Friday, March 27, 2015

Easy 3-D Easter Basket Cookies

It wasn't until I was almost finished with these designs that I realized I should have taken photos along the way. Hopefully the very short mini tutorial at the bottom will help somewhat. 



3-D Easter Baskets using colored cookie dough as well as chocolate cookie dough.
I wanted these to be easy and quick, and since I already had the bows and edible lace left over from other projects they were.



Oval basket with a Twizzler handle and fabric bow.



Round basket with a Twizzler handle and edible lace bow.



Oval chocolate basket with a chocolate Twizzler handle and fabric bow. The doily is edible lace.




To make the round basket you'll only need one of these scalloped round cutters, but to make the oval baskets you will need two.
These happen to be made by Wilton.



To make the oval basket you will need to stretch the two round cutters using different stretching points as shown by the arrows in the above photo.




When you stack them they should look like this. The scallops should alternate evenly.




The Twizzlers candy already have a hole in them so I just used a lollipop stick to secure them into a handle shape.
I added the holes to the top cookie before baking using a soda straw.
The bottom cookie does not have the center cut out so it will hold little candies.
You could add mini decorated Easter cookies to these as well, but that would take the "easy" out of them.

♥ Happy Decorating ♥

Monday, March 2, 2015

Edible Mad Hatter 3-D Hat Cookies

I fell in love with all those decorated little Mad Hatter type top hats that came out a few years ago as head bands, hair clips and even Christmas tree ornaments.

Those hats have been on my make-it-into-a-cookie list for years, and since I've taken some much needed time away from my forever ongoing home renovation I decided to see if I could translate one into a cookie. And because the design side of my brain never shuts down I couldn't stop with just one.


The upper part of the hat was easy to figure out compared to finding a way to cover the whole thing with an even coat of icing and getting the brim to have a nice flared edge on either side. I know I could have just used a flat round cookie, but my sense of design demanded that it not look like a giant push-pin.




This is my fancy Mad Hatter/St. Patrick's day hat. My very first finished 3-D cookie hat.
The embellishments are 24 karat (supposedly edible) gold brushed on molded fondant pieces.
They can be popped off before eating the cookie however.




Molded white and black fondant along with edible gold were used to make the decorative shapes.
This photo shows some of the pieces before and after painting.




This was actually my second completed hat, but the first photo I posted to other sites.
The basic composition of this top hat is the same, but instead of colored sugar all over I used a patterned sugar sheet by Wilton. Finishing the hat using this method has a lot more visual impact, but adhering the icing sheet takes more time and care.
The flowers are fondant and the heart is a made of sugar pearls and dragees.




The underside of the finished hat, brushed with icing and sprinkled with colored sugar.
Inside I just brushed on 2 coats of black icing without the added colored sugar.
All of the hats are hollow, and as long as the decorations don't extend over the top, they can be turned over and filled with candy etc. as an extra treat.




Front view of another design. The cameo broach is made of fondant, sugar pearls and dragees.




The broach and edible lace are made up ahead of time to facilitate decorating.




Close-up of the edible lace detail. I used a product called Sugar Dress to make the lace as I needed it to stay pliable.  The jeweled flower is fondant with a sugar pearl and dragee center.




Two extra designs using less rings, and shaping the top to give them their iconic cowboy look.
The accents are fondant and edible wafer paper.


As you can see, there are a variety of ways to shape and finish these hats so they can suit any number of occasions. I have other 3-D hat designs in the works including a baseball cap, graduation hat, witch's hat, and fingers crossed, a pirate hat, which is proving to be quite challenging.


♥ Happy Decorating ♥