Decorating cookies

[tgray99]

Hi all, I want to learn how to decorate cookies. I have an idea of what I want them to look like but I know that cake icing is not what should be used. I want the base icing to harden so I can add colorful icing as accents. Am I making any sense? Lemme see if I can find any pictures of what I'm talking about.

http://www.beau-coup.com/Pictures/personalized%20cookies/personalized_cake_cookies_200.jpg

This is the picture of the set of cookie cutters I bought. I plan on doing the princess crown and I love the picture of the decorated crown on the box.

http://a1412.g.akamai.net/7/1412/243/0080/image2.styleinamerica.com/wsecimgs/images/products/200608/0006/img87l.jpg

So, help!!!

TIA!

[apoppy]

You'll need to use royal icing to achieve the look you want.

Here is a link (http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=channel172011) to Martha Stewart's technique for decorating cookies in this manner. Good luck!

[katmg]

Hey T!

I've used Martha's technique for icing cookies. The problem I had with it was using a piping icing and a flood icing. The two ended up being two different colors because of having to thin out the flood icing. I was disappointed that I had dark outlines with much lighter insides on the cookies. I wonder if there could have been an in-between thickness of icing that would have let me use the same icing for both the outline of the cookie and the flooding.

IIRC, it took me freaking forever to do the cookies so this isn't a last minute project!

[ignutzz]

katmg you could probably add some extra coloring to the flood icing to get the deeper color you want.

[tgray99]

I was watching Recipe for Success yesterday on Food Network and it was on a cookie maker (www.beautifulcookies.com). They dipped the front of the cookies in the icing and then brushed off the excess before laying them down. I wonder if that would work so I wouldn't have to worry about the piping and the flooding. Their cookies were also thicker so they wouldn't break, I might try that too.

[SunnyAB]

I wonder what would happen if you heated the 'flood icing' just a bit, then piped it in??