Mushroom Cookies for Alice in Wonderland Party

This is the process of the sugar cookies I made for my niece's Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party.

I used the recipe for sugar cookies from Martha Stewart's website.  I also used her egg-free royal icing. I cut the recipe in half because it makes way too icing if you're just going to use it for outlining the cookies. I also added about a teaspoon of vanilla powder for more flavor. The vanilla powder does not tint the icing brown as vanilla extract liquid would.

At first I used a knife to cut out the shape of the mushroom. But cutting out a bazillion mushrooms by hand grew tiresome very quickly. Exasperation led to inspiration and I found an Easter basket cookie cutter that was shaped like a mushroom.  Using the cookie cutter was much easier and faster. I like things to be fast and easy except for my man.

voila

After baking outline cookies with royal icing. This creates a barrier so the glaze does not drip down the sides. Royal icing hardens quickly so while you are decorating keep cling wrap over the icing bowl. I also used disposable decorating bags for the royal icing. It is easier than trying to wash out the polyester or canvas bags.

The next process is called flooding. Flood your cookies with a glaze and it spreads out to cover the cookie. I made a simple glaze by mixing powdered sugar, a little bit of milk, vanilla powder, and small amount of pure vanilla extract. I didn't measure anything I just eyeball the consistency. Add more milk if you want it runny and add more sugar if you want it stiffer.  If you don't have vanilla powder there is also clear vanilla extract at Walmart and grocery stores but it's imitation, not pure. The powder vanilla is available at Williams-Sonoma. Martha Stewart ices the entire cookie with royal icing but that is extremely time consuming and tedium is not my medium. The glaze is much faster.

My glaze recipe: 2 cups powder sugar, 10-12 tblsp milk or less than 1/4 cup, 1 tsp vanilla powder, and a drop of pure vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. I like vanilla powder because the vanilla extract makes the glaze beige. There is a product that is colorless vanilla but it is NOT pure vanilla extract. I did have to make another batch of glaze because the recipe made more than 50 cookies.

You can see some red icing still dripped off the sides, but if I hadn't outlined the cookies the glaze would be all over the counter instead of the cookies.

Use royal icing for the dots and the words.

  

I love glitter!