Best Friend face Cookies - eggless recipe

One of our friends decided at the last minute to have a party in the park for her 6 year old little man. She let him pick the theme and he chose 'friends'.

I know that's adorable isn't it. Although when I first heard the day before the party just after I had offered to make some cookies to bring along I though gosh, couldn't he pick cars, or dinosaurs, or rockets cause like I have stacks of cutters for those things.

As I said it was the day before the party and plus the birthday boy is highly allergic to eggs so I quickly did a brain search for something suitable.

and I remembered some sweet face cookies I had seen on flickr using the candy/ lolly shaped cutter I have for little girls with pigtails and decided to make some best friend face cookies.

I'm going to have to send out apologies to someone here - I know I saw something like these on flickr months ago but although I tried and tried I could not find them again so I can not give a shout out to whom ever's idea I have been inspired by.

anyway I decided to go with shortbread cookie as it's eggless and marshmallow fondant as again eggless (although check the ingredients on the marshmallow you use).

The finished cookie was quite yummy, but way more crumbly than a normal sugar cookie, lucky it was a party in the park.

I've got a little tutorial for you on how I made the little girl face cookies, for the boys just modify to suit the round cutter.

Best Friend Face Cookies

(note if you like you can draw on the mouth and nose etc. I was just trying to use less food colour because of the recipients)

Equipment and Ingredients
Cookies
Marshmallow fondant or Ready Rolled Fondant
Gel colour light peach (flesh tone), yellow, brown, white and various colours for small flowers I used pink, blue and purple
small rolling pin
Wilton tip #7
small sharp knife
Black edible pen
Small flower cutter/ ejector
Ball tool
Brush and water

Make cookie dough using shortbread cookie recipe (recipe below), and cut out using candy cutter. If you prefer and cookies do not need to be eggless use this vanilla sugar cookie recipe, or this chocolate cookie recipe.

Colour the fondant with the larger portions in light peach, brown and yellow and small amounts in the accent flower colours.

Roll out light peach fondant until quite thin and cut out using candy shape cutter. Adhere fondant to cookie using a small amount of water brushed onto the cookie. Using small rolling pin smooth fondant and ensure it reaches the edges of the cookie.

Roll out brown or yellow fondant and cut out using candy shape cutter. Using the small knife cut inside the round section of the candy shape to make the fondant look like parted hair. See picture.

Adhere hair to cookie and using the small rolling pin smooth out and ensure the edges are even.

Repeat for remaining cookies.

Roll out the various colours and cut out the small flowers adhering to the cookies 'hair' with a small amount of water. I press the flower onto the cookie with the small end of a ball tool which indents the flower and also presses the flower on well. Roll a small ball of contrasting fondant for each flower and stick into the center of the flowers with a teensy amount of water (normally I often use royal icing for this but as the cookies needed to be egg free I used the marshmallow fondant).

Using the small round end of the wilton tip cut out small round white eyes and adhere them to the faces with a small amount of water. Repeat for all cookies

Also using the small end of the wilton tip press in on one side only to make a small indent for the nose.

Then using the large round end of the tip indent a mouth.

Allow the cookies to dry for a while and then draw pupils into the eyes, eyelashes and if you like freckles.

Shortbread Cookie recipe modified from Joy of Baking

 225 g (1 cup or 2 sticks) unsalted butter room temp
50g icing sugar (powdered sugar)
2 cups flour sifted
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla (I used vanilla bean paste)

Beat butter and sugar until creamed in a stand mixer on high speed, beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour and salt mixing until incorporated. Chill mixture approx 10 mins

Roll out dough, cut out shapes and place on tray lined with baking paper. Pop in fridge to chill.

Preheat oven to 170 C (350 F) and bake for approx 12 to 15mins or until golden. Remove from oven allow to rest on tray 5 -10 mins before moving to wire cooling rack.

Invite with Style shoot

I just had to share some pictures with you of  Invite with Style's new range of wedding stationery.

I made some of the treats scattered around the shots.

 

 I guess I don't have much to say about this other than WOW it all looks so pretty.

Oh and of course head on over to Invite with Style not only do they design elegant and beautiful wedding stationery they also have a range of children's invitations and a graphic design business called Design with Style. I know super talented (and nice as well)!

I am thinking of popping up some tutorials on the wedding cookies I made, then you can make your own treats to match the stationery, how cool would that be.

