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Gender Reveal Cookies

Gender reveals are all the rage these days. From balloons to confetti to fireworks, everyone seems to have a different take on this gender reveal trend. 

Obviously, my favorite gender reveal ideas are those involving food! So even though we aren’t having a formal gender reveal I thought it would be fun to create some sweet treats to spread the fun news!

And, if I am being honest, I have been thinking up fun baking-related gender reveal ideas long before I was ever pregnant!

So first on the schedule are these gender reveal cookies! They can be as simple or as elaborate as you’d like because it’s what’s on the inside that counts!

Recipes and Supplies

To make these cookies you will need:

  • At least 1 batch of my favorite sugar cookie recipe (will make 2 gender reveal cookies and 10-12 additional cookies depending on size and thickness)
  • 1 batch of royal icing to cover all the cookies
  • A egg wash (1 egg + 1 tsp water)

You will also need:

How to Make Them

Start by making the sugar cookie dough. Chill the dough so that it’s a bit firm, then roll out as usual. Cut the dough to the desired shape and immediately transfer to a baking sheet or plate and place back in the fridge to chill.

Each of the gender reveal cookies will actually be comprised of three layers of dough. Two will be baked together, the other will be baked separately and “glued” on top with icing. 

It is important that these pieces stay chilled so that their shape isn’t distorted. Because the pieces all need to match together in the end, you want them all to be the same shape and size. 

“Glue” one piece of rolled out cookie dough onto the other by brushing a bit of egg wash around the edges. 

Place another piece of dough on top of the other, then cut out a hole to fill with sprinkles later. 

Alternately, you can cut out a hole in the top layer of dough before placing it on top of the bottom layer. Just be careful not to distort the top layer when moving it. 

Bake the double layer cookies separately than the single layer because they will take a bit longer to bake. 

Also, because its a thicker cookie, it may expand more than your single top layer. 

Don’t fret!!

Use your top layer as a guide and cut around the thick bottom layer while the cookie is still hot from the oven. Polish any rough spots with a zester to get them to look like a perfect match.

Now it’s time to fill the cookies with sprinkles!! Obviously, you will need to know what color to fill first, then pour in enough sprinkles to fill the cavity. 

Add some stiff or piping consistency royal icing around the edges and then place your top cookie right on top. Press the cookie down firmly to make sure it’s nice and secure!

You can immediately start to decorate the cookies once the top layer is in place. 

For these cookies, I kept it pretty simple. I outlined the onsie with white icing, then flooded it with flood consistency icing. 

I immediately went in with blue and pink flood consistency icing to add some dots and stripes. 

And there you have it! Super fun and cute gender reveal cookies!

I recommend making at least 2 so that both parents can open them at the same time. 

You can even make these for twins!

I had so much fun making these, but of course, I’m not giving our gender away just yet! I have a couple more fun reveals planned this week so you will have to wait and see!

 

Fondant Flower Sugar Cookies

Disclaimer: Wilton provided me with their new decorating kits and other supplies in exchange for a blog post about their new products. However, all thoughts and opinions in this post are my own.

Fondant isn’t just for wedding cakes anymore!

Well, you guys know that already. I have been using fondant on cookies for a while now (exhibit 1, 2, 3). But these cookies take fondant to a whole new level, IMO, thanks to the Wilton Fondant Shapes and Cutout Kit. 

I was so inspired by the photo on the front of the box that I was dying to make a similar cake. But, sometimes I need to know my strengths (and weaknesses), and I knew I could execute a similar look on a cookie. 

The cookies were a lot of fun to create, and actually kind of therapeutic. Working with fondant is a lot like working with modeling clay. It can be very forgiving and if you mess up, you can just roll it up and try again. These cookies are definitely something that just about anyone can recreate with the right tools!

How to Make Them

Start by dying fondant in the desired shades of colors. A little fondant goes a long way, so you may only need a gumball (or smaller) -sized ball of fondant per color. 

To dye the fondant, dab a tiny amount of gel food coloring onto the fondant. Then using your hands, stretch and knead the fondant until the color is evenly incorporated. If the color is too light, add additional food coloring.

