For various reasons, however, I got kind of lazy. Instead of making royal icing in a few colors I just bought some cookie decorating supplies. What could go wrong?! This is a moment of foreshadowing: we learned that gel icing tubes are probably not right for this kind of detail. Still, the regular white icing we used worked fairly well and I'm pretty sure all of it is vegan. So if you made some vegan sugar cookies, this would translate fairly easily (making royal icing vegan surely involves lots of chemicals, but apparently no animal parts).
The set up.
Part of the point was to use up a very old package of Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix, and in order to make them big enough, I was only able to get 5 cookies out of it (the fifth didn't survive the transition from cookie sheet to cooling rack). Still (more foreshadowing), the gel icing doesn't look super appetizing, so it's not like these are actually going to get eaten, and I think our attention spans held out just long enough to do all 4.
Gillian came over to watch a movie and decorate with us.
That's my little snowman, just after I gave him eyes. "Purple" turned out to be a sort of light blue, and it pretty much made our snowmen look possessed. The gel didn't really hold its shape very well, so their stick arms kind of bloated up.
Here's Gillian's, before his face was finished. Check out those creepy "purple" eyes!
John decorated the fourth cookie. As he says, in fairness, he had the most practice. But this fourth cookie is the only one that I think looks endearing, as intended.
Look how much mine looks like a scary clown. "Merry Christmas, boys and girls! AHAHAHAHA!!!!!"
John's first snowman is even scarier. Note how his eyes are oozing down his face, and he's apparently having a nose bleed.
John's second snowman just looks pleasant in comparison to our demonic ones.
Love the ear muffs. Here's the whole gang:
After the gel sort of spread we decided that Gillian's (far left) looks as though his throat was slit, with blood dripping down. I think with royal icing and finer tip they would have turned out fine, and the whole thing was pretty fun! I guess I have a certain habit of making Christmas desserts look evil - recall last year's gingerbread robot monsters.
Since I didn't really bake any of this from scratch, here are some links, including a very clear tutorial on how to make these snowmen:
Post with pictures and instructions
Snowman Cookie Tutorial
These are just cuter than spit.
ReplyDeleteGlad you think they're cute. I think they look kinda evil.
ReplyDeleteThey do look a little evil, but it's okay because if they start getting out of line, you can eat them.
ReplyDeleteThey'll always know who the boss is.
They're kind of too unappetizing to be eaten. We left them on display as part of our holiday decor. But when we get back to town they will probably become trash. But they were fun to create!
ReplyDelete