Recipe: Easter and Spring Cookies

the appetizer:

Learn ingenious tricks for making cookies with Cookie Craft by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer, including recipes for Easter and Spring Cookies and for Halloween Cookies; and decorating techniques like Using Fondant.

Easter and Spring Cookies

Celebrate rebirth and nature's reawakening with a pastel icing palette and traditional symbols of Easter and spring. Egg shapes are perfect for creative interpretation and are great for filling Easter baskets—why not "dye" cookie eggs this year?

Cookies Featured
1 Easter basket; 2 Pink Easter egg; 3 Yellow flower; 4 Watering can; 5 Pink flower; 6 Double-cookie yellow hat; 7 Easter bunny; 8 Polka-dot egg; 9 Small fancy Easter egg; 10 Chick

Decorating Instructions

1 Easter Basket Layer 1: Pipe and flood top third of the cookie; sprinkle flower-shaped paillettes on wet flood; let dry. Layer 2: Using small basketweave tip, pipe basketweave pattern on bottom two-thirds of cookie. Pipe basket handle and border using the same tip and a ribbon motion.

2 Pink Easter Egg Pipe and flood. Flood horizontal stripes on wet flood; draw toothpick from bottom to top of egg; repeat at intervals.

3 Yellow Flower Layer 1: Pipe and flood; let dry. Layer 2: Pipe outline with contrasting color. Pipe dots in center.

4 Watering Can Pipe and flood watering-can shape, leaving space for "handle" and flowers. Sugar on wet flood. Affix flowers with piping icing.

5 Pink Flower Layer 1: Pipe and flood; let dry. Layer 2: Pipe outline with contrasting color. Pipe dots in center.

6 Double-Cookie Yellow Hat Prebaking: Stack smaller round on top of larger and bake. After baking, Layer 1: Pipe and flood brim of hat; pipe and flood crown of hat; let dry. Layer 2: Using small leaf tip, pipe leaves around hat band; pipe dots in center of leaves. For a quicker cookie, skip the piping and flooding and simply create a colorful hat band!

7 Easter Bunny Pipe and flood; sprinkle jimmies on wet flood. Pipe rabbit ear, eye, and nose/whisker details.

8 Polka-Dot Egg Pipe and flood. Flood dots on wet flood; sprinkle colorless sanding sugar on wet flood.

9 Small Fancy Easter Egg Layer 1: Pipe and flood; let dry. Layer2: Pipe lines, dots, and squiggles. For a quicker cookie and quicker cleanup, make chocolate cookie eggs, skip the flooding, and use zip-top bags to pipe lines, dots, and squiggles!

10 Chick Pipe and flood; sprinkle orange sanding sugar on wet flood to create beak and feet. Pipe eye.

Cookie Craft
From Baking to Luster Dust
Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions
by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer
Storey Publishing 2007
$18.95; hardcover; 160 pages
ISBN: 978-1-58017-694-1
ISBN: 1580176941
Information provided by the publisher.

Buy Cookie Craft