Decorating Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing (Post #5- Penguin Cookies): Working with Fondant

Claire Andreski
Period 5
1/28/18

Hi everyone! I can not believe that I am already writing my final blog post! I enjoyed learning more about cookie decorating through this blog and I especially enjoyed making this last batch of cookies. So keep reading if you'd like to see some really cute penguin cookies I made! I would highly recommend them! :)

So for this final batch of cookies, I made sugar cookies the same way as usual, but used a large penguin cookie cutter from Sur La Table to achieve the desired shape.

Some of the penguin cookies after finished with baking.

I baked the cookies until golden brown and let them cool down. While they were cooling, I made a batch of royal icing. With this I created black piping icing, black flooding icing, orange piping icing, and left some white icing which I divided into both piping and flooding icing. Overall, it wasn't to hard to make the frosting, as there were only 3 colors, but one of the challenges of this specific design was creating the black icing. Below are some pictures of the process of creating the black icing. I found that I definitely needed to add more food coloring than I expected, otherwise it looked gray. In correlation with that, I also found out that it helps to have very pigmented food colorings/gels and specifically a black color. Luckily, I had black food coloring, but I think it would be next to impossible to create a deep black if you only had primary colors, unfortunately. Below is the process of how I got my icing to be black if you are interested.

                             

First, I added one to two drops of black food coloring, but I was unsatisfied with the result I got, which was a gray color. I added another drop or two to the frosting and the color deepened and looked closer to what I wanted. I added one more drop and the frosting became the color I desired. :) 

Once all the frosting was colored, I began to pipe the actual design. First, I outlined the bellies of the penguins with white piping icing, then I outlined the whole body of the penguins with black piping icing. 

In the first two pictures, you can see the penguins' white outlines and in the bottom two pictures you can see the full outline in black on the penguin cookies. After these steps were completed, I went on to fill in both outlines with flooding icing. 

Then, I piped on the eyes once the icing had set a bit. The book instructed, "Using white and black icing, pipe a small eye on each penguin" (Hession 146). I tried to follow these instructions and I think I did a pretty good job. I made the eyes a little bigger than the book by accident, but I think it made the cookies look even cuter. :) 

At first, the penguins looked creepy with just the white piped on their eyes. Once I added the pupils, they looked cute.

A penguin with its eye piped on- I think it turned out really cute!

After this, I used the orange piping to add on a few details, which were the feet and the beak. I piped a triangle for the beak and did three dots to represent each foot. After that, it was on to learning a new technique, working with fondant! 

This is a picture of me piping with the orange icing.

I purchased a box of Wilton fondant in the white color from my local Safeway for $7.99. This seemed to be a bit expensive, but once I opened the box up, there was actually a lot of fondant. 

This is the Wilton fondant that I used for this purchase.

Once I took the fondant out of the package, I took off a large piece and rolled it into a ball, then regarded the book on how to proceed. The author stated in a subsection called "Working with Fondant" that, "Because of its sticky nature, fondant should be rolled out on a surface lightly dusted with cornstarch" (Hession 30). I dusted my work surface then read the book on how to color the fondant. On page 30 as well, the author described that you should add a small amount of coloring to start off with, just like you would to color royal icing, then knead the fondant like dough (Hession 30). I followed these directions, deciding to dye my fondant red. Overall, it went well, but you need to be very careful to not dye your hands. Unfortunately, I didn't follow the author's warning to "Wear disposable gloves or your hands will be the same color as the fondant" (Hession 30). You should definitely heed this advice because I stained my hands red when I didn't wear gloves.

 

Above are the stages of mixing the red food coloring into the fondant. In the bottom left picture you can see that I stained my hands a lot by not wearing gloves and I highly regret not wearing disposable gloves. 

After coloring the fondant, I decided to make the fondant scarves and earmuffs that the books showed me how to do. For the scarf, I rolled a "snake" and split it into two parts using a butter knife, with one being slightly shorter than the other. I then attached the smaller section around the neck of the penguin cookie, then draped the longer one down the side of the penguin cookie. After that, I created a pattern on the bottom to look like the fringe of the scarf. I attached it and then I was done! 

