Christmas is coming!! First designs
Hand cut reindeer cookies, dusted with gold lustre and finished off with red sugarpaste bows.
Chandelier cookies
Chandelier cookies!
I’ve just received these beautiful chandelier stencils from the US. I ordered them online as i couldnt find a UK supplier.
I think they are simply stunning!!
I made these cookies this morning to test out the stencils. They are simple gingerbread, covered in sugarpaste and then stencilled with royal icing.
I can imagine them making beautiful wedding favour cookies or vampy gifts for any glitzy, glam party.
cushion cakes. Gorgeous arent they. I think they are just square cakes with the edges carved!!
Rock n Roll Bride · A Cinderella Themed Rockstar Wedding
Look at this amazing wedding cake!!
MadeWithLove - Stencilled heart cookies
Gingerbread cookies:
Ingredients 3 oz (75 g) soft brown sugar, sieved
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1 tablespoon black treacle
1 level teaspoon cinnamon
1 level teaspoon ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
finely grated rind ½ orange 3½ oz
(95 g) butter or margarine
½ level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
about 8 oz (225 g) plain flour
about 2 oz (50 g) currants (optional)
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C)
Method Put the sugar, syrup, treacle, 1 tablespoon of water, spices and rind together in a large saucepan. Then bring them to boiling point, stirring all the time. Now remove the pan from the heat and stir in the fat, cut into lumps, and the bicarbonate of soda. Next stir in the flour gradually until you have a smooth manageable dough – add a little more flour, if you think it needs it. Now leave the dough – covered – in a cool place to become firm, approximately 30 minutes.
Now roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick and cut. Arrange them on the lightly greased baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes or until the biscuits feel firm when lightly pressed with a fingertip.
I double the amount of ginger as i dont feel the recipe has enough of a gingery kick, but its easy to experiment with quantities until you get them just how you like them. I’d also advise watching carefully how these bake, as they burn very easy. You should adjust the baking time depending on the size of the shapes you are cooking and the thickness of the cookie. I used heart cutters, flower cutters, and my stencils to decorate the gingerbread hearts in lots of different patterns. Here’s the finished cookies
MadeWithLove-Stencilled cookies
Stencils are great for creating beautiful, intricate patterns that look both time consuming and complex, when in fact they are very simple to do and dont take that long!
Stencils can be used in several different ways to create lots of different effects.
The first way involves using ROYAL ICING. This is icing that is made with egg white and icing sugar. You use one egg white and then mix in enough icing sugar to create a toothpaste type consistency.
Tip* The advantage of using royal icing is that it sets hard so you don’t have to worry about it smudging later on!
Once you have rolled out your sugarpaste you simply lay the stencil over the top. You can tack it down with a very small blob of royal icing on each edge, or a little dab of water underneath the stencil, but i find just by holding them with finger and thumb they stay in place.
You then use a pallette knife to scrape the royal icing across the stencil. I make sure i am using the broad side of the knife and take it gently. This takes a little practice but you get the hang of it quickly enough.
Once you have covered the whole stencil wait for a minute of so and then gently peel back the stencil. You will be left with the beautiful design on the sugarpaste ready to be cut out with whatever cutters you are using.
These stenciled sugarpaste shapes can then be laid over your cookies, tacked down with a little more royal icing on the biscuit and there you have it, beautiful intricate biscuits.
I use one stencil to get two or three cutter shapes out of one stencil as this saves time. It takes along longer if you just get one shape out of each stencil!
Tip: I tried to go again with the same stencil a second time and found it got really messy and didnt work very well, so now i gently rinse them between attempts. The stencils can be quite fragile so after rinsing i press them between a T-towel to dry them, rather than rubbing them. It only takes 30 seconds but then you have a nice clean dry stencil to do your next design with.
For a beautiful selection of stencils, look here:
http://www.lindyscakes.co.uk/OnlineShop-Stencils.htm
Here is an example of a ginger cookie i made with a royal icing stencil design.
