Blue and White Butterflies

I tried a couple new designs for butterfly cookies the other day.

To make this butterfly, I drew a white line down the center of each wing while the icing was still wet.

Then I dragged a toothpick back and forth through the icing.

These butterflies are simpler than my usual design, but I like the simplicity.

I also used the brush embroidery technique on a couple of butterflies.

After experimenting awhile, I decided to ice the rest of the butterflies with zigzags on the top wings and dots on the bottom, like I usually ice them.

I used teal, blue, and white and rotated the colors on each butterfly.

Butterflies might be my favorite cookie to ice. There are so many color and design options that they are hard to mess up and almost always end up looking pretty good!

Black, White, and Red

I have an order of birthday cookies due Saturday, so I've been really busy baking and decorating this week. I won't post pictures of those cookies until Sunday because the birthday girl should get to enjoy them first!

The birthday cookies were black, white, and red, so I used the extra dough and icing to make some butterflies.

All the swirls are made by adding wet icing details to wet flood icing and dragging a tooth pick through the design. It is so satisfying to make cookies like this! The swirls are easy to do, but they look complicated and impressive.

I don't think I've ever seen butterflies with these colors in nature, but I hate wasting icing and I love decorating cookies, so I just had fun playing around.

Tomorrow I finish up the birthday cookies, so I'll take pictures and post them soon!

Butterflies

It was a gray, cloudy morning this morning, so after church I decided to decorate something bright and cheery.

Butterflies are fun to decorate because they can be iced in a wide assortment of colors and patterns. I went with pink, blue, yellow, and black

I outlined the cookies with black, then let them sit and dry for several hours. The black shows up much better on sugar cookies than chocolate cookies, but I was in a chocolate cookie mood.

I started with the top wings and let them sit for a little while before I did the bottom wings to try to prevent the sections from blending together. I wasn't patient enough, though, so they blended a bit. I think they still turned out fine.

To add the details on top, I added lines and dots of different colors while the icing was still wet. The details will smooth out and the icing will dry flat. The zigzag pattern on the top wing is made by dragging a toothpick through lines while everything is still wet.

I'm happy with the way the butterflies turned out, and making bright, colorful cookies was just what I needed for a gray, rainy day!

Butterfly Cookies

I made these butterfly cookies for the Seminary bake sale last November. The colors aren't my favorite, but the pinks, purples, and sprinkles turned out to be very popular with little girls.

To get the flat, smooth surface on a cookie like this you have to flood the cookie. To flood a cookie, you first outline it with royal icing, as I did with the pink icing.

Then, you thin out the icing you want to fill the cookie with. I used a light purple icing for this cookie. If you use the same color as your outlined icing, the outlining won't be very obvious. I wanted it to stand out with this particular design.

To make sure you have the right consistency for your flood icing, run a spatula through it and count how many seconds it takes for it to smooth out. If it takes more than 10, add a couple drops of water & try again. If it takes less than 5, add more powdered sugar.

When piping in the flood icing, use your piping tip or a tooth pick to spread the icing. It should even out and dry flat when you are done. Also, look for air bubbles and pop them with a tooth pick. The icing will fill in those spaces if you do this before it dries. If you wait, it will leave holes.

If you want to add dots or other designs to the flat icing, use another color of flooding consistency icing and pipe in those designs after the original color has had a few seconds to set.

Anything you pipe onto the flood icing before it while it is wet will dry flat.

For the butterflies, i used a toothpick to make the design on the wings.

Let the cookies dry about 24 hours before you package them or stack them (I've ignored this and put them in plastic bags after they felt dry, but my colors bled into each other and it wasn't pretty.)

Recent Cookie Escapades