Flower cookies

Two days ago we celebrated mother's day, because in Slovenia mother's day is celebrated on march 25th. People usually buy flowers but I try and make something sweet on every occasion. Buying flowers is nice but making something on your own is much more meaningful plus it is made with love.

A few moths ago, when I was surfing the web, I came across an interesting and beautiful technique of making flowers from royal icing. The technique is called brush embroidery, it is really simple and elegant but looks like a lot of work.
This was my first time doing it, it was so much fun and it turned out great. The recipe for the sugar cookie is a basic one and the cookies always taste delicious.
You can see the whole article on making flowers here, you can see an excellent tutorial and step by step presentation. Save this template and enlarge it to 6 cm or 2,5 inches, this will be the guide line for making the flowers.

The difficult part is the consistency of the royal icing. For the base layer the royal icing must be thin enough to flow and cover the whole cookie but not too thin so that it doesn't run all over the place. For the flowers and the leafs, the icing must be thick so that it can be piped and than smeared with a paint brush. The process of making the flowers might look complicated but when you actually do it, you will see that it is not hard at all. I made a few mistakes and the shape of the flowers was not perfect but they still looked great.

The technique can be applied on different cookies, macarons, cakes and basically on any flat surface. I will definitely practice brush embroidery more in the future and I'll try to incorporate it frequently in my desserts.

Flower cookies

(Makes about 40)

Time:

Preparation: 1 hour

Baking: 7-8 min

Cooling: 30 min
Icing: 1-2 hours
Drying: overnight

For the cookies:

• 227g room temperature butter
• 175g icing sugar
• 1 room temperature egg
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 400-425g plain flour

For the icing:

• 360g icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons meringue powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or other)
• 72ml warm water
• food coloring (I used green, purple and yellow)
• small sugar pearls

Making the cookies:

Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl and set aside. Put butter and icing sugar in the bowl of your electric or hand mixer and mix until pale and fluffy. add the egg and vanilla and mix. While mixing, slowly add the flour mixture little by little until a dough is formed. When the dough is mixed it will be a little soft but it will firm up as it rests so set it aside for 5 minutes (not in the fridge).  

While the dough is resting prepare your rolling pin, flour for dusting, cookie cutters and parchment paper. Take 1/4 of the prepared dough, place it on the parchment and form it into a flat disc. Sprinkle the dough with some flour and roll it out to about 0,6 cm (0,25 inches) thickness. After the dough is rolled, cut out the desired shapes (put some flour on the cookie cutters), as closely together as possible. Add the scraps back to the dough and continue doing this until all of the dough has been used.

When the cookies are cut use an offset spatula to transfer them to a parchment lined baking tray.

Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 200°C (400°F) for 7-8 minutes (they may seem under-baked but they will bake through while resting). Take the cookies out of the oven and, because the cookies will be a bit fragile, let them cool on a baking tray for at least 30 minutes.

Making royal icing:

Stir the vanilla extract into half the water. Using the paddle attachment, gently mix together sugar and meringue powder. With the mixer on slow speed add the water/vanilla mixture , the icing will become thick and lumpy. Continue adding the rest of the water until the mixture reaches thick consistency (like honey). Turn the mixer to medium speed and beat for 2-4 minutes or until the icing is thick and fluffy.Watch carefully and stop the mixer when the icing forms soft peak.

Divide the royal icing in four bowls. Take the first bowl of the royal icing and put in a drop of purple food coloring and stir. Add a little of water and mix until you achieve "flooding" consistency, the icing should flow from the spatula and fold on itself in 30 seconds (more information at coloring and preparing royal icing ). Pour the icing in a squeeze bottle and set aside. 

In the second bowl I made a base color for my cookies, I used yellow food coloring and made the same "flooding" consistency. Pour the icing in another squeeze bottle and set aside. 

In the third bowl, I made a purple piping consistency icing for the flower petals that will be smeared with the brush. Place the icing in a piping bag fitted with a 2 mm attachment and set in a glass with a damp cloth at the bottom.

In the forth and final bowl I made the icing for the leafs, I used green food coloring and a piping bag with a leaf attachment.

Ice the cookies with the yellow "flooding" icing first. Let them dry for couple of hours or overnight.

        

Making the flowers:
Prepare a large baking sheet lined with parchment/wax paper, place the template under the parchment paper. Squeeze the purple icing from the bottle and follow the outer line of the flower. Cover the whole flower with the icing. Do the same process for all the flowers.

Let the flowers dry until they are not sticky to the touch, you can use a hair drier to speed up the process. Prepare a glass of water and a small paint brush. Take the piping bag with the purple (piping consistency) royal icing and pipe the petals on the flowers. Dip the brush in the water and dry it a little with a kitchen towel, then start brushing and smearing the piped icing. Pipe a dollop of icing in the center of the flower and sprinkle over the small sugar pearls (I used gold and white). 

Let the flowers dry completely overnight. When they are dry, take a small offset spatula and slowly and carefully slide it under the flowers, they should came of the paper nicely.

Assembly:

Pipe a small amount of icing and place on the flower. Take the green icing and pipe a few leafs next to the flower. 

 Do the same for all the remaining cookies. Set them aside to dry for couple of hours.