Beach Ball Cookies

What says summer like a beach ball? I made these cookies as a thank you for my boys' summer camp counselors.

What you need:
One recipe Vanilla Sugar Cookies
Large round biscuit or cookie cutter
One recipe Royal Icing
"No-Taste" Red Icing Color, Lemon Yellow Icing Color, Royal Blue Icing Color
Disposable decorating bag fitted with Tip #5
4 zipper-top sandwich bags (check that they don't have the fold at the bottom)
Toothpicks

 

You'll want to start with my Vanilla Sugar Cookie Recipe.

I cut these out with a 2 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter. Then to make the marks in the cookies, you want to use the same biscuit cutter and make light indentations where you will want to make your lines.

* Make the marks on the cookie before you put it in the freezer to re-set for baking.

* Be careful not to press to hard, or while they're baking, the cookies will spread a little because of the deep cuts.

While the cookies are baking and cooling, make your icing.

You want to reserve about 3/4 cup of icing in its stiff consistency for outlines. Then thin the rest of it with water until it reaches a good "flooding consistency." This means that when you drop a big drop back into the bowl of icing, it will disappear in a count of 10. (Not before, not after.) Then, color that icing with red, yellow and blue. (Click the link for a recipe and tutorial for royal icing.)

You can see that I use the high-tech decorating tool of a zipper sandwich bag for my flooding icing. It works, and is great for letting 4-year-olds help, as well.

Once your cookies are baked and cooled, you want to start with the outline.

For these cookies, I wanted a thick outline, so I used a tip #5, and my full-strength royal icing. You want to try to hold your icing bag at about a 45-degree angle from the cookie. You'll start by touching the surface of the cookie, then raise it up slightly, while squeezing to make the line. Follow the lines you made on the cookie with your cookie cutter. Let that dry a good 30 minutes or so before you begin the fill-in process.
* I decided about halfway along that doing the outside outline before the inside lines was better. So, start with the outside circle-- unlike what I'm doing in this photo. It will look better at the end.

I started my color filling with the darkest color, in case there was any bleeding. To fill in the icing, you want to cut a TINY hole in one corner of your zipper bag. Then, squeezing the icing out, leave that hole/tip buried in the icing as you move it around your section to be filled. When you have it well-filled, remove the baggie. Set the cut tip on a damp paper towel so that it doesn't dry out. (Royal icing dries out in a matter of minutes.)

I then use a toothpick to help fill in the nooks and crannies. You don't want to wait too long before doing this. If your icing is the right consistency, it won't show any lines, but if it's a little too stiff, you will see marks from where you used the toothpick.

From there, I filled in all of my blue sections... followed by red, yellow, then white.

Then, they all needed to dry for a while before putting the "button" on the top, so that they wouldn't bleed. I'd recommend at least 30 minutes, if not longer.

I tried two different ways of putting on the top button... one with an outline, one without. I think there are benefits to both. You'll have to see which you like better. And when I get my royal icing to stop being so dry, that will help with the color/texture difference between the outline and the fill-in that bothered me about it.

Then, you just have to let them dry for a few hours to overnight. Make sure that ALL of the colors are dry. The darker colors (red, particularly) can take longer to dry thanks to all of the coloring required in them.

Once these guys were dry, I wrote a little thank you message on them, and wrapped them in clear cellophane with a ribbon around to give them as a gift to the camp counselors.

Click the Links Below to See:
Beach Ball Cupcakes
Beach Ball Cake Pops
Beach Ball Cake
Other Sugar Cookie Ideas
Vanilla Sugar Cookie Recipe
Royal Icing Recipe

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