Cookie Escapades...
~ Greetings Friends ~ Today was THE day....the day that I decorated cookies for the very first time. Yesterday, I made the dough, I used my cookie idol's recipe which you can find here: Sweet Sugar Belle's Basic Sugar Cookie recipe.
Baking the cookies were not without some hardship... my first batch spread... a lot. So, next batches I worked a lot more flour in and I paid attention to how it felt when I touched it. I looked for the the hints and tips Sweet Sugar Belle gave and the result was perfect cut sugar cookies. I let them "dry out" for 24 hours so that the butter would not leech into the cookies once decorated.
Today dawned... and I hit the elliptical for my 30 minute date...(ugh!) then I started in making the icing. Again I used my idol's recipe: Sweet Sugar Belle's Royal Icing Recipe
Making the icing was the easy part. Getting the correct consistency for piping, flooding and the 20-second icing (which in my research can be called 10-second 15-second, etc)...that is the tough part. But I watched the Sweet Sugar Belle's YouTube videos over and over and I took the plunge! Actually, I have been watching and reading for the past 6 weeks.
Here are the results....
Now... they aren't perfect. For instance my Love Birds...the accent piping is a little sloppy. On the Hot Lips, I didn't get a good disappearing lip line on the piped edge...but I did get a good seam line and highlights! Same goes on the SweetHearts, I didn't get a good disappearing piped line and my writing needs a little work. On the Dutch Tulips, I used the 20-second icing and I think it was too runny. The green was DEFINITELY too runny.
For a first try... I'm pretty happy. I have St. Paddy's day coming up...that's gonna be another time to practice before I have to do it for real.
All in all... I'm really tickled with myself at how well these turned out. I never, in a million years, thought I'd get these to look even this good. Again, not perfect, but not bad for a first go around!
I learned A LOT of lessons today and I think that means my St. Paddy's cookies might just be a bit better than these! We will see :)
Until next time... I'll be keeping my hands to work and my heart to God, while loving my neighbor as myself! Join me!
Love in stitches,
Vonna xxxx
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