Tutorial: Hiking Boot Cookies

Today is the first day of Spring - HOORAY!  That means hiking season is almost upon us.  To get your ramped up for the season, I wanted to share this tutorial with you for Hiking Boot Cookies.

Last July, my sister got married.  She and her new hubby started out their relationship hiking together and it grew from there so when they planned their wedding, they planned a casual, hiking themed wedding that was as much fun for the guests as it was for them.  It was very laid back and casual (and it was held on what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer - yikes!) and the menu was no different.

They picked a casual menu and asked me to oversee the shopping, cooking and preparing of the food, which included a special request for a platter of hiking themed cookies.  Here's what they looked like:







I decided to use Lila Loa's End All for Chocolate Cookies Recipe for a couple of reasons.
1) the chocolate cookie would show through on the boot-print scene cookie and look like earth, adding to the overall effect
2) They are absolutely the best, most reliable cut-out cookie recipe I have ever used - these cookies DO NOT SPREAD when you bake them - which makes them perfect for cut-outs

For the Royal Icing, I always use this recipe from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.  I've found it to be a reliable recipe and tastier than most Royal Icing recipes I've had.  You can also find lots of tutorials and excellent tips on this blog, and I highly recommend it if Royal Icing Cookies are something you enjoy playing with.

I had no trouble finding a basic idea for the backpack and bootprint cookies, but I had no luck finding anything for the hiking boot.  So, I figured it out for myself and took pictures of every step (ha ha, see what I did there?), so I could share them here...

Once you have cut and baked your roll out cookies, allow them to cool completely.  Still-warm cookies will result in runny frosting - a disaster for this type of decorating.



I mixed up a dark gray Royal Icing and thinned it to a 20 second consistency.  This is just thick enough to hold a line, but thin enough to use as a flood icing to fill in the outlines. I started with the bottom of the sole...



...while that was drying, I added the upper edge that you see on so many pairs of hiking boots...



...and while those details were drying (and while I was adding details to some of the other cookie shapes that used this same color), I mixed up a light tan color, which I also thinned to a 20 second consistency.  I sealed it up and let the other details set before filling in a flooding the body of the boot while the body of the boot was still try I thinned the grey icing even more - to about a 10 second consistency (maybe less) and added the eyelets to the boots, using a small round tip, and just dropping a tiny dot of icing in a row.  This results in the added icing sinking into the icing that's already there, while still holding it's shape.



Now I used the Royal Icing straight up, with just coloring to add the lacing...



On one cookie, I also added their initials and the date of the Big Day to place on the top of the cookie platter.



And there you have it, Hiking Boot Cookies for a Hiking or Camping themed cookie platter!

Choir Themed Cookie Platter

I've been working on a platter of cookies for a fundraiser taking place Tuesday, May 22 at the local high school where our 16 year old great-niece is involved in choir. Every year for several years now, the choir hosts a dinner theater fundraiser event called Cabaret. This will be my first year attending (and sadly our niece won't be singing) but my understanding is that essentially a talent show. The Choir Booster program (of which I just became secretary for the next 2 years - YIKES) puts on the dinner for $10/plate, a dessert auction (dessert is not part of the menu so if you want dessert you bid on something) and this year there will also be a silent auction of gift baskets and donated items. The students provide the entertainment and the dinner service.

Now, I like desserts as much as the next person but as I was trying to decide what to donate for the dessert auction I realized that although I really love to cook and bake, I'm not really a dessert maker. True, I bake cookies... a lot actually... but I only rarely make cakes, pies, cheesecakes or any other dessert items and I certainly don't make anything spectacular that anyone would bid competitively on for their dessert.

So... I decided to bake and decorate cookies. It's what I do. I thought a lot about the theme and finally placed an order over at Karen's Cookies for some new cookie cutters as well as some other goodies I needed to help my design ideas work (don't worry, I'll show you), namely black and white gel food coloring, boo-boo sticks, treble clef and piano cookie cutters to go with the musical note cutter I had purchased previously (I'm sorry, I don't remember which supplier I ordeed that one from).

It's taken almost a full week to get these cookies baked and decorated. I used this chocolate roll-out cookie recipe found on the Lila Loa blog, this recipe for Royal Icing (I use the 1/2 batch recipe) from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle Blog (and lots of tips from her various tutorials, which you should definitely check out), and this technique for the chalkboard effect cookies from Ali Bees Bake Shop (her video tutorials are so helpful! - I subscribe to her channel so that I won't miss any).

The small discs to the right of the Treble Clef cookies became Bass Clef cookies.

The event went well last night and I understand my platter of cookies brought in over $30.00! Woo hoo! Definitely worth the time and effort and I hope the folks who "won" them enjoyed them - I know I had fun making them!

Snowflake Cookies

It seems like I've been working on these all week.  It's actually not far from the truth....

In early November I made sunflowers.  It took me awhile to get them all decorated.  Then, when I finally decided to take them to work with me, it snowed.  Suddenly, even though it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet, they no longer seemed appropriate.  But our guests didn't care and ate them up in a snap...but I started to think - snowflakes...

So here they are - 32 Snowflakes all decorated and ready to go to work with me tomorrow for our guests to enjoy.