Tip: Use food-safe gloves to prevent getting food coloring all over your skin. 

Roll out the fondant with the fondant roller and the thinnest of the roller bands. Punch out various sized flowers and leaves. 

Place the cut-out flowers onto the foam and press down using the ball tool to create a more dimensional flower. 

To add some more dimension and color, brush some pink luster dust in the center of the flower. Add a little ball of the same or different color fondant to the center of the flower. Attach with a dab of water. 

To add a little more detail to the leaves, use the smaller end of the ball tool to roll around the edges. Use a toothpick to add a little line down the center. 

Allow to dry and harden while you work on the next step.

To create the striped fondant, dye a small ball of fondant a light blue (or your color of choice). Roll out the blue fondant using the fondant roller, then cut into equal sized strips. 

Roll out the plain white fondant and attach the strips of colored fondant with a little bit of water. 

Place a piece of parchment on top of the fondant and roll out the fondant with the fondant roller and widest fondant roller guide. 

Cut out the fondant using the same sized cookie cutter as the cookies the fondant will be placed on. 

Tip: Work in small batches because once your roll out the striped fondant, you will not be able to re-roll it and maintain the stripes. 

Attach the fondant to the cookie by brushing a little bit of water onto the back of the fondant then sticking it to the cookie. Use your finger to smooth out the top and edges of the fondant. 

There is not a lot of rhyme or reason for placing the flowers on the cookie. I like to start by adding the biggest flowers first, then adding smaller flowers around it. 

I also like to make sure that the arrangement is asymmetrical. So if there is one large center flower with two small flowers on one side, I won’t add two flowers to the other. I will make sure the two sides are not balanced which will make it look a bit more natural. 

“Glue” the flowers onto the cookies with a bit of stiff consistency royal icing. 

Layer the flowers and leaves until you are happy with the arrangement. Allow the royal icing to dry for about 15-20 minutes before stacking or packaging. 

Tools and Recipes

As I mentioned above, almost all of the tools I used came from the How to Decorate with Fondant Shapes and Cut-Outs including the fondant cutters, the fondant roller, the ball tool, and the foam.

I also used Wilton fondant in white and their gel food coloring, both of which I already had on hand but they had provided me with extras. 

For the exact colors of the flowers and leaves, I used very small amounts of the following colors:

  • Pink + Red
  • Pink + Brown
  • Pink + Orange + Brown
  • Orange + Pink
  • Leaf Green + Blue
  • Leaf Green + Brown

Then, of course, I left one ball of fondant just plain white. In all of the cases, the first color listed was the main color, then I added a tiny amount of the second color just to add a different tint. It’s a little bit of trial and error. 

The cookies themselves were made with a version of my favorite sugar cookie recipe. I am still working on perfecting the flavor, but my basic cookie is always a winner. Or you could try the lavender-vanilla recipe (scroll to the bottom of the post for the recipe) for a nice floral twist. 

 

 

 

Mason Jar Bouquet Cookies

What can I say about these cookies except that I love them so much!

I love mason jars, I love flowers (especially royal icing flowers, as you know), and anemones are one of my absolute favorites. In fact, I really wanted mason jars and anemones as my wedding! Sadly, anemones weren’t in season in October and my mom thought that mason jars and burlap were too “rustic”. Pshh…she clearly didn’t spend enough time on Pinterest in 2013.

So now I am living out my wedding flower dreams through these cookies (5 years later…don’t worry about it).

One thing I will say about these cookies before we dive in is that there is SOOO much icing on these things. It’s a little out of control. Unless you LOVE icing, it will be too much for you and you may want to scrape it off before you take a bite. Instead, you can make any of these cookies with buttercream instead which is a bit more palatable in large quantities. But I would keep the mason jar cookies iced in royal icing so you get a nice smooth surface.

How to Make Them

I had never made the anemone flowers before this video. Sure, I have some experience with piping other flowers, but I wanted to share that with you because you will probably get the hang of it after a few tries. I found that it was easier to keep them on the smaller side. Don’t try to make them too big. 

Another thing I have learned over the years from making flowers and watching others make flowers is that you want to use various shades of color in the same flower. No flower is just one flat color. It’s easy to mix the colors together by wrapping them up in plastic wrap. Plus, it keeps your piping bags clean so you can reuse them!

