Peacock Feather Cookie Tutorial

I recently had the opportunity to create a set of peacock feather cookies for my step-daughter's wedding. I've wanted to try my hand at these for ages, and thought it would be a doddle. Lovely colours, lots of lustre dust.

Wrapped Parcels: Valentine's Day Cookies for a Man

Not very long ago, I asked my husband Martin to bring two chocolate biscuits back with him from the kitchen. He brought oranges. Quite apart from being a completely unacceptable substitute, just what on earth was he trying to tell me? I eat too many cookies? I should eat more fruit? He'd eaten the biscuits really quickly in the kitchen so he wouldn't have to share them with me? This was very dangerous territory, so close to Valentine's Day.

Conversation with a Bee. A Midsummer Night's Dream Gingerbread Stage Set and Video

You know that scene in A Midsummer Night's Dream where Titania gets bored of the donkey and goes off to gossip with a bee? No? Understandable. It's a little known deleted scene from the play*, but having a bee in my bonnet about such things, when I was invited by Bella Baking to participate in a Midsummer Night's Dream sugarcraft collaboration, I jumped at the opportunity. Originally the idea was to reveal our work on Midsummer's Eve, but the project was picked up by Cake Masters magazine for publication in September or October (which is how I got caught out and hadn't written this post, or edited the video when the feature was published!), so we've held on to our work for quite some time!

*This is of course a load of rubbish

My first thought was to turn to Arthur Rackham's illustrations for the play. I knew I wanted to create something gnarly and natural, but what really caught my eye was this gorgeous little bumble bee painting. I knew he had to feature, and somehow he became the centrepiece, with everything else, including Titania, merely suggestive of the play.

So I knew I wanted to create lots of naturalistic handpainted elements, with a gnarled background, but that wasn't enough. I wanted to be able to convey the warm twilight of Midsummer's night, using a tiny metallic thread of LED lights I have. I had my backdrop, my lighting, I simply needed to add the rest of the stage set...

I began with a six inch square of gingerbread, microplaned after baking for perfectly straight edges. The side pieces I created by eye, out of a second six inch slab of gingerbread, using a scalpel, and a straw to create the gaps.

I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to hold up my side pieces, whilst keeping the sides free for the lighting, but in the end, I made dozens of tiny 'buttons' of gingerbread, figuring I'd stack them up with royal icing glue to make colums. I knew there was going to be fiddling and adjusting - this was not a technically accurate piece of work!

The royal icing elements I piped, again by eye, in white icing, directly onto a sheet of acetate. I piped lots of little heads, and whole bodies, so that I could choose the best. I had pictures of mushrooms and bees (inluding Rackham's illustration, above) to reference.

I handpainted all the transfer pieces once fully dry (after a couple of days) and whilst still attached to the acetate, and allowed the paint to fully dry before attempting to detach them (a tricky business as the acetate was quite stiff - I have since used much thinner cellophane, taped to card, to do this, and once the tape is cut, the flexibility of the thin cellophane makes removing the pieces much easier). I used the same handpainting technique as I demonstrate here in my Christmas Robin video.

Several heads were painted and attached to the stage side pieces, whilst I chose the smallest most delicate fairy for Titania. I barely painted her as I felt she might end up a little clumsy. Her wings I flipped over when they were dry, and used the smooth base as the upper side, and I added just a few sprays of dots above her head to imply some form of headress, seeing as she's meant to be a Queen.

I coated all the base and side pieces in stiff white icing with an offset palette knife - this was trickier than it sounds, due to all the fiddly shapes, and getting the icing to be rough in just the right places and directions. This is sprinkled strategically with white and gold tiny sugar pearls. I scraped a hole for the moon, which I then filled with flood icing. The side pieces had further wriggly piping on top, to suggest branches, roots and leaves in the Rackham fashion, and the whole was painted with washes of green and blue, with some dark bronze lustre to highlight some branches.

