A few years ago I bought some cookie cutters at Williams- Sonoma. They were shaped liked characters from "Cars 2" and Hudson saw them and that was all he wanted for his birthday, these wondrous cookies that looked exactly like Francesco and Finn McMissile and Lightning and Mater. So I followed the recipe on the box and rolled out the dough and maybe I actually let the kids help which made everything last so much longer, and also I am sure they have no memory of it. (jewel in my crown, right?) Then I followed the recipe for royal icing and tried to make the cookies look just like the ones on the Williams-Sonoma box. HAH. HAH. It was an unmitigated disaster. They looked like "Cars 2" characters who had dared open the Ark of the Covenant in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." The kids ate them anyway and were sweet about it and said they were perfect. But it became like a vision quest for me. I discovered there is an entire world of royal icing mastery. I read blogs. I read recipes. I shuddered at the amount of food coloring involved. But then I saw things like this wondrous magnificence:
It's the Twelve Days of Christmas!! With royal icing!! Inspirational? Yes! Debilitating? Certainly.
But, every few months, I try it again.
I make the dough, I roll out the cookies. I get out my can of meringue powder. I decide I can't in good conscience use the amounts of food coloring necessary to make ladybugs or strawberries or shamrocks. I contemplate using beets or spinach instead. I reject that idea. I decide to give up when the dough sticks to the rolling pin and also the wax paper. I decide to give up again when I can't get the icing the right texture even though I watch youtube videos and read the Pioneer Woman's tutorial AGAIN. I decide to throw everything in the TRASH when the flood icing floods all over the squeeze bottle instead of inside of it. In my head I am thinking about how I am spending all this time on something it will take about 5 seconds to eat. I think of those Buddhist monks and their sand art. I usually growl at the kids somewhere in here. Sometimes I let them ice a few of their own cookies and I am a little jealous that they just slop it on there, sling on some sprinkles, and declare it a masterpiece.
I think I've made five attempts now, and each time I have declared THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE LAST TIME I AM DOING THIS. ENOUGH. And then I get complacent and something comes up and it seems like the perfect occasion for a cute little homemade daisy cookie, and I succumb. I guess each effort gets a little better; a little less like those "Nailed It!" pinterest fails. I made these yesterday to give to our tutors who have worked so hard to help my kids learn their memory work for Classical Conversations. (My flood icing kept overflowing its boundary. Which made me feel solidarity with the Army Corps of Engineers.)
It's the Twelve Days of Christmas!! With royal icing!! Inspirational? Yes! Debilitating? Certainly. But, every few months, I try it again.
I make the dough, I roll out the cookies. I get out my can of meringue powder. I decide I can't in good conscience use the amounts of food coloring necessary to make ladybugs or strawberries or shamrocks. I contemplate using beets or spinach instead. I reject that idea. I decide to give up when the dough sticks to the rolling pin and also the wax paper. I decide to give up again when I can't get the icing the right texture even though I watch youtube videos and read the Pioneer Woman's tutorial AGAIN. I decide to throw everything in the TRASH when the flood icing floods all over the squeeze bottle instead of inside of it. In my head I am thinking about how I am spending all this time on something it will take about 5 seconds to eat. I think of those Buddhist monks and their sand art. I usually growl at the kids somewhere in here. Sometimes I let them ice a few of their own cookies and I am a little jealous that they just slop it on there, sling on some sprinkles, and declare it a masterpiece.
I think I've made five attempts now, and each time I have declared THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE LAST TIME I AM DOING THIS. ENOUGH. And then I get complacent and something comes up and it seems like the perfect occasion for a cute little homemade daisy cookie, and I succumb. I guess each effort gets a little better; a little less like those "Nailed It!" pinterest fails. I made these yesterday to give to our tutors who have worked so hard to help my kids learn their memory work for Classical Conversations. (My flood icing kept overflowing its boundary. Which made me feel solidarity with the Army Corps of Engineers.)
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