Batch 2: Flower Sugar Cookie Favors

 

 

When I started decorating these cookies for my sister-in-law’s bridal shower, I had a great source of inspiration.  See, the bride’s sister is a graphic designer and had created a lovely invitation.  My goal was for the cookies to resemble the flowers on the invitation.  Isn't that a gorgeous invite?

 

 

Rolling and cutting the dough was a breeze with this batch.  We were blessed with a cool spell on the weekend when I planned to bake all these cookies.  The temperature was about 15 degrees below average, and it created the perfect dough-rolling conditions.  Given the large number of cookies I was making, I baked most of them ahead of time so that, in the final days before the shower, I could focus exclusively on decorating.  The cookies were wrapped and frozen for about a week before decorating, and I didn’t notice any impact on the taste or texture.  (You can also freeze the dough before rolling and baking.  I’ve done this many times).
 

 

I must say, I was pretty delighted with how closely my icing colors matched the invitation.  I created three colors of piping icing (white, fuchsia, purple) and four colors of flood icing (fuchsia, light pink, purple, lavender).  To keep all these colors in the same family, I started with a single base of fuchsia piping icing.  Once I was satisfied with the fuchsia base, I separated it into four airtight containers.  To these containers, I added enough violet food coloring and/or white piping icing to reach the other desired hues.  This method produced a set of colors that remained cohesive despite the different shades.  Admittedly, this process takes some patience.  Several times, my husband strolled into the kitchen to find me holding a bowl of icing next to the bridal shower invitation, in an attempt to determine if I had gotten the color just right.  By the way, if you’re trying to mix a fuchsia icing, I found that combining Wilton pink, Wilton violet, and just a drop or so of Americolor Super Red worked well for me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All told, I cut and decorated about 130 cookies for the shower.  110 of those looked cute enough to become bridal shower favors.  The other 20 failed quality control and became taste test samples.  I think taste testing is my husband’s favorite part of my baking hobby.  Every time he hears me mutter, “oh, shoot!” he materializes in the kitchen, hovering over my shoulder to see if there are any so called "ugly duckling" cookies he’s allowed to eat.  Honestly, I ate a fair number of them too.   (I would have pictures of these ugly ducklings for you, except, well, we ate them all).    

  

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the shower because of the long distance.  However, it turns out that sugar cookies are relatively easy to ship, so long as they are packed well.  Of the 110 cookies that were shipped from New Jersey to California, only about six of them arrived broken.  The broken cookies were primarily on the bottom of the package.   

 

This is what I used:

• Flower-shaped cookie cutter
• 5 batches of sugar cookies
• 1.5 batches of royal icing, which made:
• 3 colors of piping icing (white, fuchsia, purple)
• 4 colors of flood icing (fuchsia, light pink, purple, lavender)
• Assorted sprinkles

 

This is what I learned:

1). Make a large enough batch of royal icing.  Did you notice that I baked 5 batches of cookies, yet only 1.5 batches of icing?  Yeah, that was crazy.  There was a serious icing shortage as I decorated the last dozen and I had to resort to rationing flood icing.   

2). Before you start decorating, plan where you’ll leave the cookies to dry.  Midway through decorating, I discovered that our kitchen is not nearly large enough to dry 5 batches of cookies at once.  I had cookies drying on every conceivable surface in our apartment.  Even on the living room couch, which was a bit weird (don’t worry – they were on platters).   

3). When piping, keep the tip as close to the cookie as possible. This gives me more control over the icing, so my lines look neater.    

4). If your home is prone to ants, decorate with caution.  Luckily, I’ve never seen a single ant in our apartment.  But I was wiping up sprinkles for days after making this set of cookies. It felt like walking through Candy Land.  

5). If you’re going to bake 5 batches of cookies, you may want to have more than two cookie sheets.  Really, having a second oven would be fantastic.  But for now, I’ll settle for more cookie sheets.