Ok, so I may be a bit late for Canadian Thanksgiving but there’s still plenty of time for my friends south of the border to whip up some beautiful sweets for your Thanksgiving celebration. Sometimes you get inspired to bake and you just go with it. Autumn is absolutely my favourite season and I just couldn’t help but be inspired by all the beautiful fall colours and make some changing fall colour cookies.
This project is equal parts recipe and art project. In fact, it was the painting part that truly inspired me and if I could’ve just gone to the bakery and picked up some already iced cookies in leaf shapes I would have. I’ll be honest and admit that I almost didn’t post this because, as you can see by the photos, my royal icing is less than perfect. But there’s no way that I put in all that time and effort to create these beauties then wasn’t going to share. Life most definitely isn’t perfect friends. Sometimes your icing has little bubbles in it and you just gotta go with the flow. I’m going with the whole mother nature isn’t perfect angle.
The best part (in my opinion) of making this recipe is the painting part but we can’t forget about the eating part as I’m sure some would argue that’s actually the highlight of any recipe. I’ve made sugar cookies in the past and decided this time to try this recipe from Katerina’s Kitchen, which doesn’t require chilling (if you’re looking to save time) and I’m happy to report that it turned out great and tastes delicious! I did have to modify the baking time (double the time) for my oven, so keep that in mind.
I found this perfect leaf shape cookies cutter trio on Amazon and made myself some pretty falling leaves. Since my icing didn’t come out all that great, I’m not going to share it. If you have a fool-proof royal icing recipe, please share in the comments! Or else, do like future Melissa will be doing and just buy some royal icing. For me the icing was too thick so (as per the recipe reco) I added a bit of water to thin it out. It did the job and my cookies looked perfect but 24 hours later, the icing still didn’t dry. Hence the little bubbles that popped up when I added the water based “paint”.
Hopefully you have better luck. So once your icing is dry, you’re ready to paint! Pick up some new paint brushes (dollar store quality is fine) and give them a good wash before you get started. Then using food colouring – gel, powder, regular – whatever you like, start painting your pretty falling leaves. I used food colouring gel because I like how concentrated it is and that I can control the intensity of colour with the amount of water I use.
I went with an ombre look starting with green and going through all the beautiful warm colours before the leaf dies a slow and ugly brown death. Icing issue aside, I really enjoyed mixing colours and treating the cookie like a blank canvas. You could definitely just colour your icing and make some fall coloured cookies and I’m sure it would look (and taste) great but this way let’s you get more in touch with your inner Van Gogh and let’s you play with colours and layers to create something a little more vibrant and dynamic.
When you’re done, let the “paint” dry then comes the best part. Enjoy!
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