Silhouette Bird Halloween Cookies Square of course

I like Halloween.

Apparently it used to be widely celebrated here in Australia before the Depression and then fell out of favor. Well that's what I read in one of the local popular magazines......if it's in a magazine it must be true right?

Um right............Anyway Halloween Love it!

and if the local shops are anything to go by it's coming back into fashion here. Is that a bad thing, I'm not sure? For me the chance for the kids to dress up, interact with the neighbours and eat sweets.......as long as it's supervised and once a year I'm totally ok with that. We don't actually indulge in the tricks if there are no treats so hopefully it's not too great a burden on the neighbours.

Plus Halloween cookies are pretty cool.

These ones are Chocolate cookies made using a square ruffle edge cookie cutter from my d-line set - I picked mine up at Kitchnwear Plus. But you could use a round cutter if you don't have a square cutter or if your not really into square cookies.

Although I really couldn't imagine anyone not being into square cookies, so just if you don't have the cutter on hand I guess. A circle would pretty much work just as well.

and I also made some  matching cookies in a floral pattern with a kinda cute striped flower.

Bird Silhouette Halloween cookies Ingredients and equipment

Square Cookies
Square cookie cuter
Orange Ready Roll Fondant
Black Ready Roll Fondant (I used chocolate fondant colored black with some Americolor super black)
Small rolling pin
PME Robin (bird) butter small
Carnation cutter
Black Royal Icing in a piping bag with a small round tip (eg #2)
brush and water
sharp knife

Roll out some orange fondant (marshmallow or shop bought) on a workbench lightly dusted with cornflour (corn starch) and cut out a square using a cutter a little smaller than cookie. Brush the cookie lightly with water using a clean brush and adhere the fondant to the cookie, using the rolling pin to lightly press it down.

Roll out some black fondant onto a workbench, you can dust it lightly with a bit of cornflour (It's what I use) but if you find that it shows up white on your fondant you can grease the workbench lightly with some crisco or a spay of vegetable or rice bran oil, just a bit. Cut out the bird shapes and carnation shapes then roll out thin pieces of black fondant with your finger tips to make long ropes that you can shape into the branches.# Look at the cookie to see an example of how you can shape the branch and where to place it. You should be able to press the branches directly on the orange fondant without water but if you have used the oil they may not stick. If necessary use a very teensy small amount of water, the brush should nearly be dry otherwise the black will run.

Once the branches are in place adhere a bird so it is sitting on top of the branch and then trim the carnation either using the cookie cutter or a shape knife so it sits in the corner.

Then pipe black dots of royal icing around the edge of the cookie to finish off.

#If you like you can use the black royal icing and pipe branches instead of using the rolled fondant.

Oh and I have noticed that over on Amazon you can peek into a PREVIEW of the first few pages on my book plus the index. Also the cover of the book is different if you pop into the preview and shows up a few different treats in the book.

Tiffany cookies for Polkadot Prints Cocktails at Tiffany's party range

A pretty plate full of cookies I made up for the Polkadot Prints new release photo shoot taken by Naomi V Photography.

These ones are Tiffany inspired perhaps for a stylish cocktail party. Or maybe an elegant afternoon tea seeings as I whipped up a batch of Tiffany blue macarons to match as well.

If you are interested in whipping up some of these elegant cookies to match your invites here are some basic steps. The blue cookies are covered in fondant coloured with Wilton Sky Blue gel, embossed with a patchwork cutter, sprayed with PME luster spray (blue pearl) and the topped royal icing dots. They would still look good without the blue luster spray, I just had it handy.

The white cookies are covered in white fondant embossed with the same patchwork cutter and then royal icing dots piped around the edge with a powder blue edible pearl every 2nd dot.

People like to use the embossers different ways, some people put the fondant onto the cookie (or cupcake or whatever treat) and then emboss, in this instance I embossed the fondant, used my square cutter to cut out the square fondant shape and then adhered it to the cookie - try each way and which ever works for you is the best/right way for you.

Helpful links to other sites, recipes and equipment

Polkadot PrintsBlog
Polkadot Prints shop
Naomi V Photography
sugar cookie recipe
chocolate sugar cookies recipe
the patchwork cutter I used:

Powder Blue Pearls

and I think that Jordan from Polkadot Prints is teasing me. I made one other set of cookies for her range that I can't wait to show off. It's a new cookie design based on one of my most popular ever cookies, so I bet you can all guess just what it is.

Owlisious O is for Owl cookies

So I haven't let go of my square cookie lovin' at the moment and I created these super easy to make Parliament of owl cookies.

I called them O is for Owl cookies because they are basically made from a O shape cutter, deep huh. It took me a while to come up with a name for them....I wanted to call them something Hootish, but everything kept sounding a little bit seedy so I gave up on that angle.

