Elegant and Easy Mother’s Day Cookies

On Wednesday, I got a little “express” shipment of some of our household goods. Primarily the shipment contained kitchen gear. It more or less had our entire kitchen contained in it. I’m sure you can imagine my excitement, I’m not sure if I can describe to you the feeling of being reunited with the stuff you love.

Obviously, it’s nothing to how thrilled I’ll be when the Hubster comes home for good, but there is a comfort in seeing the things that make your life what it is on a day to day basis. I sound totally materialistic, but it isn’t about the things so much as it is about what they make a house into.

Up until Wednesday (since mid-March), our house has been filled with very, very little. It’s still filled with very little, but there’s something soothing in having familiar things to be a part of that little. Before, it was just the kiddo and I, plus Loki, and a rented couch, two rented beds, and the few pieces of furniture that I have invested in for my office since we’ve been here. It’s a little depressing.

As for the kitchen, it was a lot depressing. I had a pot, a pan, a wooden spoon, and a cheap knife and cutting board for cooking. We’re eating off of plastic dishes with plastic utensils until our dishes get here. I was fortunate to have been able to bring a small supply of blogging tools and props with me, but otherwise, that’s all we had.

Maybe I’m spoiled, but it was tough, so those few boxes Wednesday were wonderful! I’ve been reunited with my KitchenAid mixer (which I actually haven’t seen for seven months. Seven. Months.), and even though I really needed to just unpack everything and get it all organized and put away, I made cookies instead. Using my mixer.

It was wonderful.

Happy Mother’s Day, friends.

All of the cookies I made were sweet and simple, but pretty and elegant. I wanted them to be covered in loveliness like ribbons and baubles. I wanted them to be the perfect tea time cookies to serve to Mom on Mother’s Day, so I dressed them up in classic cameos, pretty bows, festive banners, ribbon roses, and shimmery details.

I used homemade marshmallow fondant on all of the cookies for the majority of the decorations. For some of the cookies, I made lovely white chocolate cameos. I think they turned out so wonderful, and perfect for Mom’s special day.

I used this cameo chocolate mold from CK Products, which I’ve been trying to think of a reason to use forever. Yay for Mother’s Day and a reason to use beautiful jewelry themed chocolate molds! To the left of the cameo cookie, you can see that I also made some sweet little bows using a bow mold. (The large bow on the cameo cookie, as well as the rick rack on the rosy Mother’s Day cookie were made using this Wilton fondant mold).

For the cameos, all I did was fill in the decorative area of the mold with plain white chocolate, then immediately filled the mole completely with a blue tinted white chocolate (I used actual white chocolate that I had tinted with candy coloring). I made all of the bows the same blue from the cameos. Then, I just ignored them until they had hardened.

I also decorated some of the cookies with bright shiny dragées, because, hello? Shiny.

My very favorite cookies of the batch, though, are also the simplest. I am utterly obsessed with pennant banners. I would have them hanging and draping and painted on and adorning every surface of my house, if I could. I have them hanging in my kitchen and office now, as well as having added them to a couple of pieces of art, or actually bought art with them in it. I think I may have a problem. A completely adorable, fun, and whimsical problem it may be, but a problem nonetheless.

These banners are the best, though, because they’re adorable, you get to tell Mom how much she means to you, and they’re mighty tasty, too! I just used a tiny triangle cutter to cut out each pennant, but you could easily cut out little triangles by hand, too. Then, I used a black and a pink food writer to pen sweet messages for Mother’s Day.

I had the most fun making these cookies. You will, too; don’t be intimidated by them. They’re as easy or as difficult as you want them to be, and even the more elaborate cookies were relatively quick and easy. In fact, I decorated these cookies after dinner last night and still had time to photograph and edit them so you guys could see them today. That’s the great thing about fondant; roll it out , use some cute shaped cutters on it, and stick it in place with a little icing. Easy peasy. Enjoy!

Rolled Sugar Cookies [Printable Version]
Makes 3 to 5 dozen, depending on size and thickness of cookies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks or grams) butter, softened
2 cups (400 grams) sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons (10 ml) vanilla
5 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat mats.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until combined. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture a little at a time until it is all mixed in thoroughly. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill for at least two hours or overnight.

Roll the chilled dough out on a floured surface and cut to desired shapes with cookie cutters.

Bake for 10 minutes, or until edges just begin to brown. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool before decorating.

Faux Royal Icing [Printable Version]

Ingredients

4 cup confectioners’ sugar
3 tablesp0ons (45 ml) milk, more for thinner frosting or less for thicker
3 tablespoons (45 ml) light corn syrup
1 teaspoon (5 ml) lemon extract (or other flavor of your choice)
assorted food coloring, optional

In a small bowl, stir together confectioners’ sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and lemon or almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more milk. If it’s too thin, add more sugar. If desired, divide into separate bowls, and add food coloring to each.

Decorate cookies as desired.

1 recipe Marshmallow Fondant

Recipes by Darla

Supplies:

CK Cameo Mold
CK Mini Bow mold
Wilton Button and Bows Fondant Mold
India Tree Silver French Dragées
Americolor Black Food Writer
Americolor Colored Food Writers

Check out my other ideas for Mother’s Day below:

Lovely Little Mother’s Day Cupcakes (ribbon rose tutorial and free Mother’s Day printables)

Sweet and Simple Mother’s Day Cupcakes (Lemon cupcakes with lemon curd filling and lemon buttercream)