Owl Cookies

I have a thing for owls. A few people do, it seems. And I've been wanting to do a set of owl cookies (again) for a while. But then it was school holidays, and it's really tricky to find creative head-space when there are yells for mom's attention every 5 minutes.
So, I did these on Tuesday - the kids first day back at school.  It felt very self-indulgent. And such fun!

This is how you create the owl shape for these cookies:

(Basic Butter cookie recipe here)

Bake, allow to cool, then decorate.

Here's a walk-through of one of the techniques (inspired by images of Jill FCS's cookies)

Outline and flood wings using 15sec consistency royal icing

Allow to dry for 20-60min. (The icing won't dry completely in this time period, but it "set's" enough for there to be a textural distinction between this area and the adjacent area which will be flooded next. The time that it takes depends very much on the ambient humidity. See these posts on humidity and royal icing:
 http://teacakeandcreate.blogspot.com/2012/08/humidity-and-royal-icing.html
http://teacakeandcreate.blogspot.com/2013/02/humidity-and-royal-icing-re-cap.html
http://teacakeandcreate.blogspot.com/2012/10/cloudy-with-rain.html
....yes, there's a few of them. It's an issue, ok?!!

: )

Outline and flood the body.

Pipe dots onto wet background (wet-on-wet).

Take a toothpick and drag from the centre of the icing upwards to create the teardrop shape.

Allow to dry 20-60min.

Outline and flood the top of the owl. 

Allow to dry for 20-60min.

Pipe on eyes - white, followed by a coloured round

then black and a white "twinkle".  All wet-on-wet.

Allow to dry for 20-60min.

Add beak and dots around the eyes.

 (The details on these other owls' tummies were done wet-on-dry):

Hope you're having an owl-fully good week ; )

xxM