                        

For the earmuffs, I rolled out a small ball of red fondant and flattened it and then rolled a very short rope, then attached the rope and pressed the ball onto the rope so that they would stay on. Then the earmuffs were finished!

After that I was finished with the whole batch! Overall, I really enjoy the way the fondant looks and how you can work with it. It is almost like when you used to play with PlayDoh when you were a little kid! However, the taste of the fondant was not my favorite. It was kind of strange and a hard taste to describe. It looks nice overall, but I wouldn't recommend using a ton of it if you are going for a really great tasting cookie versus a great looking cookie. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this whole project and I think that I improved my baking and decorating skills greatly!

My final questions for you are, have you ever worked with fondant? Do you think that you'd ever decorate cookies with royal icing? Do you like how these cookies turned out? 

Citation: Hession, Julie Ann. 100 Best Decorated Cookies: Featuring 750 Step-by-Step Photos. Robert Rose, 2013.

STEP-BY-STEP Cake Decorating Pt.4 -- Ritu Buttar

Cake Decorating

I decorated cupcakes for my fourth blog post, using the star tips. I think it turned out okay, but I would definitely stick to regular cakes since you can just do much more on a bigger surface.

"We are no longer afraid to bake, and our creations are becoming more sophisticated and adventurous as time goes on" (Sullivan). As time goes on people are learning how to add their own unique touch on things, exploring what they can do in the world of cake decorating. For this attempt at cake decorating I used Italian meringue buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache.

Ingredients: Italian meringue buttercream

• 5 large free-range pasteurized egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 2 1/4 cups unsalted butter, softened
• flavoring, optional

(Sullivan 26)

Ingredients: Chocolate ganache

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 7 0z (200g) good-quality dark, milk, or white chocolate, broken into pieces

(Sullivan 38)

Directions:

• Put the broken chocolate and heavy cream into a pot.
• Put the pot on the stove and stir over low heat
• Let cool for 1-2 hours before spreading

(Sullivan 38)

First I spread the ganache on the cupcakes and then started piping stars on the cupcake - "Create Individual stars (below) or link them together as a border, using a medium open-star tip" (Sullivan 76). It was really easy to get the hang of piping stars, since the tip is so easy to use.

I also attempted to do the Rosette technique - "Use a medium open star tip to swirl tiny rosettes that can be linked or used individually. I tried to do a really big Rosette in the middle of my cupcake, and it didn't really turn out well. Instead it turned out looking like a swirl.

All in all I think that I'm going to stick to decorating cakes because they are easier to decorate since they have bigger area for decorating.

What are some themes that I could base my decorating on?

Sullivan, Karen. Step-by-step Cake Decorating: Hundreds of Ideas, Techniques, and Projects for Creative Cake Designers. London: DK, 2013. Print.   



STEP-BY-STEP Cake Decorating Pt. 2 -- Ritu Buttar

Cake Decorating

I decided to use a Christmas theme for my second attempt at decorating a cake. It turned out a lot better than my first try.


"Like all skills, cake decorating can take some time to learn and a little patience to master" (Sullivan). There is always room for improvement because things take time to master. The main goal of these blog posts is to show improvement through time. This blog will be showing people how I used techniques from Sullivan's book, to create my own design. I will be working with buttercream frosting to decorate my cake.


Ingredients

• just over 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups confectioner's sugar
• 2 tbsp. heavy cream or milk, plus extra for thinning
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• coloring paste, optional

(Sullivan 24-25)

Labels

If you do not have a piping bag, I showed how to make one out of parchment paper in my last blog.


In my decoration I used the Pulled Bead Border - "Use a medium round tip to pipe beads and then slowly release the pressure as you drag each bead" (Sullivan 77). Piping the border was a lot easier than I expected it to be.

