Fall is the season I look most forward to most. I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to summer produce: plumcots, apruims, cherries...you can keep your watermelon and corn...but my heart did skip a beat yesterday when I spied the first Honeycrisp apples of the season. Fall is around the corner! Yay!
Along with fall comes school, and I figured, since Jack is off learning new things like pre-calculus and social dance (the foxtrot!!!), I should probably learn something new as well. Here's what I tried:
- tipless bags
- Rolkem Gold
So, tipless bags are made to be used, um, tipless. That is, you fill the bag with icing and snip the tip to the size you want. The bags are super inexpensive and thinner than your usual piping bag.
Sweet Hope Cookies has a great video about using them here.
For these cookies, you use the same consistency icing for the entire cookie. You know I've been doing the outline, thin, and flood method forEVER, so I need to work on getting the consistency down for going tipless. (Spell check is so wanting to change that to "topless.") Anyhoo...you'll see that some of my cookies aren't completely smooth.
Now, Rolkem Gold I didn't know I needed until about a week ago. Sharon from Truly Mad Plastics mentioned on Instagram that they'd be getting some in stock and people were going bananas in the comments. Well, that's good enough for me...I had to have some, too. (I'm not sure what this says about me, but I don't think it's good.)
Rolkem Gold is a gold powder that you mix with alcohol or extract to paint onto cookies like luster dust. Yes, it's edible. Did I notice a difference over the luster dust I normally use? Yes. The Rolkem went on smoother and had better coverage. I'm looking forward to playing with it some more.
OK...let's make some golden delicious apple cookies, shall we?
You'll need:
- apple-shaped cut-out cookies
- royal icing, divided into 3 bowls and tinted...you can use any gel paste food coloring (I used...Green: AmeriColor Electric Green mixed with Electric Blue, Pink: ProGel Poppy)
- tipless piping bags
- Rolkem Gold or any gold luster dust
- vodka
- clean paintbrushes
- new pencil with eraser
Make the cookies. (I like to use these Do Stix for rolling.)
Once the icing has been divided and tinted, thin the 3 icings with a bit of water to a medium consistency, between a stiff piping consistency and a thin one for flooding. When you stir the icing, you'll want it to smooth out after jiggling the bowl several times. If it smooths out right away, add in some more powdered sugar. If it doesn't move, add in more water.
Pour the icing into the tipless bag and cut off a bit of the tip. Outline the cookie. Once the cookies are outlined, cut off a bit more of the tip and fill in the cookie. (You don't have to cut off more of the bag, it just makes filling in the outline quicker.
Add the stem and leaf. (You'll do the same with the pink and green apples, adding the stem and leaf with the untinted icing.)
Let the cookies dry uncovered for 6-8 hours or overnight.
Once the cookies have dried, mix the Rolkem Gold (or any gold luster dust) with vodka. Paint on the gold as you wish, using paintbushes.
For thick stripes, use a flat paintbrush.
For the dots, I used a pencil eraser. (It was brand new, but I cleaned it first anyway.) For the dots, make sure the gold mixture is stirred well, then dip the eraser into the gold and press onto the cookie.
The gold will dry fairly quickly as the alcohol evaporates. (On that note, if you notice that your gold mixture is getting thick and difficult to work with, add in some more vodka. And as Mr. E always reminds me....put the cap back on the vodka bottle; it might evaporate!)
Super simple apples made super fancy with a bit of gold. We didn't even have to wash tips or couplers! I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks! ;)
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