Beki Cook's Cake Blog: Back-to-School Crayon Cookies

These crayon cookies are a lot like the pencil cookies I posted yesterday. You just make an extra cut, and make a couple more colors for them.

What YouNeed:
One recipe Vanilla Sugar Cookies
Ruler
One recipe Royal Icing
Icing colors: yellow, pink, green, blue, black
Tip #3, #1
Piping Bags
Zip-top sandwich bags (or snack-size bags)
Plastic Wrap (for icing bag bullets)
Damp Paper Towel (to keep icing from drying out)

You'll start just like the pencil cookies. Make a batch of the Vanilla Sugar Cookies, and after you roll it out and refrigerate it, cut it into a square. I kept my lines straight by lining up the end of the ruler at the corners, to make a 90-degree angle.

To cut the cookies, I measured the dough to approximately 1 1/2" wide strips and cut it with a pastry cutter. A pizza cutter would also work, or a knife.
I then cut the dough in half horizontally. (Making each pencil about 4 1/2" long.)

To cut the tip of the crayon, you'll want to make a small cut, about 1/8" long, about 1/2" from the end of the cookie. Cut both sides.

Then you'll cut from that mark towards the center. But remember that crayons don't come to a sharp point like a pencil, so you want to make that end point a little wider.

Remember that you want to put the tray of cut-outs into the freezer for 15 minutes before you put it in the oven to bake. That keeps the dough from spreading.
Bake them for about 8-10 minutes in a 350-degree oven. They're done when the tips start to brown.

To Decorate:

You will need about 1/4-1/2 cup each of yellow, pink, green, blue and black.

You want to color the icing at the "stiffer" consistency, then take about half of it out, put it into an icing bag bullet (click the link to see the wonder of the bullet.). This is what you will make your outlines with. Then thin the other half of each color.

To thin the icing, add water about 1/2 to 1 tsp. at a time. Mix the water in until the icing is at a flooding consistency. You will know it's the right consistency when a dollop you drop in disappears in a slow count of 10.

In the photo above, you see the dollop in the middle. This is as I just dropped it in.

This photo shows that dollop when I got to 10. You can see a teeny outline on that picture. That's all you should see at 10.
If you add too much water, you'll need to either add some more of a stiffer consistency icing, or add a little powdered sugar.
Pour this icing into a zip-top sandwich bag. That's what I use to put it on the cookies.

I start decorating the cookies with the black outlines. You'll want to do two rectangles towards each end of the cookies, and an oval near the center.

Add the outlines of the color. (If you're really particular, you may want to make two shades of each color- one lighter for the crayon "wrapper." I'm not that particular.)

Begin filling in the cookies. Try to cut a really, really small hole in the corner of your baggie to do these cookies. There are some really small spots- like between the oval and the rectangles- to fit the icing in. Remember to keep that cut tip in the flood of icing as you work your way around.