Construction occurred just as I predicted, with a fair amount of fiddling and adjustment. I experimented with different heights and arrangements (in the process breaking a mushroom, Titania's neck, and an entire side piece snapped in two. Still, with clean breaks, you can hide most damage!). I had quite a few little ladybirds, and mushrooms left over. I ate those.

So here's the film, vastly speeded up and edited, as altogether it was nearly an hour of film (and I didn't film the entire project. I do want to film handpainting of some of these naturalistic royal icing elements, so I've got some on the go at the moment - don't forget to subscribe to my Youtube channel so you don't miss anything!)

To take the final photographs, I wound copper wire with tiny embedded LEDs  in and around the sides; another painstaking and delicate operation for fear of pulling the heads off fairies. The whole thing was tucked into black velvet so the lights glowed prettily.

Lacecap Hydrangea Cookies, Disgraceful Piping and a Video

There are many beautiful hydrangea cookies and cupcakes around, but I haven't seen any lacecap versions. I particularly like this kind of hydrangea with its tight little buds in the centre, varying from green to blue (or pink, depending on whether you live in Cornwall or Birmingham. I live in Birmingham. My hydrangeas are mostly pink. I like blue hydrangeas. So I made these cookies blue. It makes me feel like I'm back in Cornwall again).

(See? Pink!)

I frankencookied the basic shape as Glorious Treats did in this great tutorial and I was considering using brush embroidery in the same way, as the effect of the colour over the background is beautiful, but I wanted to have a go at piping actual petals.

I've never actually done this before, apart from one practice at RI roses being taught by the very talented, very patient Karen of Sucre Coeur. But I was slightly hungover at the time after a weekend of cookie debauchery and I'm ashamed to say I never practiced again. And of course you can tell. Just look at the way I pipe in the video - it's a disgrace, and that's after the worst bits have been edited out!

But I think this particular cookie is very forgiving. The overall effect works, even if individual petals are curling up in embarrassment. So here it is, in all its flawed glory:

You will need:

Hydrangea cookies
Green flood royal icing
Purple and blue lustre dusts (I used Rainbow Dust Starlight Purple Planet and Pearl Pacific Blue)
Large and small, dry, food-use only brushes
Stiff pale blue royal icing with petal tip (eg Wilton 104)
Small white sugar pearls
Dark blue and light green thick flood royal icing
Pink lustre dust (I used Sugarflair Shimmer Pink)

1. Flood the flower area in the darker green flood and allow to dry really thoroughly overnight (otherwise the lustre dust will stick and smear).

2. Using the purple and blue lustre dusts, dust the outer area of the green icing in patches.

3. Pipe blue four-petalled flowers around the outer edge, popping a sugar pearl into the centre of each one.

4. Pipe dark blue dots in groups of different sizes in the open centre and between the flowers, with a few smaller ones around the outer edge. Add a few green dots here and there.

5. Flood the leaves with green, and immediately pipe fine light green veins (I used a PME tip 1.5 for the veins).

6. Once the blue petals have dried thoroughly, with a smaller brush, dust the outer edges pink, and the centres purple.

I made this set as an engagement gift, and added a few simple leaves, popping them in a window 'tart' box, wrapped some green garden twine around a few times, and added a tag which was the perfect excuse to use my new Honeycat Cookies stamp. Fairly simple to make, fairly forgiving of poor piping skills, these make a lovely gift. Now I'm thinking I'd like to try some pink ones, after all...

Dark Chocolate Cookie Shards Recipe

I love this Venetian mask. I've had it for about fifteen years, with never an occasion to wear it. I need someone to arrange a masqued ball for me. Then I would stick this on my head and bring along these dark, decadent chocolate cookie shards as a gift for the host. Maybe I should just arrange one for myself. Or perhaps it would be simpler just to make the cookies, wear the mask and eat them. No need for guests or anything fussy like that.




















I'm not overly keen on very sweet cookies, especially with the intense sugariness of the icing, so my intention was to create something rich and dark, but that would still be tasty for children and adults alike. To that end I enlisted my eight year old daughter and her little friend as chief taste testers, and somehow my husband enrolled himself on the programme. Frankly I was lucky to get these photographs taken whilst there were still some left.

