or this one.

I did not have either of these but a leaf cutter will do just fine.

Here is the leaf cutter as you buy it.

All you have to do is just stretched it out a bit and voila! Don't worry just squeeze it back and you have your leaf again.

 Items needed:

• White, Red, Blue 10-12 icing (or any colors you want, black looks cool to, looks more like night fireworks)
• #2 tip
• firework cookie or round cookie
• toothpick or clean pin

Ring Version

1. outline cookie
2. flood cookie
3. use wet on wet technique immediately add center color
4. pipe red rings
5. pipe blue ring
6. place toothpick or pin in center of blue dots
7. drag from center out edge, continue around cookie to make bursting form

Then pick up cookie and tap firmly on table or counter to help icing to smooth back out. (I used Karen's meringue powder butter-cream icing on these and it was a little too thick, but I usually use  a cookie crazies glaze, you can see the modifications I do to the recipe's here.

Dot Version

Round cookie Version

Great cookies to share for your patriotic BBQ, picnic or gathering coming up soon!