Gingerbread Cookies

Baking cookies with grandma is a timeless image that everyone can picture. You can probably easily smell the cookie aroma coming from the oven, or picture a sweet old lady holding out a plate of cookies. So, while I was at my grandma's house this weekend, I decided to do just that!
The technique that I decided to use this time was piping (multiple areas). To quote my grandma, piping is "just drawing on the cookie." To quote my book, Cookie Craft, "Piping is the technique we use most often, either to outline cookies to be flooded or to add embellishments to plain, undercoated cookies or to wet or dry flood icing" (Fryer and Peterson 104). Basically, piping is the foundation technique to decorating cookies.

If you read my last post on egg tempera, you'll know that it was a disaster. Thankfully, this time worked out better for me. I was actually really proud of how my cookies turned out; especially since they got better and better each one I made.

One tip that Cookie Craft gives is to not let the icing bag's tip touch the cookie when piping (Fryer and Peterson 104). This makes the piping line smoother and not blotch up in areas.
To decorate these gingerbread people, I used a variety of techniques. Specifically, I used traditional piping, outlining, piping hearts, and piping on wet piping. Of these, piping on wet piping was definitely the most challenging. This technique it mostly used "to create eyes on a cookie" (Fryer and Peterson 106). To do the technique, you have to pipe white frosting, then a color for the iris, and then black. However, in order to not cause eyes that pop out, you have to wait a moment after piping each layer, dip your finger into water, and gently press down on the dot (Fryer and Peterson 106). When I tried this, it made the white dot a little watery, which caused the green that I layered onto it to also appear a little watery.

Another specific technique that I used to pipe was piping hearts. This was a pretty easy and basic technique. All that was required was to simply pipe a short line for the left side of the heart, and then do he same for the right (Fryer and Peterson 106). For me, this caused the hearts to appear a little sharp, so I took a toothpick and filled in the icing in the heart a little. All in all, I was pretty proud of me little hearts!

The last piping technique that I used was just basic piping, or outlining. I used this on almost all of the gingerbread people that I decorated. As worded by Cookie Craft, "The goal is to pipe around the cookie shape in an unbroken line, trying to get the icing as close to the edge of the cookie as possible without it falling off" (Fryer and Peterson 106). This was also really successful and easy for me to do.
One thing that I learned from decorating these cookies was that patience and perseverance really does help you improve. Since it took me about ten minutes to decorate each gingerbread person, and I decorated 21 cookies, it took me a while. And I am not the most patient person in the world, so this was a little difficult for me. However, I really enjoyed decorating my cookies this time. I found it relaxing, a good creative vent, and was excited that I was actually pretty decent at it...not to mention the delicious outcome! :)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a cookie with my name on it...literally!

What is something that took you a lot of time and effort, but, in the end, paid off really well?

Fryer, Janice, and Valerie Peterson. Cookie Craft. Pownal, VT: Storey, 2008. Print.