Tools and Recipes

I used a few different piping tips to create these flowers, even one I had never used before, the #150 flat petal tip. I found that this one was better at piping the anemone petals than the standard #104 petal tip. However, if you only have the standard petal tips at home, that will work just fine!

Piping Tips and Food Coloring:

Anemone:

Petals – #150 flat petal tip. Layered plain icing with a very light violet center.

Filament – #1 round tip. A mix of eggplant and black food coloring.

Center – #3 round tip. Same color as filament.

Hydrangea:

Flowers – #131 drop flower dip. Layered together plain, Wedgewood blue, and violet (mixed with a little Wedgewood blue) icings.

Rose:

Large cookie – #125 petal tip. Brushed watermelon food coloring directly onto the plastic wrap, and then spooned icing dyed with watermelon and purple on top.

Smaller rose in bouquet – #104 petal tip. Brushed watermelon food coloring directly onto the plastic wrap, and then spooned icing dyed with watermelon on top.

Leaves: #352 tip. Forest and leaf green mixed together.

Other tools:

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Recipes:

It should come as no surprise that I made my one and only royal icing recipe and sugar cookie recipe for these. Duh! You knew that was coming. However, one thing I will mention about the icing is that for the flowers you want it to be super duper thick. It should form a stiff peak when you lift a spoon up from the surface. You want each petal to be distinct and not melt into one another. If you accidentally mix in too much water, just add a bit more powdered sugar to thicken it up.

For the mason jars, though, you will want to use your regular ol’ flood consistency icing. 

Baylor Homecoming Cookies

This weekend, Billy and I are off to Waco for Baylor University’s Homecoming, where Billy and I both went to school. While I have been back to Waco quite a bit over the years, even since moving to Charlotte, this is the first Homecoming we have been back to in years. So it will be a lot of fun to see old friends and sorority sisters who I may not have seen in the last 10 years. 

But it wouldn’t be an event if there I didn’t make cookies, right? Billy jokes that it didn’t happen if I didn’t put it on Instagram. Well, I think it doesn’t happen if I don’t make cookies!

The cookies were inspired by this print that I found on Etsy. I loved it so much I wanted to make it into a cookie! Since I am not artistic enough to hand draw it onto the cookie, I used the tracing method that I demonstrated here. 

I used the same method to make the Sailor Bear cookies to keep with the watercolor theme. But I do think I like these royal icing Sailor Bears I made for the Cotton Bowl better. I made those using the royal icing transfer method, where I just trace over the image with royal icing. 

To see how I made the Sailor Bear cookies, skip to minute 4:00 in the video. To see how I made the skyline cookies, skip to minute 5:27.

I’m giving away all my tricks, here. Now you know that I am actually not all that talented, I am just really good at tracing things with royal icing or a paint brush. 

My favorite cookies of the entire collection are the B-A-Y-L-O-R letter cookies. Of course, I didn’t film these cookies because they were the last ones I made. After spending a few hours making the other cookies I was at a loss of what to do for the letter cookies. Should I just ice them in green and gold icing? Should I paint them? Should I try some fun new design? No, I decided to rely on an old favorite and paint a floral pattern very similar to what I did with these Pineapple cookies. Instead of using several various colors, I just used a couple shades of green and gold. 

Now I just have to pray that they make it to Texas in one piece! 

Recipes used:

Cookie cutters used:

Supplies used:

 
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Fall Pumpkin Cookies

While Fall is one of my favorite seasons (who doesn’t love reprieve from the hot, humid Summer?), I still end September dragging my feet to get into the “Fall spirit”. But come October, and I am in the full Fall mode! In the last week alone, I have made four pumpkin spice recipes. This has got to be a new personal record. 

These cookies are actually one of those recipes. On Tuesday I shared my pumpkin spice sugar cookies which are freaking delicious. They only deserve the best Fall decoration!

I mean, you can’t make pumpkin spice sugar cookies and not make them into adorably decorated pumpkin cookies, right? 

