Elvis on a Biscuit with Really Edible, Really Glittery Glitter!

I absolutely love glitter on cookies. When I first started out, disco dust (and glitters like it, such as this) was still being sold as 'edible' and I happily used it (and ate it) in large quantities. Then The Authorities (in the UK) realised that it was, strictly speaking, not an edible product, as it is not digested and has no nutritional value, and therefore couldn't be sold as such.

How to Pack Cookies for Shipping

It's taken a long time to work out how to pack my cookies so they not only survive in the post, but also create the best impression when they arrive.

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.

Edible Silver Moonface Cookie with Video

I've been fiddling about with edible silver this Christmas. It's bloody tricky stuff! I'm very much an amateur, put off practicing by the price of the silver. But it's so beautiful, it gleams like no lustre dust or paint, and creates a lovely surface to pipe onto.

Venice. (Cake Masters Magazine Cookie Award 2015!)

Back in October I had an email right out of the blue, from Cake Masters Magazine, telling me I had been nominated for their 2015 Cookie Award, at their annual Cake Awards and was one of four finalists, the others being Marta Torres of The Cookie Lab, Sandra Velez-Beltran of You Can Call Me Sweetie and Kim Coleman of Sugar Rush Custom Cookies.

An Autumn Cookie Jigsaw or 'Cookiesaw'

I can't deny it any longer. Summer's gone, the clocks have turned back so the evenings are dark. It won't be long before the mornings are dark too. Out come the blankets and slippers. I'd start drinking mulled wine, but apparently that's not appropriate for breakfast. Time to hibernate, like this little mouse.

All the Doctors. A Doctor Who Decorated Cookie Set

My brother is a fervent Doctor Who fan, and also at a recent birthday turned very old indeed. He's had Doctor Who cookies from me before, but this time I wanted to do something a little different. So I decided to do ALL the doctors on cookies. (Except Peter Cushing, who doesn't count because apparently he's actually a fictional film Doctor within the Doctor Who universe or some equally confusing nested reality scenario...).

So I put all monster images aside and turned to the problem of how to depict all the different Doctors, without ending up handpainting or mixing multiple colours until the end of time and space. Luckily, the design of the Doctors lends itself well to stylised versions. Their costumes, hair and so on are very recognisable, to the point of iconic. There are plenty of cartoon and stylised versions out there in fan art, but I wanted to create my own.

As a base for each Doctor I chose a simple rectangle, cutting the dough directly with a ruler and scalpel, with some microplaning after cooking to get clean straight edges. Then I agonised over what background they should all be on... until I fell upon the idea of recreating Tom Baker's scarf!

I chose the lightest colour of the scarf as a base flood, and once dry, painted them in the other colours. I sprayed the whole lot very gently in gold spray, to help smooth over the painted surfaces, and give them a bit of a metallic gleam.

I selected photographs of each doctor that I felt best lend themselves to being identifiable with fairly minimal piping work and colour mixing. Using my pico projector, I outlined the least amount I felt would allow the particular Doctor to be identifiable. Face, hair, hat if applicable, lapels, and other features. In general this worked well, though perhaps Capaldi looks like he's lost his trousers...

Whilst I did this directly from projections onto the cookies, from the original images, I've printed out an example (David Tennant) with dark outlining to show the basic principle. I didn't stick to the exact shapes, but made alterations to help the final, simpler image make sense.

 

Then I simply piped in the areas, grouping their hair colours into as white, blond, brown and black to minimise colour mixing, and I made these colours fit their coats too.

So which is your favourite? Though I love all the modern incarnations of the Doctor, it has to be the inimitable Tom Baker, of course! And here they all are, marching off across time and space...