Happy November, bakers and decorators! (And while we’re at it, happy belated October and September too!) I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by the challenges of the fall quarantine, so I haven’t been around here blogging like I would have liked to have been normally. I hope you’re all safe and well and felt a lot more summer and early fall motivation than I did. If you’ve been traveling the rough road of online schooling your kids like me, then you have my sympathy and solidarity! However, the holidays wait for no baker and I’m here with a renewed sense of purpose and drive, so let’s get back on the baking trail to success!
I wanted to get back into blogging with something that everyone loves and recognizes, the humble pumpkin. A pumpkin sugar cookie was actually the first design I ever made successfully, and I think that the first year that I called myself a “decorator”, it was the only thing I made. We had a lot of pumpkins to eat that year! Over time I’ve gotten better and better, adding little embellishments here, and incorporating an extra color or two there. This year’s design is something I’m really happy with, it’s rustic and really works for all of the fall season and not just Halloween. Best of all, it’s a design that you can complete in just a few hours of time.
MATERIALS NEEDED FOR RUSTIC PUMPKIN SUGAR COOKIES
- Sugar cookies, baked and cooled. Find my favorite recipe at the bottom of this post or explained in detail here!
- Royal icing in several colors. My recipe is at the bottom of this post, or visit here if you’re a newbie! I like using Americolor food gels, found here at Amazon.
- Orange, at a medium consistency and a #2 tip
- Brown, at a piping consistency and a #1 tip
- Yellow, at a piping consistency and a medium leaf tip
- Green, at a piping consistency and small leaf tip
- Black, at a medium consistency and a #2 tip
- A pumpkin cookie cutter. The one I used in this post is available here at Amazon.
- Cookie etching needle, found in this simple toolkit on Amazon.
- A small (clean/new) craft paintbrush for some detail work.
- Counter top fan to speed drying times (optional but recommended- if you don’t use one, double the drying times).
It’s been too long without a cookie tutorial! Let’s get going!
Begin by baking your cookies and allowing them to cool completely on a rack before decorating. We’re going to create the pumpkin body in three segments, so when you’re ready you will want to fill in the two sides but leave the middle alone for now. Allow the cookies 15 minute under a fan so that the edges can set up.
After the small wait, go ahead and fill in that middle section. Pipe your icing so that it spreads to the edges of the other icing shapes, don’t pipe directly on top of the icing lines. This will help create some definition later. Give the cookies about 30 minutes of time with the fan on to solidify the icing.
Now it’s time to finish up defining the pumpkin. I’ve never seen a pumpkin that was one uniform color, have you? We’re going to darken up the edges with a little bit of edible brown paint. Squirt a tiny dollop of the same brown gel color you’re using for brown icing into a small bowl or dish, and then dilute it with about a ¼ cup of water. Stir it well to break up any small gobs of dye, and then use your paintbrush to lightly go over the edges between the pumpkin sections. Be careful that you don’t overload your brush with liquid, we want the paint to stay in the ridges and not spread out all over the place. This step shouldn’t take long to dry, give it about 5-10 minutes under the fan.
When you’re ready, grab your brown piping icing and #1 tip. Make three curlicue lines to create a stem shape, making sure that the one on the left slopes that way at the bottom, and that the same is true for the one on the right. Next, pipe a curved shape from the widest part of the pumpkin to the other side. Go back and forth without breaking the line until you have about 5 ‘strings’ across the pumpkin. They should overlap here and there- we don’t want perfect side by side lines for this part. Then pipe a rough bow shape with two trailing ribbons. The bow should seem a little bigger than it might need to be because we’re going to cover a lot of it up with other decoration.
Now it’s time to start on the flower embellishment. Using your green piping icing and medium leaf tip, create two leaf shapes to the right of the bow. They should point slightly northeast and southeast, if a compass direction is helpful. Just be sure to keep the bases of both leaves starting near the same spot so that when we make the yellow flower later, we’ll be able to hide where they start. Next, pipe a small black dot for the center of the flower just to the left of the bow. It’s important to let these decorations dry fully before we proceed because it’s very easy for these dark colors to bleed into the yellow we’ll be using next. Give them a full hour under the fan before the next step.
Finally, we need to add the flower. Using your yellow piping icing and small leaf tip, pipe five petals around the black dot. I find it helpful to turn the cookie as I go rather than to turn the bag itself. Keep the petals short and sweet. Once you’ve finished the flowers, the cookies should go back under the fan for a final hour before they’re good to go! Not too shabby!
So, how did these cookies turn out for you? Do you feel a little more rustic and ready for the second half of fall already? I hope you had fun and that you’ll stay on the lookout for my second half of my Fall 2020 themed cookies, coming soon! Make sure to let me know how everything worked out for you in the comments section below, or on my Facebook page! Until next time, stay happy, stay safe, and stay baking!
Foolproof Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In bowl, mix together 3 cups of the flour and baking power. Set aside.
- In separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the extracts and the egg and beat until combined.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Dough will be crumbly.
- Press dough together with hands, and roll out on a well-floured surface. Cut shapes and place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.
- Refrigerate baking sheet for at least 10 minutes.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes, remove when cookie edges are just barely golden. Allow several minutes to cool on sheet before moving cookies to a rack.
Royal Icing
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 Tbsp meringue powder
- 4 cups confectioner's (powdered) sugar sifted
- 1/2 tsp Karo syrup (optional)
- 1/8 tsp clear flavored extract (optional)
Instructions
- Combine water and meringue powder in a bowl and beat with mixer until frothy.
- Sift powdered sugar into the same bowl and mix to combine
- Add syrup and extract if desired
- Beat the icing for 4-5 minutes until it is glossy and holds a peak if the beater is turned upside down
Medium Consistency
- Continue to add water ½ Tbsp at a time until at desired consistency (icing should disappear into itself in about 5 seconds after being dripped back into the mixing bowl).
Flooding Consistency
- Continue to add water ½ Tbsp at a time until at desired consistency (icing should disappear into itself in about 3 seconds after being dripped back into the mixing bowl).