You should know by now that I love throwing royal icing flowers on just about every cookie I make. They are fun way to really dress up a cookie. Plus people are generally pretty impressed with flowers on cookies (little do they know, it’s incredibly easy!). 

I also drew inspiration from my own Mother’s Day cookies and made some floral Fall letters, which I love. Again, they look so intricate and detailed, but really the piping tips do all the work. 

Speaking of which, these are the piping tips I used for the flowers and leaves (all are Wilton brand, most are included in this set):

  • #14 (Rosette)
  • #16 (Rosette)
  • #24 (Rosette)
  • #225 (Drop Flower)
  • #107 (Drop Flower)
  • #349 (Small Leaf)
  • #67 (Big Leaf)

I also used couplers along with my piping bags so that I could switch out my piping tips. For instance, on the pumpkins, I piped red rosettes, but on the letters, I switched to a drop flower tip. Couplers just make it easy to switch out colors and piping tips so you don’t have to have a million different tips. 

Wouldn’t these be so great for Thanksgiving!? I also made a bunch of letters to spell out “Thankful”, which would be a really pretty display on a Thanksgiving dessert table. 

 

Recipes:

Supplies Used:
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Agate Slice Cookies

Agates and geodes are just about everywhere these days. I see them as bookends, coasters (these particular cookies were inspired by agate coasters at West Elm), jewelry, and cakes. They are all so distinct and beautiful I knew I wanted to make them into cookies. 

The good news is that these agate slice cookies are actually pretty easy to make! The cookie shape doesn’t have to be perfect (actually, the less perfect the better), no piping is necessary, and your lines don’t have to be straight! 

Of course, I used my favorite sugar cookie recipe to make these cookies. I started with a circle cookie then tore off the edges to make that rough jagged edge.

Then instead of piping the royal icing on top, I actually dipped the cookies into the icing. Not only is it easier and quicker, I actually prefer it for this these cookies because the icing goes all the way to the edge and gets into all the little nooks and crannies along the edge. 

Once the icing dried, I painted the cookies with food coloring gel diluted with a bit of alcohol (I used vodka, but you can also use almond extract) in various shades of the same color. So you can see I have a purple agate slice cookie with different shades of purple and pink, a blue in various shades of blue and turquoise, green in various shades of green and teal….you get the gist. 

I finished off the cookies with a gold edge and a little bit of gold painted around the layers of the cookie. I think the gold really helps make the cookies look even more like an actual agate slice. What do you think!?

They are almost as pretty as those coasters, but better because you can eat it!

 
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Watercolor Flower Pineapple Cookies

One of my favorite cookie decorating techniques lately has been watercolor on cookies. I really love the look of them, but I mostly rlove not having to make so much royal icing!

So with a good friends birthday around the corner, I knew I wanted to make some watercolor cookies for her. In looking for creative inspiration for her cookies, I came across a couple images that I absolutely adored! This sweet pineapple card and this beautiful pineapple print.

From there I was inspired to make these watercolor flower pineapple cookies!

To paint on cookies, you do need a few supplies you may not normally use during cookie decorating…mainly a big bottle of vodka (really any clear extract or alcohol will work, but I prefer vodka). It’s always amusing to my husband to see me painting cookies with a bottle of vodka next to me on the counter. 

Supplies you will need:

I absolutely love how these cookies turned out. I probably say this about every cookie, but these may be my favorite yet. 

I guess it’s like children, you can’t really pick your favorite. But in this case (at least for now) these are definitely my favorite!

And, you don’t have to be an artist to make these. I am by no means an artist (as you may or may not be able to tell). So painting cookies can really be fun for anyone, even the kids!

Pretty Bicycle Cookies

This past Sunday I spent a couple hours making cookies for a friend of ours who is moving to start her next adventure in life. I wanted to send her off with some cookies and these pretty bicycles with baskets of flowers somehow popped into my mind. Do they have anything to do with her move or where she is going? Nope. I just thought they were pretty. 

How can anyone turn down these pretty bicycles in cookie form? It makes me what to immediately go buy a blue bicycle even though the last time I rode a bike I nearly broke my leg. Clearly the person who coined the phrase “it’s just like riding a bike” had never met me. 

