All You Need is Love

For the better part of this week, I’ve been day dreaming and working on a set of cookies for Pinay In Texas Cooking Corner’s online bake sale to raise funds for the relief effort in the Philippines in the wake of the recent typhoon. There are a lot of amazing goodies up for grabs from a number of amazing bloggers! If you’re interested in bidding on any of the treats (including this set of 12 cookies I’m donating to the bake sale), bidding opens on Monday, November 25th. And for those of you who aren’t interested in bidding, it would still mean the world to all of us bakers if you could help us spread the word and make this bake sale a success! That being said, who wants to learn how to design and paint your own “love”-ly set of cookies?!

All You Need is Love Cookies
Yields 12 cookies

12 sugar cookies, preferably 6 large and 6 small
A batch of royal icing
White and black food gel coloring
A wooden skewer or toothpick
A fine brush

So rather than just showing you guys how to make this specific set, I’d like to talk about how I paint cookies in general. I like to start by finding or making a design. I’ve been wanting to do a chalkboard art inspired cookies ever since I saw chalkboard art on Pinterest, and this auction was  the perfect excuse to do it! I found gobs of designs online, I really wanted to make my own. To make my designs, I used an online program called picmonkey. You can, of course, draw the design by hand, but I like to work something up on my computer first so that I can quickly flip through fonts and images.

Once I have a design, whether it’s one I’ve created or one I’ve found, I like to draw it by hand before I ever step near a cookie. In all honesty, I’m not much of an artist. If there’s anything I can do, it’s lettering, but outside of that, things can get a little sketchy for me. Therefore, I like to take a few practice runs with my designs before I apply them to cookies. Once I’m satisfied with the design and my ability to draw it, it’s time to move on to the cookies!

To start, you want to make your cookies, and pipe and flood them with royal icing. For this set, I used my pumpkin spice sugar cookie recipe for the cookies, and piped and flooded them with black royal icing. Make sure you let your royal icing dry over night before “painting” them! Because the food gel and water are very wet, the royal icing coloring can bleed into what you’re painting if the royal icing hasn’t completely dried.

Once the royal icing has dried, you can start applying your design to the cookies! But before I go into detail about that, I have to give Sweetiedoodle a big thank you for suggesting I “paint” directly on the cookies with slightly watered-down food gel coloring. For this set, I used white food coloring with a few drops of water to keep it from drying out. Starting at the top of the cookies, I used a wooden skewer to apply the design with the food coloring. You can also use a fine brush to “paint” the design onto the cookies, but I found I had less control, at least with the brushes I have, so I opted for something a little more rigid. Keep in mind that if you’re using a wooden skewer or a toothpick, you’ll have to frequently get more food coloring on it. Then it’s just a matter of applying your design. I’m afraid I didn’t use any special techniques or tricks, just a wooden skewer dipped in food coloring and a lot of patience.

Happy baking!