No step-by-step photos for these, but I'll walk you through how to make them.
- heart and scalloped oval cut-out cookies
- royal icing, divided and tinted with AmeriColor Egg Yellow, Bright White, Super Red, and Leaf Green
- couplers and tips, #2, #5, and leaf
- disposable icing bags
- squeeze bottles
1. Outline the cookies in the base color using a #2 tip. (Reserve some of this white icing.)
2. Thin the remaining yellow and white icings with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup. You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin. Count of 2-3 is good. Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.
Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed. Pour into squeeze bottles.
3. Fill in the outlines with the thinned icing, working 6-8 cookies at a time. Use a toothpick to guide the icing to the edges and to pop large air bubbles.
4. Starting with the first cookie filled, drop dots of the contrasting color onto the wet icing. Let the cookies dry for at least one hour.
5. Thin the red icing as above, but don't thin it as much. Draw a knife through the center of the icing. You'll want it to come back together in a count of 20 seconds. Do the same with the reserved white icing.
6. Pour the icing into a piping bag fitted with a #5 tip. Pipe cherries onto the cookies. With a #2 tip, add the detail on the cherries with the white icing.
7. Use a #2 tip to add the cherry stems in green. Switch the tip to a leaf tip and add a leaf.
8. Let the cookies dry uncovered, 6-8 hours or overnight.
I now return you to pumpkin season.
