This past week, I was invited to participate in an exceptionally fun and inspiring cookie decorating class at a friend’s home. I thought I would share it with you for today’s post!
My friend, Nancy is an architect by training and fell into the hobby of creating colorfully designed homemade cookies rather organically about two years ago. A friend of hers needed help creating 400 cookies for an event sponsored by the New England Hemophilia Association, an organization with which they are both involved. Nancy was so enamored with the creative process that she describes herself as becoming obsessed with the acquisition of tools and materials, the study of icing techniques online and the hard work of designing custom cookies for events happening in her personal life. Sorry all, she is not available for hire – this is strictly a hobby.
Suddenly, Nancy was creating cookies of all shapes and sizes. 2018 started with cookies shaped like champagne flutes, party hats and stars. Tennis balls and inspirational tennis quotes were created for her tennis team. Patriots logo, footballs and end-zone cookies for the Super Bowl. Masters jackets, golf balls and the state of Georgia to thank a lucky family. The creativity is off the charts!
And she very kindly hosted a few of us at her home to teach us some of the challenging techniques required to create designer Valentine cookies of our own.
She couldn’t have made it any easier for us, completing all of the heavy lifting before we arrived, cookie sheets and aprons in hand.
Mood board with lots of Valentine inspired decorating ideas. Some of these are her personal designs…
Ahead of time, Nancy made both “stiff” and “flood consistency” royal icing that she tinted in red, white, pink, green and black for us to use on our cookies. The icing was flavored with Fiori di Sicilia which has a flavor of vanilla combined with citrus – yummy. There are several icing consistencies that can be used on these types of cookies. The stiff icing is used for outlining and writing. The flood consistency is used for applying a very smooth, thin layer of icing onto a cookie once it has been outlined. Nancy clips them with yellow or red to note the consistency in the bag. She also places the bags in glass containers that have a slightly damp paper towel in them to keep the tip of the bag hydrated so the frosting doesn’t dry out…
Nancy also made dozens of her sugar cookies, some of which may have been consumed during our decorating session! They too were delicious with just a hint of almond extract…
Nancy pre-flooded some of the cookies with white royal icing so that we could easily write or decorate them using the stiff icing…
sprinkles and little flowers, hearts and eyeballs that she has made with leftover icing – amazing…
We each had a set up of a large cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silpat, plus a damp paper towel to wipe the tips of the piping bags (or the cookies with any mistakes), plus a scribe tool. We were all excited and a little nervous to begin our designs, but once we got the hang of things we had such a good time and wanted to keep trying new ideas and techniques. We all found it quite calming actually! Nancy assured us that all the cookies would look great at the end of the evening…
On our cookies, you will see outlining and flooding techniques, and wet-on-wet techniques. The wet on wet allows you to create the fun hearts, stripes and marbling you see on the cookies. Nancy was incredibly patient with us and a wonderful, encouraging teacher and as she said, at the end of the evening we thought the cookies looked pretty good…
These are mine…
Thankfully, they all got home safely and the best part is they just sit out overnight to make sure the icing hardens. The icing works to seal in the freshness of the cookie evidently!
There are so many online sources for you to learn how to make these types of cookies. We all got really inspired!
Big, big thank you to my friend, Nancy for this fun evening.
PS – Nancy is a tireless volunteer for the New England Hemophilia Association and currently serves as its President. If you’d like to learn more about NEHA and the work they are doing, you can click here.
And since today is Valentine’s Day (one of my favorite holidays because it starts with Val!), here is a recap of the chocolate recipes from my blog because what is Valentine’s Day without a little chocolate?!!!
Glazed Chocolate Cake (add some flaked salt!)
Espresso Chocolate Mousse Cups
Salted Chocolate Caramel Brownies
Until next time…
What a fun night! Thank you Nancy for sharing your talent with us and thank you Val for this post…your cookies are beautiful!
Happy VALentine’s Day. What a fun get together and beautiful cookies too!