Royal Follow-up

I thought it would be good to kind of summarize yesterday's theories, and to put up a few photos of pretty cookies to make up for the ugly ones from yesterday.

So, here's what we came up with.  Overall, I am leaning toward overbeating as the cause of my mishap.

However, a few other common denominators of this kind of disaster are:

  • excessive amounts of icing color, particularly red, black, and browns
  • inadvertently contaminating the icing with oil
  • humidity {I have thought this before, BUT it was not a factor in this instance}
I also had a few other interesting suggestions that I think apply:
I didn't quite give you an exact answer, but there is definitely some good information here.

I also really like {THIS ARTICLE} by Sweetopia and {THIS ARTICLE} by Bake at 350...both are filled with great tips and info.

And since you had to look at my disappointing Union Jack photos yesterday, I have some nicer ones today.

PS-To further perplex everyone, tonight when I came home, I checked to reject cookies {still sitting where I'd left them after taking photos, LOL, AND they were UGLY, but dry!  What the heck?!

Oh well, the world may never know.  In the meantime, enjoy some photos from my archives =)



· animal, Baby shower, barnyard, batman, farm, masquerade, Superhero, Texas Tech

Special Delivery

Have you seen this beautiful baby shower collection from The Celebration Shoppe?  It is called Special Delivery, and I adore it!


It's soft and sweet, yet neutral enough that it's great for a girl or a boy.  And the best part is the cute little animals are the perfect inspiration for cookies.

This little hippo cookie is so cute, and so very easy to make with cutters you might already own!


Here's how I did it.

First, I took an inexpensive owl cutter that I bought at Halloween and altered it just a little bit.  All it took was a little pull and it went from an owl cutter to a hippo!

Next, I cut them out and baked them.


You might have notice that there are two little points under the hippos chin...these didn't bother me much, but if you don't like them, simply trim them with a paring knife =)


When the baking is complete you are all set to go. 

To make these cookies you will need:
  • piping consistency icing in light purple and white
  • flood consistency icing in light purple, white, and dark purple
  • 4mm black candy beads
  • tweezers
For tips on preparing your icing click {here}


First, use your piping icing to outline your cookie. White for the lower section, light purple for the top, as pictured below.


Next, fill in the lower portion of the face.


Immediately afterward, add the nostrils using the darker purple flood icing.  Let this step dry, at LEAST for an hour.


 The next step is to fill in the top portion of the face with light purple flood icing.  Be SURE you have given the bottom portion time to dry.  If you don't, the two colors will run together and make a mess!


Immediately after this step, use tweezers to drop on the candy beads, which will be the hippo's eyes.

You can use black royal icing for this, however, it does tend to bleed.  Using the beads saves the trouble of mixing and bagging yet another color of icing, AND eliminates the bleeding problem.

It is also easy to correct a mistake.  If you drop the eye into the wrong position, use a toothpick to push it into place, or pick it up with the tweezers and try again!


Once all of these steps have been completed, let them dry for 8 hours or more, and you will have perfectly pretty purple hippos to coordinate with the Special Delivery Collection from The Celebration Shoppe.


If you would like you learn how to make these storks, head on over to The Celebration Shoppe blog for a full tutorial!  Just click on the photo above!


Happy Decorating!

· Baby shower, hippo, stork, The Celebration Shoppe, Tutorial

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