Back to School Cookies

Back to school this week - and I'll say it without an ounce of maternal guilt: at-friggin-last!
I love my children, but 6 weeks of having them at home has done my head in. I don't even mind having the morning rush again - because it means sanity will follow for a few hours!

So, I truly am celebrating "Back2School" with these cookies!

I need quiet and calm to be creative, so I want to tell you, it was no easy feat decorating these cookies during the holidays with constant calls to (mom) duty. But somehow I managed. I did not manage to take any work-in-progress pic's though, so my only offering is a something you probably already know and do; but here it is anyway:

Don't throw away your left over royal icing, freeze it until you need that colour, or alternatively mix it all together when you need black. Purples are especially easy to turn to black with the addition of a bit of super black gel. 

Make sure that the container you freeze the icing in is air-tight.
It takes about an hour to thaw.
And if it does develop a crust around the edge, just scoop out the soft icing from the centre, discard the rest.

That's my bit.
I have to go rest my head.

Happy decorating!

xxM

Winter Wonderland Cookies

If you've been holding your breath waiting for a new recipe from me, you'd be a not-so-pretty shade of blue by now. Sorry! I have several in the pipeline, but they're either needing a recipe tweak or better photos. (Perfectionist, what me? Noooo!)


So, instead I'll just entertain you with some (pretty shade of blue) pictures from our last set of classes:

Winter Wonderland Cookies. 

The blue is a touch of turquoise gel-colour; and the lilac is a hint electric purple, and a smidgeon of violet gel-colour mixed into white royal icing.
Both colours mature quite dramatically - so mix the night before; leave them a shade lighter than what you want, and they should be perfect the next day.

The penguin was inspired by Glorious Treats. Follow the link to see a tutorial on how to pipe similar penguins.

The polar bear is inspired by SweetSugarBelle. If you follow that link, you'll see how Callye used a frog cookie cutter to create the bear's face. I didn't have one, or anything similar. So, I used an artist palette cookie cutter, and cut little V's out the side of the face with the tip of the snowflake cutter - which I was already using in this set of cookies. Convenient!

Final word - remember to colour your white icing white - really! To get that clean, crisp white add Bright White gel-colour to your royal icing. 

Time to go work on some recipes.  Anyone keen to taste-test? 

; )

xxM