Beki Cook's Cake Blog: How To Decorate Peacock Cookies

These peacock cookies were made for a baby shower. When she asked me to make them, I was nervous, but then I found the inspiration for these cookies from Anne at Flour Box Bakery.

These are not the easiest cookies I've ever decorated, that's for darn sure! They take many steps, and quite a few colors of icing. Not to mention that there's a lot of waiting involved between steps... for example, you try to brush on the shimmer too early and you end up with this smashed feather above.

To make the cookies, I used a 10-petal daisy cutter and my favorite Vanilla Sugar Cookie Recipe. I did not want to buy another cookie cutter. I feel like I'm up to my ears in them already.

I was able to decorate 18 cookies using just one single batch of Royal Icing, and I had plenty leftover to make another cookie that I will share very soon.

If you squint on the photo above, you can see four dots. I used these to help me shape the body. If you struggle with the body/neck shape, you could also use an edible ink marker to draw the outline. It took me a few tries before I got decent at it, and if you look at the photos of all of the cookies, my peacocks came in many different shapes and sizes.

I outlined the body and the feathers using Tip #2 in the same green color that I used for the feather dots. I wanted some contrast between the outline and the bird itself. I may consider doing it in black next time, though... if there is a next time.
ps- I found that outlining the feathers was easier when the cookie was 'upside-down.' That way, I was coming towards myself rather than going away from myself when making the loops.
(Click the link to see How to Make Royal Icing.)

Now comes the slow, tedious part. I flooded the feathers first. I did this so that I could dust them with 'pearl dust' to make them shiny, and leave the body not shiny.
While it is still wet - immediately - I added the yellow dots with a thin, flooding consistency icing.
(Click the link to see How to Make the Right Royal Icing Consistency.)

Then, add a green dot to the bottom of each yellow dot, and a dark blue dot to the bottom of each green dot. (You can see in the photo above that the left side has only yellow/green, where the right side has the blue added.)
Now, I will tell you that after a few cookies, I realized that in order to make all three colors of dots completely sink in to the light blue icing, I had to do only one half of each cookie at a time. So, I filled the right side with light blue, added my dots, then filled the left side and added those dots. If my icing had been a little more thin, and had it not been 100-degrees in my kitchen that day, I probably would not have had to go to that extra step.

Once the icing is completely dry, you can brush on the pearl dust with a food-safe paintbrush.
The photo doesn't really do it justice, but the cookie on the right has shimmer on it, the cookie on the left does not. It adds a nice, subtle difference, I think.
(See the photo at the top of this post for why you want to wait until they're completely dry to do this! You will smash the icing if you go too soon.)

After the cookies are all brushed and shiny, add the dark blue body. Again, immediately you need to add the white for the eye, with a smaller black dot on top. I then used a toothpick from the center of the black to make the eye look more oval, pointed and elegant.

Again, let this dry completely. Then you can pipe the remaining details with Tip #1 and green icing... the 'fluff' at the bottom of the body, and the crest of feathers at the top.