Tulip Sugar Cookie Bouquet Tutorial

A quick and simple sugar cookie decorating tutorial to learn how to make a water colour tulip sugar cookie bouquet.

This is a fun and simple spring sugar cookie tutorial. It would make the perfect Mother's Day gift! It would also be appropriate for spring birthdays, Easter or a fun house warming present! Or you know just because! I love that the presentation makes it look like a luxurious bouquet of tulips. I like that with this method you do not have to add sticks to your cookies, which saves time. I decided to use the water colour technique to paint my cookies rather than tint the icing and flood the cookies one solid colour.  I think that by using the gel food colouring like paint it adds dimension to the cookies and gives them a more realistic look. This decorating technique is quick, simple and perfect for beginners. 

Tips for making a Tulip Sugar Cookie Bouquet 

• Make sure your royal icing is a good flooding consistency. You will want it to be thin enough to flood your cookies, but not too thin that it runs everywhere! I like to use a 10 second icing for these cookies. That means that when I run an knife through my bowl royal icing it takes around 10 seconds for the line to disappear. The faster the line disappears the thinner the icing.

• Flood your tulip cookies in three parts, allowing the icing to dry or set up for 15-20 minutes in between each part. This will give the cookie dimension. First flood the left petal, allowing the icing to dry slightly before flooding the right. Finally flood the middle petal and the stem.

• Make sure your cookie are completely dry before painting them with the gel colours. I like to allow my cookies to dry over night. Even if the cookies look dry and are dry to the touch, the added moisture from the water/alcohol can cause cracks or dents in your cookie.

• When painting sugar cookies I use Wilton brand gel colours, a variety of small clean food only paint brushes that I purchased from my local craft store and either water or some form of clear alcohol (such as white rum or vodka).

• Royal icing can only take so much moisture before it starts to crumble and create holes or bubbles within the frosting. This makes it difficult to layer your colour or build up a design on the cookie. I find that using a clear alcohol typically produces better results then using water as it evaporates faster from the cookie.

• Use paper towel or an extra flooded cookie to test out your colour blends before painting your actual cookies

• For more tips on decorating with Royal Icing - check out this post.

 

Tulip Sugar Cookie Bouquet Tutorial

You'll Need 

2-3 dozen sugar cookies in tulip and leaf shapes 

1 recipe of royal icing

12 inch pipping bag 

coupler 

Small Round Pipping Tip (like Wilton 3)

Paint pallet (or plate)

Gel Colours ( I used Wilton Pink, Christmas Red, Peach, Leaf Green, Yellow and Orange)

water or clear alcohol 

paint brush (only used for food) 

Brown Kraft Paper or Burlap 

Ribbon 

Directions

With your royal icing at a flood consistency (around 10 second icing), flood your tulip cookies in three parts, allowing the icing to dry or set up for 15-20 minutes in between each part. This will give the cookie dimension.  First flood the left petal, allowing the icing to dry slightly before flooding the right. Finally flood the middle petal and the stem. Outline and flood the leaves.

Allow the cookies to dry completely before moving onto the next step. 

Add your gel colours to your pallet. Using your paint brush and the water or alcohol, thin and blend your gel colours as you would water colour paints, until you reach your desired shades. 

Paint your tulip and leaf cookies as desired. Allow the paint to dry completely before packaging cookies into bouquets.

Breakup Brownies

These break up brownies are perfect for your Galentine's day celebration! A delicious combination of blondie and brownies topped with a eggless cookie dough make these bars hard to resist!

Okay! Let's talk about these breakup brownies!  These breakup brownies were inspired by half-baked ice cream. I was eating a pint of half baked a couple of weeks ago, and I thought how great would this be as baked dessert.  I knew I needed to include brownies and cookie dough into the final product -  I was like how do you make this up and keep the cookie dough unbaked? Obviously I was having a moment.

I wanted to make sure I also represented the vanilla ice cream - so that's where the blondie comes in! I decided to swirl blondie and brownie batters and top the finish product with an eggless cookie dough! Once the recipe was perfected, I was having some troubling coming up with a name. I mean half baked brownie bars just didn't seem to work - I thought it would be a bit confusing. As a joke I started calling them breakup brownies. I mean who doesn't want brownies and cookie dough when they are going through a breakup?