Before we get into the tutorial I'll give you some helpful hints, kinda a do as I say not as I do. I was rushing these and using left over stuff, popping out to the shop and looking after 3 kids so they were not quite as well finished as they could be.

Ok do wait for the brown branch piping to dry before you start sticking on other stuff...don't just keep on going which may result in smudgy knuckle marks in your branch.

Do make sure you cut out the correct number of owls and corresponding wings and beaks. Don't get distracted and go to the shop part way through resulting in a weird pink owl with no nose ending up in the mix.

Do mix up some nice fresh royal icing, don't use that stuff that has been sitting in the piping bag for 2 days since you made some cameo cookies and has separated. People will notice. Well ok most people won't notice actually. They will just see some cute owl cookies for 3 seconds before they munch the evidence away.

Instructions for O is for Owl cookies

Batch of square cookies 5cm (2") CLICK HERE for the chocolate cookie recipe I used
White fondant
Small amount of colored fondant (I used Red, Blue, pink, orange, yellow and purple)

Small plastic rolling pin
cornstarch
brush and water
Square cookie cutter Approx 5cm (2")
Set of small oval cutters (I used my 3 set from the Ateco shapes tin I have around 2, 3 and 4cm)
Small flower plunger
Small triangle or tear drop cutter.
Royal Icing, white, brown and green. Small amount of black for eyes (optional you could use an edible pen or just use up some of the brown)
Piping bags and #1 and #65 tips

To start roughly work out what types of owl cookies you are making, I made cookies which had 2 small owls, 1 medium owl, or the top of one large owl with a small in the background. You will need to cut out your shapes accordingly. For this tutorial I will give rough numbers for 18 cookies with 6 of each mentioned/pictured design.

Knead the white fondant and roll out to a couple of mm thick using the small rolling pin. Cut out squares using the square cookie cutter and adhere to the cookies using a small amount of water brushed onto the cookie and then using the rolling pin to gently press the fondant into place.

Roll out pink fondant and press out a bunch of flowers (around 18) using the mini flower ejector. Repeat with the purple (24), orange (6) and yellow (18)fondant.

Place the brown royal icing into a piping bag with a #1 tip and pipe on some wiggly branches. I drew some squares on paper first and decided where I wanted the branches and owls to go, then I practiced piping the brown over the paper before I started on the cookies. You will need 6 cookies with a branch near the bottom for the medium owls, 6 cookies with a branch at the bottom and a smaller branch in the top right corner for the small owls, and 6 cookies with a small wiggly branch just over half way up on the left side for the cookies with the large owl (eyes only) and small owl in background.

Roll out the red fondant. Cut out oval shapes and then place the bottom of the oval cutter onto the top of the oval fondant shape and press out a small semi circle shape. See the picture example. The remaining shape should resemble a simple owl. Cut out 3 medium red owls, 9 small red owls and 3 large red owls. Use a sharp knife to cut off the bottoms of the large red owls, use your original drawings to determine where to cut.  Repeat for the blue fondant cutting out the same number of owls in blue.

You will also need to cut out the thin wing shapes, use the oval cutters to do this as well. I used the offcuts from the tops of the owl.

Take the excess fondant and cut out a thin wing from each side, so you will end up with 2 wings for each semi circle. The large owls will not need wings so you will end up with 6 medium red wings, 6 medium blue wings, 18 small red wings and 18 small blue wings.

Roll out the remaining orange fondant and using a small tear drop cutter or triangle and a sharp knife cut out a beak for each owl.

Pop your white royal icing into a piping bag with a #1 tip. Using your original drawing or my cookie pictures as a guide, stick the owl cut outs onto the cookies with a little royal icing. Add on the owl wings and beak and then pipe some eyes onto each owl. Adhere the small fondant flowers decoratively around the branches and then pipe a small dot of white royal icing into the center of each flower.

If you find that bits of the royal icing squish out use a small stiff clean brush (you have only used for food purposes in the past or new) to brush away the excess

Fill a piping bag with green royal icing and a #65 small leaf tip. Pipe some leaves around the branches by holding the piping tip on the branch applying pressure and then pulling away.carefully. (practice on some paper first if you like).

Once the eyes have dried pipe on a tiny amount of black royal icing into the center of each eye, or you can use brown royal icing, or an edible pen which ever works best for you.

Also Don't forget the Handmade Wedding Giveaway

If you haven't already entered the Handmade Wedding Book Giveaway pop on over here to check out my review and enter.

and finally here is the link to preorder my book Sweets on a Stick from Amazon, its due out in December. Did I mention I took some pops I made using the chocolate cake pop recipe to kindi the other day for Sweet's birthday and the next day the teacher told me in amazement it is the first time every kid has eaten up the whole treat. I'm taking that as a winning endorsement.