Hello everyone! Today we have a guest post by the fabulous cookie decorator, Semi- Sweet Designs. Check out these adorable tie cookies that hang on the side of Dad’s Cup!
Fathers Day Tie Cookies
by Semi Sweet Designs
Father’s Day is this Sunday and I have an easy cookie idea to share. If you want to make the dad in your life feel extra special on this special day, I say start his morning off right. Impress him with a dapper cup of joe with these Father’s Day mug hanging necktie cookies!
To make these cookies, first download this simple necktie template I created. You can either print the template directly on food safe card stock or use food safe template plastic like I did below. (Parchment paper would work too.) Any method will work. Cut out the template and use it as a guide to carve out the dough by hand.
Necktie cookie template:
These cookies require a kind of “hook piece” that will attach to the back of the necktie cookie. You’ll see what I mean by the end of the post.
Making the hook:
Cut out a circle about 2 inches in diameter. Use a cookie cutter for the letter “I” to cut out a small notch in the circle. (You can also carve out a notch with a knife if you don’t have an “I” cutter.) Cut the piece in half with a knife.
After you have cut out and baked the necktie and the hook pieces, it is time to ready the royal icing.
You will need:
White piping and flood royal icing. (I chose white to match the color of the mug.)
Piping and flood royal icing in the necktie color/s of your choice.
With white flood icing, spread a thin layer of icing over the top of the necktie cookie. IMPORTANT NOTE: Don’t do what I did in the photo and only cover the top half of the cookie. I didn’t account for potential spreading. If the dough does spread after baking (which it did for me), covering the entire top surface makes for a better looking cookie.
After the top, thin coat of icing is dry, it’s time to add the collar. If drawing the outlines for the collar free-hand scares you, you can use a scribe tool or toothpick to mark where the lines should go. Just cut the collar detail off of the template and use that as a guide to make your marks.
Once the markings are made, pipe over them with white piping icing, then fill the middle area with white flood icing.
After the collar area had time to set, it is time to do the tie details. Above shows the basic steps to do a solid-color tie. Pretty simple.
However, if your dad isn’t a solid-color-tie-type-of-guy, there are many other design options you can try. There are stripes…
Or polka dots…
The possibilities are endless. Here are a few examples I came up with, nothing too complicated. I just played around with the three colors I had on hand.
After the necktie cookies are iced, leave them to dry and harden completely before moving on to the next step.
Attaching the hook:
Once the icing on the necktie cookies are dry and hard, turn them over. Apply a center strip of relatively stiff icing on the back of the cookie with a #3 icing tip. Attach the hooked cookie piece on top of the icing strip. If the icing is stiff enough, the hook should stand upright on its own. Leave these cookies to set and harden for a few hours.
After the icing around the back hook had time to dry, the necktie cookie should be ready to hang off a mug.
I should note the color of the collar was chosen to match the color of the mug. This should give the mug the appearance it is the shirt to the collar/necktie cookie. If you don’t have a white mug, I would recommend trying to match the collar icing color to the color of the mug you plan on using.
I hope everyone has a Happy Father’s Day and a great rest of the week!
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Copyright Semi Sweet Designs 2013.
Reprinted with permission