Credits

Invite with Style beautiful stationery

Photography Deep Grey 

Styling Imbue Weddings

"Cookies make me happy" rice paper decorated flower button rosette cookies

A little while back I started naming all my cookies, you know just to give me something to do. Have y'all noticed?

I've called this design 'Cookies make me happy'....yep that's pretty self explanatory.

Anyway there is a little more to the name story. It's actually what the words say on the rice paper I have used as decoration. I was writing little sayings across the paper with edible pen, just whatever came to mind and this is what happened to be on this batch.

I though for a moment, hey what happens if I write something else next time I make them, then the name won't make sense, but in the end I decided just to go with it as - you know......these cookies make me happy.

They are little blossom cookies covered in fondant with flower rosettes using rice paper I have decorated with different methods.

They were an experiment for something else I am thinking of doing just to see how the rice paper idea would work out.

Now the really weird thing about this is that I am not a crafty person....not at all. I am not even sure why I have the cutters I used to make these cookies or even the couple of crafty items I used as props in the photo's. I won't even embarrass myself any further and talk about the boxes of items I have wasting space in my cupboards from Spotlight (Australian Craft store) I don't know what is going through my head when I walk out the checkout except I must get out of here before I lose the kids in the fabric section again.

Well I guess all I can say is finally some good has come of it.

Hope you love these cookies, they made me very happy.

"Cookies make me Happy" tutorial

Step 1 decorate rice paper
 

Ingredients and Equipment
Rice paper
edible writing pen (I picked up a pack online at Inspired by Chocolate)
small dish with a mixture of coffee and sugar mixed with a tiny amount of water
large bristled brush
Small amount of thick royal icing (or icing sugar mixed with a tiny amount of water)
Gel food colour

Rice paper with writing - using the edible pen write words across the paper. I wrote the same small sentence over again and started at a different part of the sentence each line to give a bit of variety. As a starter here are a couple of the lines I wrote....'Cookies make me happy', 'Fairy wishes and Butterfly kisses', 'I love you'. We read a lot of my little pony at the moment, these are the types of things we say around here feel free to come up with your own not so sugary sayings. Set aside to dry.

Brown brushed rice paper - using the large bristled brush with uneven stokes brush the coffee and sugar mixture onto a piece of rice paper until the sheet is covered roughly making sure it does not get too soggy. Set aside to dry. You could just use brown food colour if you prefer but I wanted to give a little hint of flavour. Also I used some crystalised sugar which did not dissolve for a little bit of texture.

Brown and red brushed paper - follow instructions for brown brushed rice paper, you do not need to wait for it to dry. Mix the royal icing (or icing sugar) with the food colour until the colour you desire is achieved and then using either a brush or your gloved finger brush on the colour mixture just wherever you like. Bring out your inner abstract artist.

Ok you can stop now....not to much. Set aside to dry.

Step 2 -Bake cookies

Click here for chocolate cookie recipe or here for vanilla sugar cookie recipe links

Make up a batch of cookies as per instruction and bake. I used a small blossom shape cookie cutter.

Step 3 - Decorate cookies

Ingredients and equipment

Cookies
decorated rice paper
ready to roll fondant (I used bakels) or marshmallow fondant in at least 2 colours I used white and red
scissors or craft cutter
small blossom cutter same as cookie
water and brush
small fondant rolling pin
small amount of royal icing (or icing sugar mixed with water just for a little sticking)
toothpick or fondant decorating tool (to make indents for button)

Roll out white fondant until quite thin with small rolling pin on a bench dusted with a little cornflour and cut out blossom shape using the cookie cutter. Adhere fondant to cookie using a teensy little bit of water brushed onto cookie and smooth out by using the rolling pin gently.

Cut out rounds of decorated rice paper - I used a craft cutter but you could easily use scissors. Gently scrunch the rice paper rounds up in your hand to give a crinkly effect. With some of the rounds snip into the rounds to give a kind of petal effect.

Using a small amount of royal icing just in the middle attach the rice paper rounds to the cookies. You can just use one piece of rice paper or layer a few. If you are using more than one layer just repeat the process by adding another dab of royal icing and popping the rice paper round on top.

With a small piece of contrasting fondant shape a round to represent a button and then using a toothpick or some other pokey object make a couple of indents to represent the holes in a button. Adhere the button on top of the cookie in the center with a little royal icing.

There you have it, rice paper flower decorated cookies. I have used this method to make quite a few items and I'm really hoping to share some more with you all soon.

Xx