Last weekend, I took a cookie-decorating class at Every Baking Moment with my friend Rebecca. The last time Rebecca had been there was for Trevor's 8th birthday party (he's 18 now). I took a different cookie-decorating class there once, two years ago (which apparently I never blogged about?!), so I was excited to give it another go.
The instructor demonstrated how to make eight different Disney-themed Halloween cookies, then we were set loose to create. It was so much fun trying out different techniques! I've never used a stencil on cookies before, like we did on Madame Leota. Nor have I used a dehydrator for cookies. We dried the red of the apple before adding the green on top.
Compare my nine cookies above with the eight cookies below that the instructor made.
I went my own direction with a few of the cookies, but not always intentionally! I should have made curved lines of black frosting on my spiderweb cookie, but I made straight lines. Oops. I put a leaf on the poison apple, but not on the Mickey pumpkin... and I didn't even notice until I photographed my cookies the next morning. I outlined Oogie Boogie in black after the green had tried to see if I could follow the lines (no). I skipped the writing on the cauldron. I'm terrible at writing, but it would have provided a little camouflage for the bad flooding job I did. I think I used the thick black frosting intended for writing instead of the 15-second frosting. I did a good job flooding the bat, so I must have used the correct frosting for that. The central Mickey with the spider was my own idea.
We were allowed to take home some undecorated cookies plus any leftover frosting. These are the cookies I made at home, without any time pressure. Notice that the pumpkin Mickey is infinitely better than the one I made in class?
As for the letters on the bat, I piped them onto parchment paper rather than directly on the bat, then transferred them over when they dried. I piped each letter dozens of times and then picked the best of each and they still don't look great.
Since the apple was not someone else's idea (or trademarked character), here's a tutorial. Affiliate links below.
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Wormy Apple Cookie
Materials:
- your favorite cut-out sugar cookie recipe
- apple cookie cutter
- royal icing (buy it ready-to-use or make your own)
- gel-based food color
- piping bags
- parchment paper
- scribe tool
Steps:
Bake and cool apple-shaped cookies, then prepare the royal icing. If you're making your own, aim for the consistency of honey. Color the icing with your desired shades. I made a green apple with an orange worm because those were the colors of icing I had, but you could make red, green, or yellow apples and orange, green, or pink worms. You'll need a little bit of black for the hole. You may also want a brown stem. I used green since I didn't have brown. Put your colored royal icing into the piping bags.
Working on parchment paper and with one cookie at a time, flood the apples with your desired color(s). Use the scribe tool as needed. While the icing is still wet, pipe a circle of black onto the apple. Set the cookie aside to dry.
To make the worm, pipe a series of 5 of 6 circles touching one another onto a piece of parchment. The circles will sink together, leaving a vague impression of body segments. Use the scribe tool to dot two black eyes onto the worm while it is still wet. Let the worm dry completely.
Peel up the dried worm (ew), add some dots of icing onto the back to act as glue, and place it on the apple. When the icing is dry, your cookies are ready to serve!
