Cookies!

So, at the end of last year I offered up a couple dozen decorated cookies in an auction my office was conducting to raise money for the Empty Stocking Fund.  Great cause and we raised a ton of $$!

Anyway...the winners of my auction item came calling a few weeks ago.  They wanted me to create some decorated heart cookies for their daughter's first birthday celebration.  Pink and Orange were the colors.  So...off to working on their request I went.

First off, I had a bad experience this year at Christmastime with my old cookie press, so I took my happy self off to Amazon.com to buy another.  Boy am I happy with it.  No more threading and trying to get the thing in the perfect spot to start gunning away.  This puppy just takes off from the get go and makes some great looking cookies.  You can find the press I bought HERE.

Second, I was off to find another spritz cookie recipe.  I really love my old recipe, but it was time for a new one.  I searched until I found one that fit the bill.  Here is my new recipe, Lemon Butter Spritz Cookies from Taste of Home.  They are light, a little lemony, perfect crumble.  LOVE it.

So, then came the decorating part.  How did I want to do it?  I tried one batch using an abstract method of drizzling bright pink and orange over light pink cookies.  Didn't like it....ditch it.

Next I thought, I'll make up some royal icing* and outline the cookie in white.  Then I colored some thinned out royal icing bright pink and some of it orange.  I thinned a bit more white and off I went to fill them in.  I used a skewer to swirl the icing and VOILA, a masterpiece is born.

I think the recipients of these cookies are going to LOVE them.  I know I do and they're super tasty too.



*  For my royal icing, I used 2 1/2 cups plus 2 Tbs of sifted confectioners sugar and 1 1/2 Tbs of meringue powder, 1 tsp of lemon extract and 5 Tbs of cool water.  I beat it with my hand mixer on medium low for about 5 min and then on high for another 5 min.  You want a nice peak on the icing.  I put some of that in a piping bag with a small round tip and piped the outline on the cookies.  For the rest of the icing that I used to flood the cookies, I added another 1 1/2 Tbs of water and beat it again until smooth.  I spooned about 5 Tbs into two separate bowls and tinted to the color I wanted.   I used an Ateco color for the pink and Wilton for the orange.  I then put that icing into two squeeze bottles which I think are easier to work with when flooding cookies.