Water Lily Cookies

Materials

• one batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough
• royal icing
• gel food coloring
• plain vodka or almond extract
• paint brush
• piping tips (349, 2, 102) and bags

Instructions

1. Cut cookies into desired shape. I chose circles but any shape would work. An abstract shape might be nice to mimic water.
2. Flood the cookies with white royal icing and let dry completely.
3.  Use the vodka to dilute a VERY small amount of food coloring. I use a painter’s palette to keep the color contained. This will act as watercolor paint for the cookies. Vodka will work best for this technique because it evaporates quickly enough so as not to dissolve the icing.
4. Layer the watercolor paint on to your liking. I used three different Americolor gels: royal blue, sky blue, and teal.
5. Pipe the flowers onto small squares of parchment on a flower nail using leaf tip no. 349. I did six petals on the bottom, then 5 petals, then three. Try to start out with the petals parallel to your surface and gradually make each row more vertical. Finish by piping a few small yellow dots in the center, using a small round no. 1 or 2 tip. You could alternatively pipe these directly onto the cookies, however I find it much easier to let them dry completely on the parchment so that I can peel them off and place them exactly where I want them.
6. Pipe the lily pads with a petal tip no. 102. Hold the tip so that the wider end forms the outside edge of the pad, piping to form almost a complete circle. Leave a small gap at the end to create more realistic looking pads.