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.

Buttercream Rosette Cake Tutorial

A quick and simple cake decorating tutorial to learn how to make a buttercream rosette cake using just a Wilton 1B decorating tip! 

I have made this rosette cake more times that I can count. It is my go-to decorating technique when I need an elegant yet striking cake design. It looks beautiful on it's own or incorporated into a tiered cake design - like this wedding cake I made for my cousin.  I love that it only uses one decorating tip! This decorating technique is quick, simple and perfect for beginners. 

Tips for making a buttercream Rosette Cake

• Make sure you have enough icing - these roses use up a lot. For an 8 inch cake - filled, crumb coated and covered in roses you will need 2-3 batches of this buttercream

• Always ice a cold cake. If you try to ice a cake that is still warm from the oven the icing will just melt right off the cake

• Add a good crumb coat to your cake before pipping your rosettes. This will lock in any crumbs and create a good base layer of colour for your cake - this is especially important if you are icing a dark cake (like chocolate) with a light colour frosting

• Chill your cake in between adding the crumb coat and adding the rosettes. This will allow your crumb coat to set up

• I prefer the look of a taller cake when decorating with rosettes. Go 3 or 4 layers high - trust me :)

• Create rosettes around the sides of your cake first. Start your rosettes at the bottom of your cake and work your way up to the top

• When you get near the end of the frosting in your pipping bag, make sure it has enough to complete a rose. It is harder to create the rosettes with a near empty bag (as you can see from my video below - I didn't always take my own advice...)

• Add swoops or stars to fill in any gaps between roses

How to pipe a rosette? 

Start in what you want to be the centre of the rosette, and using even pressure slowly create a circle (or swirl) around the centre of the rose in a counter-clockwise direction.

What tip to use for a rosette cake? 

Any large star tip will work for creating a rosette cake. My preference is for the Wilton 1B decorating tip. I have seen other beautiful rosette cakes using the Wilton 1M and 2D tips as well. 

Rosette Buttercream Cake Tutorial

You'll Need 

A 6 or 8 inch cake

Buttercream frosting (2-3 batches)

Pipping bag & tip (1B, 2D or 1M)

Offset spatula

Directions

Start with a 6 or 8 inch layered cake. Using your offset spatual, apply a crumb coat, using the same colour of frosting that you will be making your rosettes out of. It doesn't have to be neat, but it should cover the cake enough to keep all of the crumbs in and so the cake doesn't show through in between any gaps of the rosettes.

Place your decorating tip inside of your pipping bag and fill with your buttercream frosting. Start piping your rosettes on the sides of your cake first, working your way to the top and finishing the with top of your cake. To pipe a rosette: start in what you want to be the centre of the rosette, and using even pressure slowly create a circle (or swirl) around the centre of the rose in a counter-clockwise direction. Fill in any gaps between your rosettes with stars or swirls. 

Floral Watercolour Sugar Cookies - Video Tutorial

Sugar cookies are the perfect blank canvases to express your creativity. There are so many different techniques to learn. It always amazes me what you can do with some royal icing and gel food colouring. Just scrolling through #sugarcookies on Instagram you will see beautiful works of art by sugar cookie artists.  The Painted Box, Shop the Whisk, and Hello Baked are just a few masters of the craft. Their cookies are always intricate and completely stunning. They give me something to work towards. One of my new favourite techniques that I have been playing around with is painting with gel colours on flooded sugar cookies. Much like a watercolour painting. 

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).  While painting on sugar cookies is similar in technique to water colour painting there are definite differences. 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. 

If you cookie is still slightly sticky from the gel colours after it has dried lightly dust cookies with corn starch or powdered sugar. While this will dull the colour slightly it will prevent the colours from being spread on your cookie ruining all of your hard work. 

Floral Watercolour Sugar Cookies

Directions:

You'll Need:

• Sugar Cookies flooded with Royal Icing and allowed to dry for 12-24 hours 

• Various Gel Colours - I use Wilton

• Toothpicks

• Paint pallet or plate

• Clean, food only paint brushes 

• Water, Clear Alcohol or Extract 

• Cornstarch/Powdered Sugar, Opitional 

• Using a clean toothpick, place a small amount of each gel colour onto your pallet or plate
• Add a couple of drops of water/extract/clear alcohol to each colour until desired paint thinness is reached 
• Paint desired designs onto flooded sugar cookies, allow cookies to dry for 4-6 hours
• If needed, dust cornstarch/powdered sugar onto dried cookie design to absorb any wet gel colour