Wednesday, September 11, 2013

M-I-C-K-E-Y

I am a little bit late in writing this post, but I guess better late than never!

I recently made Mickey and Minnie Mouse cookies for a friend's daughter's first birthday.  I wanted to do a simple cookie, since I knew I would have a small window in which I could make them. 

Of course you always start with baking the cookies.

Done!

Then I decided I wanted to do half fondant and half royal icing.  I thought the ears would look best with black fondant.  Black is just not an easy color to work with no matter what.  The first step was to die the fondant black.  I took a chunk of fondant, added a few drops of black coloring, and needed it until the color was even.  You may also need to keep add more color until you have reached your desired shade.  This is also a very messy and sticky process.  I usually use gloves as well as powdered sugar to keep it from sticking to my fingers.

Once I reached my desired color, I rolled out my fondant with a little bit of powdered sugar.  As you can see I used a little too much powdered sugar, but you can always clean it off in the end.  (lightly wipe fondant with a damp paper towel)

 I took my Mickey cookie cutter and proceeded to cut out Mickey heads.  Since I was only using the ears, I sliced off the bottom half off the cut out.  Obviously you can use the whole cut out if you choose to.

Once I had cut out my fondant piece I brushed a small amount of corn syrup onto the cookie and place the cut out on top.  Make sure all the edges are down and smooth.  Don't press too hard.


Fondant, Black coloring and Corn Syrup

Brush with Corn Syrup and my glove as well as rolling pin.





Once I got all the ears done I moved onto the bottom half.  I did all the Mickey cookies first, followed by the Minnie cookies.


Cookie ready for Royal Icing!

Mickey red added to cookie.

Mickey Cookies done with red.



Mickey and Minnie cookies!
For the Minnie cookies, I had to add the white dots while the pink was wet, so it would flatten into the icing.  If you want the polka dots to be on top of the icing, than you need to wait until the pink is completely dry.  




 Once the Mickey cookies were completely dry I added the white dots to complete Mickey!



The last thing that was missing was Minnie's bows.  I printed out a sheet of Minnie bows, the size that would fit the cookie perfectly.  This took a few tries to get the size right.


I covered the sheet with a piece of wax paper, making sure to tape it down, so it wouldn't move around while I was trying to trace.  I then proceeded to trace all of the bows.


 I waited until the outline was pretty dry before filling them in.




Once they were completely dry (at least 24 hours) I cut them out and pulled them off the wax paper.  This needs to be done extremely carefully because royal icing transfers can break easily.  It is always smart to make some extra!


I added a bit of pink icing to the back of the royal icing transfer and placed it carefully onto Minnie's head.

Back of transfer.
The following pictures are the completed cookies!!







Once the cookies were completely dry, I put them in baggies, tied my usual ribbon on top, added my LuckyTreats sticker and voila!



Happy Baking!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The Dark Side of Cookies.

I am starting a new job on Wednesday, June 5th and I wanted to bring some first day cookies to my boss.  I know he is a Star Wars fan, so I thought these would be perfect.

I borrowed the cookie cutters from my sister in law, whose son happens to love Star Wars as well.  I decided to just make some Darth Vader and Storm Trooper cookies.  I wasn't sure how I was going to manage the Vader cookies.  Black icing is a bit tough.



 I attempted to cover the Darth Vader cookies with black royal icing, but getting the details of the face was turning out to be very tricky.  So, I thought the best solution would be to roll out some fondant!

I dyed some fondant black, rolled it out and cut away.

Cut out of black fondant.
Once you cut out the fondant, you brush the back with water and press it onto the cookie.  Be careful to only really press the edges, so you don't mess up the details on the face.

I decided to do the same technique for the Storm Trooper cookies.

Fondant rolled and cookie cutter pressed in.

Cookie cutter lifted away.
Water brushed on back of fondant cut out.

Cookie placed on top of fondant.

Flip over cookie!

Pressed the edged on so that you are sure the fondant is secure.
After I got all the fondant on all the cookies, I had to add the details of the Storm Troopers.  I used my black royal icing, and VERY carefully started filling in the features.


Completed cookie!



These cookies are a bit time consuming and now that I have done them once, I can see some short cuts I can take next time.






May the Force Be With You!