I have found a new love- cookie decorating. While I enjoy decorating cakes and making fondant decorations and toppers, I do not get much of an opportunity to do so, since there are only as many birthdays of friends’ kids in a year. And decorating a cake with all the shenanigans and sending it to V’s office will just be a tad bit over the top. Even for me.
Cookie decorating, on the other hand, is great. I can try different techniques, steady my hand with piping and cookies are always fun to eat. Perfect portion control. Unless you go for seconds or thirds, like I did with these cookies.
Since Disney’s The Pirate Fairy (on Blu-ray™ and Digital HD) is available on April 1st, I thought it would be fun to do Tinker Bell inspired cookies. I was a big Peter Pan fan when I was a kid and it seemed a fun idea to draw a childhood favorite on a cookie.
This was my first attempt painting on a cookie. The Holi and St. Patrick’s Day cookies I made, were decorated completely with royal icing.
For these Tinker Bell cookies, I first used 10 second flood icing to coat the chocolate cookies with white royal icing, letting the icing dry overnight. Once the white icing was completely dry, I traced the design on the cookie and then painted keeping the traced outline as a guide. I do not have many edible colors but was able to manage with the colors I have.
USEFUL LINKS ON COOKIE DECORATING:
- If you need help on royal icing consistencies, this post by Sweetopia is very helpful.
- Also, like me, if you do not own a Kopykake, this tutorial by Cookies with character is wonderful. Or you could use your iPad like Klickitat Street does.
- 1 cup (225 gms) butter, softened
- 1½ cup (340 gms) sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ tsp salt
- Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt in a bowl.
- Cream the butter and sugar on medium speed till light and fluffy. Keep scraping the bowl in between.
- Add the eggs, one at a time beating till just combined, scraping the bowl as required. Add in vanilla and mix until thoroughly blended.
- Add the sifted flour cocoa mix 1 cup at a time. Scrape the bowl after adding each cup of flour. Mix until just incorporated, making sure you do not overmix or the resultant cookies will be tough.
- Divide the dough into two equal portions and cling wrap. refrigerate for 30 minutes, or till dough firms up. Its easier to roll cookies out that way.
- Once the dough is firm, roll it out to desired thickness and cut in desired shapes. After rolling the dough out I chill the dough in the freezer for 15 minutes before stamping out the shapes. I find that the cookies hold their shape better while stamping and transferring to cookie sheet this way.
- Bake in a preheated 350 F oven for 8-10 minutes, or until indentation is made when touched. Mine took slightly longer since I made them thicker.
- Decorate as you like.
Disclaimer: While this post is sponsored by the Disney’s The Pirate Fairy “Five To Follow” campaign, the opinions expressed in this post are entirely my own.