Royal Pain

Don't you hate it when you have a grand idea, an idea in which you carefully, painstakingly shop and plan for, that, despite your attention to detail and total investment in the project, just doesn't meet your expectations?  That's what happened to me yesterday.

I had grand, romanticized plans of creating tasty, beautiful sugar cookies.  Cookies carefully decorated with royal icing.  I knew this project would be a labor of love, but I welcomed the challenge.  A challenge, which despite my best intentions, left me feeling defeated by the end of the day.

The plan was simple:  star shaped sugar cookies, covered in green icing and embellished with red dots.

It started off okay.

I set up the necessary equipment.

Rolled the dough.

Cut out the stars.

Placed them on cookie sheets.

Some stars were a little prettier

than others. 

Even ugly stars need love.

I baked the stars and cooled them on racks.

Only in today's age is baking beside your laptop totally necessary.

While the cookies cooled, I made the royal icing.  Ebony worked over time on this project.

Then I colored the icing.

Let the decorating begin!

First I outlined the stars, using a thicker royal icing in a piping bag.

I endured tip malfunctions

and operator error.






Once the outlines dried, I added water to the remaining green royal icing  and placed it in a squirt bottle.

I squeezed the green icing onto the cookie and used a tooth pick to push it into the corners.  This technique is called flooding.

The results are pretty amatuerish, but it was my first time, so I cut myself some slack.  Besides, the red dots should cover up any imperfections.  Or so I hoped.

I should have stopped here.  Perhaps sprinkled on some colored sugar or sprinkles and called it a day.

But, no.  I had to add red dots.

Unfortunately, my dots looked a lot more like miniature Hershey kisses.  I couldn't, despite my focused effort,  make dots without creating the peaks on each dot.

I didn't want peaks!

I then tried to make big dots, to perhaps eliminate the peaks on my dots, but this is what happened:

Ugh. I'm so embarrassed to post that picture, and yet, I can't stop laughing at it.

I really should have gone with sprinkles.

I even tried stripes, but that ended up a huge disaster; a disaster that ended up in my belly.  I couldn't bear to look at it, so I ate it.

To add insult to injury, the cookies didn't even taste good.  They were okay, but the actual cookie recipe did not impress me much.   And even worse, they gave me heartburn!
The good thing is that Caroline is easy to please; she likes them.  I'm glad because guess what she'll be getting in her lunch box all week?

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little upset over my cookies.  I planned so much and worked so hard and did so many dishes.  I'll probably attempt them again, but maybe not this year.  Until I one day claim victory over sugar cookie decorating, I'll just add yesterday's flop to my list of other baking oopsies.

Cracked cheesecakes

and tragic bundt and birthday cakes.



Yesterday's cookies may not have met my exceedingly high expectations, but, on the bright side, I have made some good looking cookies in the past.

One day I shall triumph!  Victory o'er royal frosting shall one day be mine!