1st Birthday Cookies

I have a love/hate relationship with royal icing. It’s sticky as hell, it gets everywhere, it’s hard to get the consistency that I want - you can’t rush royal icing. Maybe that’s why they call it “royal” icing - you have to wait on it hand and foot. Give it time for the colors to develop, give it time to dry completely (8 hrs or overnight), give it time to smooth out, just drops of water at a time or you can ruin the consistency. It flows differently if I'm mixing a big batch or if I'm mixing a just a bit. 10 second icing, 20 second icing, fill consistency, outline consistency… o_O you get the idea?

But when I get it right, it makes everything look so frikin’ good. These cookies are deceptively simple. Heart shaped, with polkadots. I really should time how long it takes me to do a cookie, but I’m guessing each cookie took about 5 minutes to line, fill, and dot, and that’s after mixing in color and getting the correct consistencies for the look I wanted.

So absolutely adorbs! I love royal icing.