Babies, Bow ties, and Bubbly : Ducky and Onesie Cookies

Bow-tie Onesie Cookies & ducky cookies

I loved making these bow tie onesie cookies. I’ve had the cookie cutter for over a year but never used it. These were a hit at the shower. The sugar cookie recipe and royal icing recipe I use is one of my favorite and for myself, both recipes been no fail.

Sugar cookie recipe

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups unsalted butter (at room temperature)

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla & seeds from a vanilla bean

5 cups flour

1 tsp salt

Using the paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. Don’t overmix the butter and sugar as it will cause the cookie dough to spread out of the desired shape.
Sift all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl
Scrape down sides and add the eggs mixing again to incorporate.
Add the vanilla, stir in ( I use my own homemade vanilla click link to see how I do this)
Add all of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture mix on low for about 45 sec to 1 minute just until it sticks together. Overmixing is not your friend.
Divide the dough in half and place in between two sheets of parchment. Roll the dough with a rolling-pin to the desired thickness leave the parchment attached
refrigerate for at least 1 hour 30 min.
Roll the dough further if you need to, remove the parchment and cut out cookie shapes. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
Re-roll scraps and repeat
Chill cookies again for at least 30 minutes
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C My oven is convection and seems to run hot so I drop my temp to 340°F
Bake cookies for 8-12 min or until the edges become golden brown. Baking time can vary.
Cool cookies on a rack until room temperature. Now the fun part. Decorating!
I use Wilton food colors at Michael’s the colors I used were Royal Blue, Leaf Green, and Sky Blue (the colors are a little off in the pictures as the flash changed them a bit) The cookie cutters I purchased on Ebay from www.stores.ebay.com/Foose-Cookie-Cutters/Baby

I made 24 Bow tie Onesie Sugar cookies and sealed them so that each guest could take one home. The duckies were placed on trays to eat at the shower. Everyone commented on how yummy the cookies were and that usually decorated cookies don’t always taste delicious.

I was happy with how these cookies turned out. I always question myself until the project is finished.

Packaged and ready for Guests to take home as a thank you.

Platters of Bow tie Duckies on tables for tasting

The colors were light blue, dark blue and green with silver accents.

Royal Icing Recipe

Ingredients:

3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp water

5 Tbsp Meringue Powder

1 tsp clear vanilla or any clear OIL FREE flavoring LorAnn oil free bakery emulsions work great

1 tsp cream of Tartar *optional

1 Kg bag of Powdered icing sugar

In mixing bowl hand whisk together the Meringue powder and 3/4 cup water until dissolved, smooth and frothy
Add Vanilla or oil free flavoring
Add sifted Icing sugar and cream of Tartar
Mix on slow with the paddle attachment of your stand mixer for 2 min until combined, you may need to wipe down the sides of your mixing bowl
Add the 2 Tbsp water. Continue mixing for 8 minutes on slow. It should look like thick high meringue

You can see that the beater or the icing barely moves. That is how thick it will get.

Divide into smaller bowls and tint with food coloring of your choice.
VERY IMPORTANT: When thinning your icing thin slowly with water. Using a squirt bottle is a great way to add water so you don’t have too much. It’s difficult to re-thicken royal icing (In separate bowls add 1/4 tsp or a few squirts of water at a time until you get the consistency for piping edges (bowl 1) and flooding cookies (bowl 2) . For piping, I usually work with the 20 second smooth (if your cut the icing with a butter knife the cut will smooth over and disappear within that time frame. For flooding, I thin to 15 seconds) But that works for me. Test it yourself to see what works for you.
Cover with a damp cloth to prevent the icing from crusting on top and sides of bowl (which will interfere with your piping of the icing) You can use a small spritzer bottle (used only for this purpose) if it starts to dry while working with the icing. That way you don’t add too much water and change the consistency.
Any leftover icing I store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. You can freeze Royal Icing however I have never tried it myself, so research away.
Fill your piping bag with icing for piping the edges and patterns

I used Wilton piping bag and tip #3

After the edges are piped spoon a small amount of flooding icing in the middle of the cookie. I’m showing how to use royal icing with a butter knife to spread to carefully push it to the edge of the piped edging. Not everyone will have a wilton plastic squeeze bottle with tip, if you don’t this method works. I usually put the icing in these bottles as I purchased them for candy making. You can also use another piping bag.

Set aside and let dry for a couple of hours. A fan set on low/medium speed aimed at the cookies really helps with the drying. ( I usually flood in the morning and add decorative piping in the evening or flood in the evening and let dry overnight and pipe/decorate in the morning)

I started piping the decorative outline on this cookie a little early as the icing is not quite dry yet but it was to get the pictures taken

I’m not a professional just an average DIY’er so yes, you can do this too. It just takes a little practice

These little tweezers came as an extra set with my Serger so I cleaned and threw in with my cake and cookie decorating supplies. Very handy for applying these silver dragees as snaps. Tip* – I tried placing them with just my fingers and they never landed on the little drop of icing once 😉

Add 3 little dots of piping icing and place dragees on

Finally finished the decorative piping

Making mini bow ties on parchment. (Royal Icing transfers) I made 3 times more of these than what I needed as they were not perfect and a couple did break when taking off the parchment. These are best to let dry overnight or all day before removing from the parchment. I added the dragee while the icing was still wet. I just pick out the ones that were the best. I got better at making them in the end