I digress…

You may be thinking that piping an entire bicycle with royal icing is extremely hard. While not the easiest thing to pipe, it’s actually just about as easy as tracing!

As I demonstrated in this post, you can easily trace just about any image onto dried royal icing with tissue paper and an edible ink pen. They trace over your image with royal icing. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

For the flowers in the bike’s baskets, I painted some background leaves and flowers with gel food coloring that I diluted with some clear extract, like almond extract (sometimes I use vodka). Then I piped over them with some other flowers using my favorite piping tips. 

Here are all the recipes and supplies I used to make the cookies:

Piping Tips:

  • #2 (small circle) tip for the wheels and body of the bike
  • #1 (small circle) for the pedal and handles of the bike
  • #14 flower tip for the pink rose
  • #24 flower tip for the peach rose
  • #225 flower tip for the white flower
  • #349 leaf tip for the leaves

Other Supplies:

I hope you enjoy these cookies and maybe you will even make them for yourself or a friend! 

 
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Red White and Blue Water Color Gingham Cookies

If you have stopped by my Instagram feed (@followtheruels) lately and seen any of the cookies that I have posted in the past couple months, you know that there are two things I am obsessed with: water color and royal icing flowers. Adding a little floral touch to cookies is such an easy way to make a plain ol’ cookie look super fancy.

It’s the same for the water color effect. Painting cookies is also a very easy thing you can do to decorate cookies, especially if you don’t like piping. 

So that’s what I did, I combined my love of gingham (I wear a lot of gingham) with my two current favorite cookie decorating techniques to make these water color gingham cookies that are PERFECT for 4th of July!

 

Here are all the recipes and tools that I used:

So festive and patriotic, aren’t they? I love them even with all of their flaws and wonky lines. It makes them look a bit more homemade and rustic. 

You could of course use some guides to make sure your lines are straight. But sometimes the character is in the imperfection, am I right?

 
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4th of July Cookies

America Cookies-12

By now you guys probably know that decorating cookies is one of my favorite hobbies. It was just last 4th of July that I shared one of my first decorated cookies here on the blog. While the stars and stripes cookies were very festive, I knew I could step my game up this year to make some even better 4th of July cookies. 

America Cookies-1

To make these cookies, I used a United States shaped cookie cutter that I picked up from Sur La Table. At the time I figured I would only use it for 4th of July, but now I have come up with lots of other ideas for USA shaped cookies.  Like for the Olympics or to celebrate moving across the country (which I may be making soon for a friend who is moving to North Carolina from Kansas). 

To create the flag design on the cookie, I marked out 13 evenly spaced lines from top to bottom. I then marked off where I wanted the blue square to start and stop. Of course, if you don’t want to pipe so many stripes (it was a pain in the butt), you could do fewer. Once I was happy with the lines, I piped out the field of blue with flood consistency royal icing. I then dotted several lines of 5 or 6 dots across for the stars.

Next, I piped the stripes, starting with red, then white, then red, and so on with flood consistency icing. I used a scribe tool (you can use a toothpick), to move the icing as close to the stripe above so that there were no gaps between the red and white. If you just can’t picture how that works, I would recommend watching the video I made for the stars and stripes cookie to see it in action. If that seems too difficult, you can also fill the whole striped portion of the flag with white icing, and then pipe, paint, or draw on the red strips. If you look at the “Freedom” flag in the picture at the top, that’s what I did. I piped the whole thing in white, then piped over it with red stripes. I just couldn’t fit as many stripes in that way.

I let the cookies dry overnight so that the icing was completely hardened. The next day, I used piping consistency icing to pipe on some fun patriotic words and phrases like, “born in the USA” or “‘Merica”. The latter was my husband’s suggestion. Actually, he wanted me to spell it “Murica”. We compromised. Once that icing had dried, I brushed over it with some edible gold paint. 

4th of July Cookies

 

I will definitely be saving these in the freezer and bringing them to our 4th of July festivities. One of my husbands friends just moved to town, so we are excited to show him and his fiance how Charlotte celebrates the 4th! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend and let me know if you attempt these cookies! I would love to see how they turn out!

I used this sugar cookie recipe and this royal icing recipe. 

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