Watercolor and Gold Sugar Cookies

Flood cookies are hard… Seriously. These cookies are far from perfect but I learned SOOO much in the process.

What you need

• Sugar cookies -I used this Alton Brown Recipe
• Royal Icing- I used the recipe on the wilton meringue powder container which used meringue powder, Icing sugar, and water which I substituted with lemon juice for a better flavor
• Piping bag and thin piping tip
• Almond extract, or any other clear alcohol-based extract
• Gold luster dust- You can get this at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, or JoAnn

Instructions

I stated by baking round cookies about 4 inches in diameter. While letting my cookies cool, I started making my royal icing. I watched a ton of youtube videos and searched other blogs to get an idea about that the consistency should be…. Ultimately I did my best, but trial and error was my best friend. Before you thin the icing down too much for the flooding, set aside some thicker icing to pipe on your cookies later.

Frosting the cookies was next. I originally tried piping a border on each of the cookies that I could fill with a thinner flooding icing, but I did not like the way this was looked and it was taking a long time, so eventually I resorted to using a spatula to apply an even layer of royal icing on the cookies without the piped boarder. *I piped this border on later after I had painted the cookies to give it a more finished look.

Before you move on, make sure your royal icing completely dries. This make take several hours. I left mine overnight to ensure well dried cookies.

Now to the fun part. Painting the cookies! Use gel food coloring in the colors you choose like you would a watercolor, but instead of using water to dilute it, use your alcohol-based extract. The reason you use this instead of water is water may start to break down your icing, whereas the extract evaporates very quickly. I used a regular paintbrush to paint flowers on my cookies. Wash your paintbrush thoroughly because any residue from previous paint may contain inedible components.

Instead of explaining how I painted the flowers, watch this

Use the thicker icing you set aside to pipe what will be your gold design on the top. I was using my cookies as place settings, so I piped the names of my friends on the cookies. This is also when I piped around the cookie to give it a more finished look.

Again, make sure that this icing completely dries before moving on. Once the icing is try, mix almond extract with the peal powder (luster dust). Because the extract evaporates quickly, I mixed it up a little at a time. The consistency should be like paint. Using a fine paintbrush, paint over the white piped icing. I have seen videos where people use yellow or brown icing to help give a richer gold color. I found the white looked fine, but I had to do 3 separate layers.

I absolutely loved this part of the process because it combined my love for art, my love for food, and my love for handlettering together. To take things one step further, I also had a hallmark movie playing while I did this. I was a very happy girl.

And thats it! These cookies are definitely a labor of love, but I loved every moment. I can’t wait until I have another excuse to make them… next time they will look even better!