Jack-O-Lantern Cookies - Tutorial with Pictures

For these cookies, I used the pumpkin cookie cutter in the Wilton 101 cookie cutter set although just about any medium to large sized pumpkin cookie cutter would work for these.

I wanted these jack-o-lanterns to have a layered look with the black jack-o-lantern faces receding into the background, so I used the technique where the black icing is spread flat onto the cookie first and all other icings are layered on top. I have included a few pictures to show how this works.

To spread the black icing onto the cookie, I used an angled cake icing spatula to place of small glob (approximately 1/2 tsp.) of icing onto the cookie. Then I carefully and evenly spread it with the spatula, making sure to not get it too close to the edges of the cookie. The black icing was stiff but not quite outline consistency - closer to 20-second consistency. I needed it to spread easily but not run off the sides of the cookies. 

Once the black icing was dry, I outlined jack-o-lantern faces onto the cookies and the outside edges of the cookies. I left a small indent at the top so that I could add the pumpkins' brown stems and leaves later.

As soon as the outlines were dry, I carefully filled in the pumpkins with a Wilton #2 tip and orange 20-second consistency icing. I was careful not to overfill with the icing, otherwise it might run over my outlined edges and into the jack-o-lantern's faces.

I left these overnight to dry. Then I added the additional details - the brown stem, leaves, and top outlines as shown in the finished picture at the top.

Spider Cookies - Tutorial with Pictures

The cookie cutter I used for these spider cookies is available here: Crouching Spider Cookie Cutter.



When I decorate cookies, I don't like to leave any parts of the cookie undecorated so, first, I outlined and flooded the entire cookie with white royal icing. I left it overnight to dry.

Next, I outlined a circle in the center of the cookies. I used my projector to trace the circle because I am terrible at freehand drawing circles. I used a Wilton icing tip #2 to add the spider's legs.

I let these to dry for about 2-3 hours and then flooded the center of the circle.

While this icing was still wet I added some Jimmie sprinkles to the top of the circle, and then I gently tapped off the excess.

 

I let these dry slightly, and then I added some leftover icing to the back of two Wilton Candy Eyeballs. I carefully placed the eyeballs on the front of the spiders for the last, finishing touch. This step can wait until the spiders are completely dry, but if you are careful you can add them while the icing is still drying.

Volleyball Cookies (Including a Tutorial on Preventing Icing Craters)

Making a volleyball cookie would normally be very straightforward and take only two steps:

• Flood the entire cookie in white 
• Outline the indentations of the volleyball 

This is a fine way of doing it but drawing the outline on top of the white doesn't create that poofy, rounded shape that the sections of the volleyball normally have. In order to give the cookie this look, I needed to outline the indentations first and then fill in the spaces with white flood/20-second consistency icing second. This is how the cookies looked before I filled them in with white icing:

Outlined with gray royal icing using a Wilton #2 tip

The issue when filling these small, outlined sections is that, when the icing is left to air dry, it tends to crater and form holes. This is not a pretty look and can be very frustrating. Making the icing a thicker consistency often helps and so does running a toothpick (or scribe tool) through the spaces before the icing starts to dry. But the general consensus among experienced cookie decorators is that speeding up the drying time ("quick drying" the top of the icing) helps even more. 

Food dehydrators, fans, and space heaters are often recommended as good ways to dry the icing faster, but - with the exception of a fan - I don't own any of these. I decided to try my oven. I set my oven to its lowest temperature setting (170 degrees) and then turned it off. As soon as I filled in a cookie, I placed it on a baking sheet in the oven and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. The top of the icing dried very quickly, and I was pleased to see that no craters formed. I let one cookie air dry and set it side-by-side with an oven-dried cookie for comparison:

I used the same consistency icing for each. The oven-dried cookie was poofy, rounded and had no craters. The icing on the air-dried cookie had a few small craters and the filled spaces looked a bit sunken and dented. The icing on the oven-dried cookie was also a bit shinier than the more matte, air-dried cookie. This might be something to keep in mind when going for one look or the other.

Dr. Seuss Cookies

Dr. Seuss themed cookies: Cat in the Hat hats, Green eggs for Green Eggs and Ham, and blue and red fish for One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

I've included some pictures of the cookies while they were in progress. For the hat cookies, I used a Crooked Hat Cookie Cutter. I outlined these cookies first with royal icing in a stiff, piping consistency. I used a Wilton #3 tip for the outline since a slightly wider line worked better for these particular cookies. Next I filled in the spaces with white and red 20-second icing, and, after they dried, I drew the little scribbly details with my black food dye marker.

I had to mix two batches of white icing since I hadn't made enough initially, and I had some cratering issues with the second batch. I'm fairly certain that it was because the second batch was slightly thinner and had more water than my original mixture. I've determined that for thin, enclosed spaces (like the spaces at the bottom of the hats), thicker icing holds up better than icing that is more watered down.



For the fish, I outlined them first with a Wilton #2 tip in black icing and then filled them in with red and blue flood icing. Once the red and blue icing was dry, I piped on the eyes and mouth with my remaining black icing and drew on the addition details with my black food dye marker.

For the eggs, I piped white, 20-second icing onto a round cookie. I gave it the asymmetrical look of a fried egg and filled it in immediately after it was outlined. One the white icing was dry, I added the green egg yolks with 20-second icing, and piped on a few black lines as added detail.