These cookies are very simple to make, decorate, and eat. You can fantasize about putting delicate pieces out with coffee at your masqued ball, but really what people will want is large pieces and lots of them. I think that's the perfect definition of a successful amuse-bouche: something your guests really want more of but are too embarrassed to ask, so you get to keep most of it for yourself after they've all gone home.

This recipe starts with my basic shortbread style vanilla cookie, but omitting the vanilla, and replacing some of the cornflour with cocoa. You might want to omit the salt according to taste, but personally I think it's essential to add the richness these cookies need. The recipe assumes the cookies will be coated with royal icing to balance out the flavour. I also add a little salt to the water I make my royal icing with, to give it a richer taste (about 1 teaspoon per 100ml water).

Ingredients:

NB I always weigh out in grams, but I've converted the quantities as best I can to ounces and cups for flexibility.

For the cookies:
250g butter, softened (9oz, or 1 cup, or 2 1/4 sticks)
170g powdered or icing sugar (6oz or 1 1/3 cups)
1 egg, lightly beaten
385g plain or all purpose flour (13 5/8oz or 3 cups)
60g cocoa powder (2oz or 1/2 cup)
40g cornflour (1 2/5 oz or 1/3 cup)
2 teaspoons salt

For the decoration:
Stiff black royal icing
Offset spatula
Gold edible paint
Broad food-use only paintbrush

Sift and mix the flour, cocoa, cornflour and salt and set aside. Gently mix the butter and sugar until thoroughly incorporated but do not cream (to reduce spreading of the cookies whilst baking). Add the egg and a spoon of the dry ingredients. Once the egg is mixed in, set the mixer on low, and add the remains of the dry ingredients a spoon at a time until the dough pulls together. Split the dough into two pieces, form rough discs, and wrap in cling film. Chill the dough in the fridge for half an hour (I don't like rolling out really cold, stiff dough, it's too much work), then roll out between parchment or in large food-safe bags to a thickness of around 4mm. Seal the bags (or thoroughly wrap in cling film) and place overnight in the freezer.

Preheat the oven to 155c fan (310F or Gas mark 3). Unwrap one sheet of the frozen dough, and allow to soften at room temperature for about 5 minutes. Using a sharp knife (I use a scalpel) cut all the frilly broken edges off and eat set aside for re-rolling. You can use a ruler if you want to keep the edges perfectly straight. Pay no attention to making the edges neat and tidy. Cut random 'shards' from the rest of the dough, some large, some small. If your shards are very varied in size, seperate smaller and larger sizes onto seperate trays.

Bake for about 8 minutes, remove from the oven and smooth down the surfaces of the cookies with a fondant smoother, tin lid or other flat surface, being careful not to burn yourself! Pop the cookies back in the oven for a further 10 to 15 minutes, depending on size.

Mix up your black royal icing - you can use a chocolate based recipe if you like, such as this one from Lilaloa, if you want to avoid using too much black colouring. I've found Americolor to be great for creating deep colour whilst still drying hard, but some people find it has an artificial taste. Sugarflair black doesn't seem to have an aftertaste, but I find a really deep black icing won't dry truly hard with Sugarflair, though that's not necessarily a problem with this sort of cookie.

Spread the icing on each cookie shard with the spatula, taking care not to get icing over the edges. Allow to dry thoroughly, overnight. Paint  splashes of edible gold on each cookie. Don't be too neat. I used Rainbow Dust Edible Metallic Paint in Light Gold as I love the way it dries with a non-smudge shiny surface, but you could mix up some gold lustre dust with vodka or alcohol-based essence and use that.

Finally arrange an exclusive dinner for a few special guests, with or without masks, and serve small shards of these cookies with espresso at the end of the meal. Once your guests have left, get your pyjamas on and scoff all the large pieces you kept back.

 

Travel Cookie Set: Vintage Map Tutorial

In my last post I described how to make embossed leather effect cookie luggage labels for this set celebrating the Golden Wedding of a couple who love to travel. Here I'm going to show you how I made these vintage maps. Fully edible, but if you take too large a bite, you might just get lost...

