Rainbow 5th Birthday Cookie

I have decided this year to make fancy cookies for Alya's birthday favor instead of giving away favors bags filled with little knick knacks that drive us, parents, crazy. You are welcome parents. Since the cookies were going to be the favors, they needed to be bigger and fancier than usual. Last year I made Cowgirl boots and hats, click here to see; and the year before I made very simple orange and red sugared cookies, click here to see.

These cookies are yet the most elaborate and demanding cookies I have ever made. Not only I needed to make two different cookies, but they also require a lot of drying time between the different colors. It took me about 19 hours to finish around 25 complete cookies.

I started by sketching the design, initially I want to make a unicorn cookie but I was not happy with the cookie cutter that I bought, it was just not good enough. I decided to incorporate the rainbow element and adding the number 5. I knew that the rainbow element is going to be challenging in terms of preparing the different colors and all the needed drying time between each color so I sketched a simpler design. I decided that the simpler design is just not good enough so I went with the rainbow design; a decision I did not regret.

I divided the work into three different days.
Dough Making day:As usual, I used my ultimate delicious sugar cookie recipe. For the Sugar Cookie Recipe, click here.
Baking day:I used a 3 inch round cookie cutter. I wanted the cookies to be big since I used them as birthday favors. For the Sugar Cookie Recipe, click here. For the Royal icing recipes used for piping and flooding, click here

Cutting out the round cookies

Baking the the round cookies

Cutting out the 5 cookies

Baking the 5 cookies

Decorating day: I decided to just use flooding icing recipe instead of outlining and later flooding because of the nature of the design. I did not want to make an outline in black. For the Royal Icing recipes used for piping and flooding, click here. I made one big batch of flooding royal icing and divided it into seven batches. I used AmeriColor gel colorant and squeeze bottles to dispense the royal icing.
I used a food grade pen and a tiny ruler to draw lines on each cookie.

I tried to be as neat as possible but I not stress over squiggly lines. Repeat on all the cookies

Repeat with a different color, squeeze in the first line, the second line and using the toothpick spread the icing to spread the icing.

Indigo:

Red and Blue:

Violet:

 And green:

Let the cookies dry completely to prepare them for the last step of glueing the 5 onto them. They must be completely dry for this step.
The "5" Cookie:
I piped the royal icing on the 5 cookie using a piping bag and a tip 2 because of the small details and the shape of the cookie. then I filled it up with the royal icing. Then I sprinkled the rainbow sprinkles on the cookie "5" in a plate. I made sure to reuse the sprinkles that fell out.

 Now everything is ready for the last step: Glueing.

I added some sugar to the left over royal icing to strengthen it a bit. I placed it in a pipping bag with tip 2 and pipped a bit on the back of the number 5 cookie. Make sure that the cookie is completely dry before doing this step.

 center the cookie "5" on the rainbow cookie

and here it is in all its glory!

Let them dry completely before packaging

 I love the the 3D effect!

I used my computer and printer to pint out Reinventing Nadine in circles and Thank You on paper. Then I punched out the circles and cut them out. I used a tiny punchers to make holes in the tags.
I packaged the cookies using simple clear cellophane bags and golden ties.

I love it when my vision comes to life!

Enjoy!

Nadine

Resources:

Sugar Cookies Recipe, click here

Royal icing For Piping and Flooding Recipes and Technique, Click here
Cowgirl Boots and Hat Cookies, Click here
Simple Sugared Cookies, Click here