Ha! Giant pain killers to help someone special feel better!
I wanted to make "get well" cookies for someone. My cookie cutter collection is rather small so I had to come up with something using what I have. Somehow the idea of pain killer cookies came to mind.
I used a small round cookie cutter for the white pills.
The solid blue and red were made with a small oval cutter. It wasn't quite oval enough so I smooshed in the dough a bit. They're still not as oval as I would have liked. I had to hand-cut the multi-colored capsules. I used a square cutter. Sliced the dough down the middle so I had two rectangles. Then I used a knife to round the ends.
As you can see above, I tried a few different ways to get the affect I was looking for. In the end, I decided to flood the two-colored pills at the same time - no dry time between colors. The icing dried flatter that way, making it more realistic. I decided against all of the ways I tried above for the white pills. In the end, I decided on this...
I piped a line of icing down the middle of each cookie then spread it out with a spatula. Let it dry. Then flooded one side, let it dry, then flooded the other side leaving a little space between the two.
I typed up a "prescription label" and taped it to a canning jar. Now I have a little gift for someone feeling under the weather!Edit: For all of those wishing for a copy of my Prescription Label, Mandi from PurdueAvenue.com made an editable pdf! She has graciously shared it here!
So what lessons did I learn with this batch?Did I say never outline with thicker icing then flood? Ha! I've changed my mind. I said that because my piping was so bad with the last batch. If my outline piping is neat and tidy, that will give me nice crisp edges. I didn't like the wobbly edges around the pills here. Keep practicing outlining is my lesson!
I was using about 10-second royal icing for the flooding. Perhaps 20-second would have given me crisper shapes. Thick outlining definitely would have.
Another lesson I learned....When did I start looking for perfection? I am not a perfectionist. I try to do things well. I look at something I've made and say that it's good. I never say that it's perfect. I just don't think in terms of "perfection" because it seems to be an unattainable goal. For some reason with cookies, I'm striving for near-perfection. So unlike me. I think it's because I've seen so many photos of amazing cookies and I want my cookies to look like those.
Christmas vacation is over. It's back to real life so I suppose that I won't have time to keep cookieing as much as I did over the holiday break. I think I know what I want to make next. Can't wait!
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