You will need:

Plaque shaped cookies flooded in pale ivory and thoroughly dried
Pale ivory piping consitency royal icing
Fine edible marker
Image of an island map (I recreated New Zealand, and the Hawaiian Islands)
Small offset spatula or similar tool
Fine and extra fine food use only paintbrushes
Gel or paste food colourings in blue, brown, yellow
Piping bag and PME tip 1.5 or equivalent

1. Using the transfer method of your choice, trace the outline of the islands on your cookie. I used to use the Camera Lucida Ipad app, but have recently invested in a Pico projector which is wonder to behold. You can see it in action in Anita's video here.

2. With the offset spatula and a tiny bit of stiff pale royal icing, dab around the interior of the islands. Using a verticle movement and lots of pats, rather than spreading, creates a more mountainous terrain. Disclaimer: my mountains may not be topographically accurate. (When New Zealand is barely a centimetre wide, what do you expect?)

3. Mix up a little greenish blue paint with your food colours and a little water. Paint around the outline of the island in tiny dashes, keeping it darker towards the coastline, and fading out to sea.

4. Using a little very pale brown colour and a larger brush, daub the paint unevenly around the edges of the cookie, blotting with a clean finger or piece of kitchen roll if necessary. Fade the effect in towards the islands. Taking a fine brush and some stronger brown colour, paint the craggy lines of tears and crumples at intervals around the edges of the cookie

5. Using mossy green (mix blue, yellow and a little brown), and brown paints, add colour to the islands themselves, fading to pale brown in the interior. For the mountains of South Island, I left a few of the peaks unpainted to give the impression of snow, though it's not very clear, they really are very tiny mountains.

I also added little extra details like labels, trees, sea creatures: I added steam rising off the Rotorua area, and on the Hawaiian Islands I added palm trees, then I sort of got carried away and painted an entire whale...

Travel Cookie Set: Luggage Label tutorial

You wait ages for a tutorial and then two arrive at once!

In this post I shall be showing you how I made these 'embossed leather' luggage labels and in the next, the vintage maps with three dimensional topography.

The brief for this set was to combine the elements of a Pacific island cruise, vintage map hobby and 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration. I threw in a few hibiscus flowers and, of course, plenty of gold lustre. But I wanted to create a contrast with the aged leather luggage labels making use of these great 'leather' tutorials by Yankee Girl Yummies and LilaLoa.

You will need:

Label shaped cookies with hole 

Brown royal icing in piping and flood consistencies

Piping bags with PME tips 1.5 and 2 or equivalent

Dark brown and black gel or paste food colouring and dusts

Water

Both fat and fine food use only paintbrushes

Gold lustre edible paint, or lustre dust with a little essence to dilute

String (edible or not, your choice!)

A note on the cookies: I don't have a cutter for these, I simply cut out rectangles with a scalpel and ruler, chopped off two corners, and poked a hole using a large bore tip, or a straw. 

1.  In order to create a twist on the leather idea, I decided to see if I could 'emboss' the lettering into the surface. I considered using the royal icing embossing effect I created for my first 'What's New, Honeycat?' tutorial, Coffee and Cookies, for Cookie Connection, but that technique needs a bit of speed before the flood layer crusts over and I wasn't sure I could get the lettering to be neat enough. So I chose to pipe the letters first and flood around them. 

2. Once the lettering had thoroughly dried, I piped brown flood around the rest of the cookie (piping a small ring around the hole first to act as a dam). It was a little tricky piping around the letters. I used a PME tip 2, and a scribe tool to ensure all the crevices and corners were filled. I let this dry overnight.

3. To get the general leather effect, I used a mixture of the methods mentioned above by Yankee Girl Yummies and LilaLoa, painting and dusting  in blotches, using fat soft brushes and mixtures of browns and black. When it came to the letters though, I used a paintbrush and darker paint around each section of each letter, to create more depth. I wanted these letters to look like they'd really been stamped into the leather.

