Royal Icing Halloween Cutout Cookies

There are two things in the baking world that I have never really gotten along with: Pastry and Icing. Until yesterday, I have only ever tried making icing one way, the way that my mother makes it: a bit of butter, some icing sugar and a bit of milk. Add sugar and milk to get the consistency and amount you need. I always end up with it to watery, and then by the time it thickens enough, it is to sweet.

I've always admired the cookies in the blogs I follow. Beautiful designs with crisp lines of icing. I've always wanted to try them, but have been a bit scared. Finally, I broke down. Let's do this! My team is having a bake sale at work this Friday, and I was asked to make something. I decided I was going to make Halloween cut-outs. I poked around a few blogs until I found the tutorial that I had read awhile ago. This is what I used, and this is my result!

A massive THANK YOU to Bake at 350. I borrowed her recipes. I did not make it my own because I was a bit afraid to experiment with something new.

Rather than share her recipe, I am just going to link to it. The recipe is in such a wonderful post, I think it deserves it. Here It Is. You have to watch them, though...as you can see from my first tray, they very quickly go from 'almost' to 'done'. :-)

Subsequent trays turned out much better. I used this recipe because I know it was tried and true, but also because my own sugar cookies always turn out puffed, I was afraid the icing would roll off. These ones baked out nice and flat, perfect for piping.

The recipe I used for the Royal Icing is also from Bake at 350, and it can be found HERE. Again, I am not posting the recipe because her instructions and pictures are so much better, I do not want to mangle it! Usually I squiggle recipes down in my little notebook, this time I actually sent it through the printer and followed it word for word. As you can see above, I have a bit of a shaky hand when it comes to piping straight lines, but it improved with practise. I was surprised at the amount of strength it took to squeeze the icing bag! It was a good muscle workout!

I had lots of leftover icing, so I used up some leftover marshmallows and lollipop sticks to make these. I just wrapped them in lollipop bags with a piece of skull ribbon. I got about a dozen, so I will donate them to the bake sale as well.

So I think my first foray into Royal Icing was a success. I can't wait for Christmas so I can make more! Hopefully they will sell well at the bake sale. They were fun to make and taste delicious! I have a few broken pieces for my cookie jar, and a couple that didn't fit into my container for the bake sale. Testers for the baker!

Hope everyone is having a great week! I can't believe another one is almost gone already, these cookies were a two night project, so they kept me busy!

Have fun, everyone!