 I also used the Ruffle effect - "Use a medium petal tip, dragging the frosting back on itself and then forward again" (Sullivan 77). This was a little harder and didn't look like ruffles at all, but there's always room for improvement.


Lastly I just added some of my own decorative snowflakes to complete the cake and add some sort of Christmas theme to it.

 

 

Overall I think my cake turned out good, and looked a lot better than my first attempt at cake decorating. I will keep trying to improve my cake decorating abilities, so it will soon look great.


What could I improve on my decorations?
Sullivan, Karen. Step-by-step Cake Decorating: Hundreds of Ideas, Techniques, and Projects for Creative Cake Designers. London: DK, 2013. Print.   

STEP - BY - STEP Cake Decorating -- Ritu Buttar

Decorating and Filling Cakes

Ever since I was little, I loved baking and helping my mom decorate cakes. I would watch "Cake Boss" every night and watch how Buddy would decorate his cakes so nicely, which is why I chose to do cake decorating. In this blog I will be showing my step-by-step processes of filling and decorating a cake.


"CAKE DECORATING has enjoyed a huge surge in interest over the last few years, with enthusiastic beginners creating celebration cakes, exquisite cupcakes, and perfect cake pops in their own homes" (Sullivan 7). Spectacular designs can be created right in your home. Once you learn some of these basic decorating techniques, you won't need a store bought cake to fulfill your needs. This blog only explains how to decorate a cake, so make sure you have baked a cake before hand.


The first step is to prepare the frosting. The first type of frosting we will be preparing is buttercream frosting. It is fluffy and not too sweet, perfect for filling a cake.

Ingredients

• just over 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups confectioner's sugar
• 2 tbsp. heavy cream or milk, plus extra for thinning
• coloring paste, optional

(Sullivan 24)

The next type of icing is royal icing, which sets to be a little stiffer than buttercream icing. It is really good for decorating cakes because the icing will stay put, it won't smudge. It also tends to be sweeter than buttercream frosting.

                                                                                                                                        

Ingredients

• 3 large free-range pasteurized egg whites
• 1 tsp lemon juice, plus extra if needed
• 6 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
• coloring paste, optional

(Sullivan 35)



How to make a piping bag

• Using a piece of parchment paper, fold the lower corner of the parchment paper upward so that it is folded in half diagonally. Run your finger along the fold.
• Fold over the whole of top folded section without creasing it, rolling it over until you have a cone shape.
• Fold the bottom of the folded section around the outside. Using your hand, expand it out, and then secure with a little masking tape.

This tip came in handy because I did not have any piping bags and didn't want to bye them at the store. It is a quick and easy way to make your own piping bad at home!

(Sullivan 73)



Directions for filling the cake (with buttercream frosting):

1. Place the base layer of your cake and a board on a turntable, leveled side up. Fill your piping bag with frosting and pipe around the inside edge.
2. Using a spoon, place a large dollop of frosting in the center and spread to the edges with a palette knife, until smooth.
3. Place the next layer of cake on top of the cake you just filled.
4. If you want more layers just repeat steps 1-3.

(Sullivan 28)

Directions for decorating the cake (with royal icing):

1. Fill the piping bag with royal icing.
2. Hold the bag in your dominate hand between your thumb and first two fingers. Be sure to hold the bag steady with your other hand.
3. When the tip touches the surface of the cake, gently squeeze out the icing.
4. Even pressure is crucial, so make sure that you have control over the icing.
5. When you have finished piping a certain decoration or line, gently pull the tip away form the surface, letting the icing fall

(Sullivan 75)



Labels

Once I finished decorating my cake I put it in the refrigerator to cool, it turned out okay. Overall I think that I just need to work on designing my cake a little better, and being more creative. The frosting surprisingly tasted great and so did my cake. I strongly recommend these recipes and baking tips.

What kind of other cake decorations should I do next time?

Sullivan, Karen. Step-by-step Cake Decorating: Hundreds of Ideas, Techniques, and Projects for Creative Cake Designers. London: DK, 2013. Print.