4. Once the paint was dry (really just a matter of a few minutes in the deyhdrator) I used edible metallic paint in gold to highlight the lettering. Gold lustre dust mixed with a little essence would have worked fine here too, but I'm finding the ready made paint by Rainbow Dust (similar or the same as what's in their Click and Twist pens) to be really bright, as well as drying without leaving a dusty surface, even if you paint it on quite thickly. 

The metallic paint dries quickly too, so all that remains is to pop a piece of string in the tops and tie them to your luggage.

Now your luggage is sorted, you'll need to make sure you've got your maps ready. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss the next installment!

Easy Verdigris Effect on Seaside Cookies

First things first...you might have noticed that my blogspot address has now converted to Honeycatcookies.co.uk. Everything else should stay the same, and you should still be able to find me even if you use the old address. Sadly any comments made through Google+ until now will have disappeared, though I saved all the wonderful comments full of brilliant cookie ideas on my giveaway post!

So onto these cookies! It's been so drab and cold here, without even the pleasure of snow or proper frost. Boring, wet, annoying, GREY weather. So when I was asked to make this set of seaside cookies, my head became filled with sunbleached images of sand, driftwood, rockpools, sand, sealife, sand, those faded, flaky layers of paint and rusty metal on abandoned boats and sand. I wanted to create something with all these textures and colours and lighten up my life just a little!

And then I read LilaLoa's tutorial on Antique Metal Cookies which turned my thoughts to creating that flaky, verdigris paint effect that I'd been mulling on, using a similar technique, but in all those wonderful seaside colours.

To recreate this effect you will need:

Thick flood royal icing (around 20 seconds)

Blue and green food colouring (I used Sugarflair Ice Blue and Party Green)

Metallic lustre dust in copper or bronze (I used Sugarflair Bronze)

Your fingers. Yes, this technique involves finger painting!  Which means you'll also need...

A damp cloth, to keep wiping your mucky fingers on.

1. Start by mixing your RI into a light bluey green colour and flooding the bases of your cookies leaving enough icing for extra to dab on top afterwards. Allow the bases to dry thoroughly for a few hours in a dehydrator or overnight.

2. Tap out a little of the dry lustre dust into a small container or dish. Dab your finger into the dust and dab irregularly in patches on the dry surface of the cookie. Don't rub it around or cover too much of the cookie. It needs to look rough edged and uneven. Blow off any excess.

3. Now mix up the remaining RI with a little more blue so that now it's a light greeny blue, rather than bluey green. Just go far enough that you can definitely see a difference between the two shades, but keep them close.

Using your (now clean!) finger, dab just a little RI at a time around the edges of the patches of lustre dust. Some will mix with the dust and change colour. Keep going, but leave some base RI areas and lustre dust areas clear, so that the whole effect is patchy and flaky. (Keep cleaning your finger on the damp cloth or it'll build up and you'll be tempted to lick your finger. This isn't nice, don't do it! You can always get a spoon and eat the leftovers but finish your work first.)  After a minute or two, you can dab over older areas to make it look more crusty and flaky.

4. You can of course just leave the effect as it is, or you can go further and add layers of detailing on top. Or you can repeat the same process in different colours on ALL THE COOKIES!  I used white, pink, and beige icing with gold and pearl lustres and basically had better fun than if I'd been on a beach with a bucket and spade. Who cares if none of the cookies were actually metallic objects? In the Honeycat Ocean seahorses and shells are made of copper so of course they're going to be covered in verdigris.

 
I made the sand cookies (you can see them more clearly in the round photograph near the top) by cutting little notches out of small circles, to get a vague kind of sand dollar shape, then flooded with thick beige flood and liberally sprinkling with edible sand. After seeing this mini tutorial by Cookies by Missy Sue on natural looking sand, I made my own, using fine and coarse brown and white sugar, a little lustre dust and some cream and multi-coloured tiny sugar pearls.

Altogether these cookies are going to be crunchy, powdery, velvety, sweet and delicious. And despite appearances, absolutely nothing like when you get sand and bits of crab shell in your sandwich on the beach...