Blue Japanese Traditional Pattern Cookies

Yes, I am on a blue cookie streak. One of my favorite customers, Diane, told me how much she loves all Asian-themed cookies, so when I ran across these traditional blue Japanese patterns, I knew I had to make them as wafer papers for her. These patterns have been in use for centuries in both porcelain and fabric decoration; waves, flowers, intricate squares.

I made the cookies with my favorite, Sugarbelle's Sugar Cookie Dough, and used a 1.75" square cookie cutter from the Ateco 5-Piece Fluted Square Cookie Cutter Set. If you wanted to, you could "cheat" and use these wafer papers on Lorna Doone shortbread cookies from your grocery store's cookie isle. 

After piping and flooding the cookies, I let them harden for 24 hrs, then wafer-papered them. They were such dainty cookies, I felt they required a delicate border; I piped round "pearls" in a string for a beaded border, using a #4 round tip in an icing consistency a bit thicker than regular border-piping icing, but not as stiff as if I had been making a border with a star tip. This is really more trial and error than anything else; roughly 8 second icing. I often have to remix looser, if my beads have a sharp tip that won't absorb, or thicker, if the pearls turn into shapeless blobs.

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The wafer papers are available for purchase in my store.
A step-by-step how-to for decorating cookies with wafer papers can be found here.

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Blue Chinese Porcelain Cookies

Last week, my neighbor Marcia's Delft Blue Porcelain Cookies, which I'd made for her nearly a year ago, finally met their demise; she had saved them on a platter in her dining room, but wafer paper is fragile and very susceptible to humidity, and its shelf-life is only about a year. After a year, the humidity here in Texas finally made the wafer papers bubble and curl, and she agreed to throw out her cookies. To replace them, I made her these blue Chinese porcelain cookies.

I'm not familiar with Chinese iconography and symbolism, so I couldn't tell you if the bird is a pheasant, a bird of paradise, or a phoenix; not whether the mandala-looking pattern is a lotus flower or a symbol of something else. Whatever the case might be, there is no question about its beauty and appeal. I bet she's going to keep these a year, too.

For dough, I used Jesicake's Gluten-Free Version of Lilaloa's Chocolate Cookies. I cut the cookies with the 2.5" round cutter (it's more like a 2.25" usable area, because of the fluting) from the Ateco 4-Piece Round Fluted Cookie Cutter Set, but any 2.5" fluted round or 2.25" plain-edged round cutter would do for the images. Iced with white, border piped with a #16 star tip using super-stiff icing.

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The wafer papers are available for purchase in my store.
A step-by-step how-to for decorating cookies with wafer papers can be found here.

Read more »

Victorian Dog Cookies

One of my aunts is a dog-lover to the extreme, so I made her these dog cookies. The images are from Victorian die-cut scraps. The baby (he's 2.5, but I still think of him as "the baby") liked the little white terrier and the border collie. I like the little cairn terrier and the yorkie... and the Jack Russell (if that's a Jack Russell, I'm not sure). My aunt will doubtless like the long-haired dachshund, because she had a mix who looked very much like him.

I made the cookies with Jesicake's Gluten-Free Version of Lilaloa's Chocolate Cookies using a 2.5" round cutter (it's more like a 2.25" usable area, because of the fluting) from the Ateco 4-Piece Round Fluted Cookie Cutter Set, but any 2.5" fluted round or 2.25" plain-edged round cutter would do for the images. Iced with white, border piped with a #16 star tip using super-stiff icing.

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The wafer papers are available for purchase in my store.
A step-by-step how-to for decorating cookies with wafer papers can be found here.

Read more »

Coffee Cup Cookies

My friend Brian has been on my "to-be-cookied" list for a long time and, since I finally found a good gluten-free cookie recipe, it was his turn. He is a coffee fiend, so coffee cup cookies were a natural choice. 

I made the cookies with Jesicake's Gluten-Free Version of Lilaloa's Chocolate Cookies, which is superb in both taste and in ease of baking. I used a 1.75" square cookie cutter from the Ateco 5-Piece Fluted Square Cookie Cutter Set, but if you weren't worried about gluten, you could "cheat" and use these wafer papers on Lorna Doone shortbread cookies from your grocery store's cookie isle. 

After piping and flooding the cookies, I waited the requisite 24 hrs for them to harden, then wafer-papered them & piped a border with vanilla icing (colored light brown with Hershey's cocoa powder) with a #14 star tip. Brian and his wife loved them :) 

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The wafer papers are available for purchase in my store.
A step-by-step how-to for decorating cookies with wafer papers can be found here.

Read more »

Asian Flower Porcelain Plate Cookies

My godmother was long overdue for cookies—but I had to wait until I had figured out which gluten-free cookie dough was actually tasty, and not like cardboard, before making hers. Since Jesicake's Gluten-Free Version of Lilaloa's Chocolate Cookies was excellent, my godmother has cookies on the way. She is a lover of porcelain and of flowers, so I made her this set of Asian porcelain flower plate designs from the late 1800s.

I used the 2.5" round cutter (it's more like a 2.25" usable area, because of the fluting) from the Ateco 4-Piece Round Fluted Cookie Cutter Set, but any 2.5" fluted round or 2.25" plain-edged round cutter would do for the images. Iced with white, border piped with a #16 star tip using super-stiff icing.

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The wafer papers are available for purchase in my store.
A step-by-step how-to for decorating cookies with wafer papers can be found here.

Read more »

Victorian Children Silhouette Cookies

These silhouettes of Victorian / Edwardian children playing are from early 1900s postcards by artist Bertl Werner. There is an innocence and a timelessness to them, which I found very appealing.

I have long planned to try my hand at gluten-free cookies, so that my gluten-sensitive friends could get some of my cookies, but I had a hard time choosing a recipe and an even harder time getting the ingredients, once I made up my mind which recipe to use. In the end, I ordered all of the ingredients through Amazon. I chose to do Jesicake's Gluten-Free Version of Lilaloa's Chocolate Cookies, and I'm glad I did; they tasted so good nobody could tell they were gluten-free! I used the 2" x 2.5" rectangular cutter from the R & M Fluted Rectangular Cookie Cutter Set. They were iced with white, wafer-papered, and given a border with a #16 star tip.

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The wafer papers are available for purchase in my store.
A step-by-step how-to for decorating cookies with wafer papers can be found here.

Read more »

Sweet as Candy Rose Cookies

I prefer small cookies—I like a cookie that is like a tiny jewel; a perfect mouthful. That way, eating one isn't a huge commitment and, if the cookies are especially pretty, one can eat many different ones in one sitting. In the end, I probably eat just the same amount of cookie, but I prefer to do it in smaller sections. Is that silly? Probably :) 

 Anyway... usually, I have a recipient in mind when I'm making cookies, but these were just for us. And, they were eaten in record time! They have roses, birdcages, and scrolls in pink, green, and blue—a modern take on Victorian themes.

Made with my favorite, Sugarbelle's Sugar Cookie Dough, using a 1.75" fluted cutter from the Fox Run Plain and Crinkled Double Sided Biscuit Cutter Set, the cookies were iced with white, wafer-papered, and then piped with a #14 star cutter.

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The wafer papers are available at my shop.

Read more »