Breakup Brownies

Ingredients

For the blondie

⅓ c butter, melted

1 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

½ c flour

For the brownie

⅓ c butter, melted

½ c sugar

½ c brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

¼ c cocoa powder

¼ c flour

For the cookie dough

½ c butter, softened

½ c brown sugar

½ c sugar  

½  c flour

1 tbsp heavy cream

1/4c mini chocolate chips

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Grease a 8x8 inch baking tin with butter and dust with flour. Set aside.

For the blondies: In a large bowl, whisk together butter and sugar until combined. Whisk in vanilla. Add eggs one at a time whisking well after each addition. Add flour and salt to the wet ingredients. Whisk until just combined. Transfer batter to prepared pan, using an offset spatula evenly spread batter in pan.

For the brownies: In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar and brown sugar until combined. Whisk in vanilla. Add eggs one at a time whisking well after each addition. Add cocoa powder, flour and salt to the wet ingredients. Whisk until just combined. Transfer batter to prepared pan, using a butter knife marble brownie batter with the blondie batter.

Bake for 28-35 minutes. Top will be shiny and edges should be set. Allow brownies to cool in the pan.

For the cookie dough:
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla extract and heavy cream. Beat in flour until just combined. Stir in mini chocolate chips.

Once the brownies have cooled completely, evenly spread the cookie dough on top. Cut brownies into squares. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cream Puffs

Light and airy cream puffs dipped in white chocolate and filled with a delicious raspberry whipped cream. These beautiful cream puffs make for the perfect Valentine's Day treat!

I can't believe that Valentine's Day is less than a week away! Are you celebrating early this weekend? Or waiting to celebrate on Wednesday? We are planning on going out for dinner tomorrow night but otherwise our Valentine's Day celebration will be low key.  

I have been having so much fun playing around with pate a choux party. I love how light and airy it is! I knew I wanted to make a light and refreshing Valentine's Day treat and pate a choux was the obvious choice. I knew I wanted to include some chocolate in the dessert - since it is for Valentine's Day. I decided to go with a white chocolate glaze to add sweetness. The raspberry whipped cream filling is so light and airy but totally delicious with just the right amount of raspberry flavour. I love the white and pink colour combination - its perfect for Valentines Day! 

White Chocolate Raspberry Cream Puffs

Makes: 18 Cream Puffs

Ingredients 

1 c water

1/2 c butter, cut into cubes

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

1 c flour

4 eggs

1 c heavy cream

1-3 tbsp icing sugar, depending on sweetness level of raspberries

½ c raspberries, pureed

3/4 c white chocolate chips

sprinkles (optional)

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Directions

Pre-heat oven to 425F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside.

In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, combine the water, butter, salt & sugar. Simmer until the butter has melted and the mixture comes to a light boil. Take the mixture off the heat and stir in the flour with a wooden spoon. Place the mixture back on the heat and continue to stir until the mixture starts to come off the sides of the pan and a ball forms.

Transfer mixture to stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix over medium speed for 2-3 minutes, allowing mixture to cool slightly. Beat in eggs one at at time.  The mixture will break or come apart with each addition but should come back together before you add the additional egg. Your pastry should be shinny and of a smooth consistency.

Transfer pastry to a piping back fitted with a large round tip (I used a coupler) and pipe 1 inch rounds, about 2 inches apart onto baking sheet. Use a small amount of water to smooth out peak on each dough mound. 

Bake for 10 minutes for at 425F, then drop oven temperature to 375F and bake for 10 -15 minutes or until golden brown. Allow shells to cool completely before filling.

In a chilled bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment, combine the whipping cream and icing sugar. Whip mixture on high speed for 3-5 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Fold in raspberry puree. 

Fill a pipping bag fitted with a large round tip (I used Wilton 12) with your raspberry whipped cream filling. Poke your pipping tip into the bottom of a cooled cream puff shell. Pipe filling into bottom of each shell until filling starts to ooze out. Dipped filled cream puffs into white chocolate and top with sprinkles if desired.