Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Ombre swirl cookies



I've always loved colors.
Instant perk-me-ups.

         More of our colorful bakes: 
         > Minion cuteness!
         > The very hungry caterpillar
         > A purple green birthday
         > How do you wink at an orange?

Add to that, the power of ombre.
Life can be so sweet ;)

When I came across I Am Baker's Rainbow Rose Cookies, I knew I'd found my vehicle for ombre goodness.

So I adapted her rainbow colors for swathes of pink, the little pretty swirls on each cookie peeking just above, showing off their graduated hues.

         Pink's one of our most popular dessert colors!
        > A fairy tale wedding
        > Sugar & spice!
        > Sweet strawberries
        > Bunnies at the zoo



Love colors!
Have I mentioned that already?

Started off baking up a big batch of the sugar cookies, here's the recipe I adapted from I Am Baker:
                 ===========================================================

SUGAR COOKIES
(makes about 48 cookies)

Ingredients
224g butter
300g sugar
2 large eggs
2 egg yolks
4 tspns vanilla extract
2 tspns almost extract
600g flour
1 tspn salt
1 tspn baking powder

Instructions
- In a mixer, beat butter and sugar until well combined, about 2min
- Add in the eggs and egg yolks, mix until combined
- Add in vanilla and almond extract, mix until combined
- In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Slowly (about 1 cup at a time) add the flour to butter mixture and combine. You can use a mixer or not, just depends on how strong you are. Don't over mix the dough, it will get tough.
- Put dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 1 hour
- When ready to bake, heat over to 180 degres Celsius. Roll dough out, cut out cookies and bake for 12min.
===========================================================

I'd adjusted mainly the butter and sugar amounts and the baking time to suit my oven, I prefer my cookies less sweet and not too buttery. For I Am Baker's original recipe, click here.

This is a pretty sturdy cookie recipe, great for storing and handling.

Just make sure you cut them fairly thick so they don't break apart so easily when decorating. They also keep well and you can make them in advance, freeze them and pop them out when you need some.


You can make the cookie frosting out of buttercream, much like how you would top a cupcake - just a thicker consistency so they'll hold their shape.

I made mine out of royal icing as they had to stay out quite a while for a mom who ordered them for her daughter's Teacher's Day gifts, and royal holds up much better in our heat and humidity.


I experimented with colors and tips - this was a Wilton 2E:


And decided I liked the open-tip #827 better:




Another obsession of mine - washi tape, a serious contender for a girl's best tool. 

Don't forget to whip them out when you need to dress up a plain box or kraft bag, they can take a million shapes and forms. 
> Check out our cute cupcake bags

What I did forget, was to take a photo of the boxes I decorated with washi tape before I gave them out, so shall have to settle for the next best thing: a picture of the tape I used instead!


Have fun experimenting with ombres and washi!

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