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Zlatka,
Do you use any whitener (white food coloring) in your white frosting? If you don't, I think that would solve your problem immediately. I've found that a little bit of that goes a long way in fixing translucency. If you're already using that then I'll have to think about it some more. Let me know! :)

Karen

Hi,

No, you don't have to use it right away. It will dry out on the surface if it's not covered, so you have to keep it tightly covered while you're not using it, but it will keep for 1-2 weeks. After 2 weeks it starts to smell a little funny to me, so I usually don't keep it for any longer than that. You can keep it at room temperature or in the fridge.

Hope that answers your question!

Karen

Hi Rowena, For my fall leaves, I use red and yellow glaze. I'll spread red glaze on half of the cookie and then wash my spatula (or just use two spatulas) and put yellow glaze on the other half. I alternate applying the glaze top to bottom side to side, etc. Then I clean off the spatula again (you can just wipe it on a paper towel) and then I swirl the two together. It takes a little practice to know when to stop swirling- You want them to be combined a little, but if you spend too much time mixing the colors together you'll just end up with solid orange leaves.

Once they're dry I use a #2 tip to pip veins on the leaves. Sometimes I use black and sometimes I use brown-- depends on my mood! :) The leaves are really fun and pretty easy. Just play around with them and I think you'll like the results.

Good luck! Let me know if you have any other questions!

Karen

Hi Bonnie,

My favorite combo for outlining is black frosting with a #2 decorating tip. I use that almost all the time. If you play around with your frosting and get it the right consistency, you'll be able to make lines just like that. I usually glaze the cookies one color and then add the black outlines after the glaze dries. That way if I mess up I can scrape it off and start over without damaging the glaze (that's where the cookie scraper comes in handy!). Does that explain it? Let me know if you have more questions!

Hi Kelly,

Hmmmm.... I've never done cookies with chocolate before, but that sounds great! I'm going to have to experiment. What I would probably try first is using chocolate candy melts (Wilton or Merkens brand are good) as the glaze. That would harden up well enough to be handled and arranged in a bouquet, and then you could add details with either royal icing or other colors of candy melts. I know that lots of cookie decorators use those candy melts anyway, so I think it works. If you didn't like that idea, you might try the Meringue Powder Buttercream, and substitute some of the powdered sugar for cocoa powder and see how that goes. Like I said, I've never tried it, so this is just brainstorming, but those are some things you could try. I'm going to have to play around and see what I can come up with.

I'm so glad you're enjoying the site! Thanks for the feedback! Good luck with your chocolate frosting, and let me know if you have any other questions!

Karen

Hi Krystal,

Wow! That is a project! The reason that I didn't put yeilds on those recipes is because it depends on so many factors-- how big the cookie cutter is and how thick you roll your dough, etc. I recently made a whole bunch of cookies to decorate for the web site. I quadrupled the Basic Rolled Sugar Cookie dough and rolled my cookies 1/4" thick, and was able to get approximately 100 cookies from that, but the cutters were all different sizes. Some small, some very large. I would say if you're using a 4-5" cutter you could probably get 200 out of 8 batches.

I usually figure about 1 recipe of Meringue Powder Buttercream for each batch of cookie dough, but if your design is pretty simple and you aren't using very many colors, you could probably get away with about half that (so 4 batches for your 8 batches of dough). A lot depends on your design.

Hopefully that gives you an idea. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Good luck with your cookies!

Karen

Hi Rowena,

The cookie bouquets are really a lot easier than they look. I always roll my dough 3/8" thick for cookie pops, and I usually bake them an extra couple of minutes to make sure they're good and done and will stay on the sticks. If they are too soft, they may break off of the sticks. The tutorial for baking cookies on sticks is here:
http://www.karenscookies.net/shop/cookie-projects-baking-cookie-pops/info_46.html

And the tutorial for arranging the bouquets is here:
http://www.karenscookies.net/shop/cookie-projects-cookie-pot-arrangement/info_45.html

Those tutorials will hopefully give you the information you need, but if you have any other questions, please let me know. You will do great!

Karen

Hi Mary Lee,

I would get the cookies into the freezer and freeze them until the week of the wedding. You'll want to complete the decorating at least 24 hours before they leave for Chicago to make sure the frosting is good and dry. If you can decorate them in a day, then take the cookies out of the freezer two days before you leave, let them thaw in their container, (that way the condensation gets on the container and not the cookies, so they won't get too soft) and decorate them that day. Let them dry 24 hours, and package them up the night before they go. If you're too busy with other preparations, moving this ahead a couple of days won't hurt. I would say that once the cookies are decorated and in their packaging, they'll be fine for up to a week.

If you are using Royal Icing, the recipe won't need to be altered. If you're using the Meringue Powder Buttercream recipe on my site, I would add an extra tablespoon of Meringue powder just to ensure that the frosting dries well enough to not be damaged in transit.

You can package them in saran wrap or you can use small cellophane bags and tie them with a ribbon, like this example:

http://www.karenscookies.net/shop/kc_images/ib_wedding_favor_01.jpg

I kind of like using cellophane bags because there is always a little bit of air between the cookie and the bag, and it gives it a little extra cushioning. You can get those cellophane bags at craft stores or even Walmart, or if you can't find them locally, I sell them on my site.

For transporting, I would line a box with bubble wrap and then line the cookies up in rows, on their edges (if you lay them flat in layers the ones at the bottom tend to get broken). You could even add bubble wrap between the cookies if you wanted to be extra careful. The last thing you want is to get to Chicago with a bunch of broken cookies, so it might be worth it to add a little extra cushioning. Top them off with a sheet of bubble wrap, and you should be fine.

I hope that answers your questions. Let me know if you have any others. I really need to add a "timetable" type of section to the tutorial pages. I'll try to get that done.

Thanks Mary Lee! Good luck with your cookies and your wedding!

Karen

Hi Liz,

Thank you so much for your interest in our decorating kits. We are working on some fall kits now, and hope to have them done very soon. We will be working on some winter and Christmas kits as well.

Thanks for the feedback! Keep checking back and hopefully you'll see some fun fall stuff up soon!

Karen

Hi Ramona,

Thanks so much for your email. We are actually working on some videos right now, and we hope to have them up in the next couple of months. We will have them available to view for free from the web site, and also offer the same videos on a DVD for purchase if people would like to have a hard copy. Check back, and we'll slowly be getting them up!

Thanks again!

Karen

Hi Ramona,

You could start baking the cookies anytime and freeze them. Sometimes what I like to do is just glaze them before I freeze and then finish up any piping or sugaring right before I need them (after they thaw out). That way you can stack them better and not worry so much about your piping getting ruined in the freezer. If you want to do the piping now you can, you just have to be a little bit more careful about jarring them in the freezer. When you go to thaw them out, just leave them in the containers that you froze them in until they are completely thawed. That way any condensation from thawing will end up on the outside of the containers and not on your cookies to make them splotchy or soggy.

Good luck! Send me pictures of your cookies when you make them and I'll put them up in my gallery!

Karen

Hi Yael,

Well, the nice thing about royal icing is that it's fairly easy to adjust with extra powdered sugar or water, depending on your desired result. That being said-- I've had the same problems with royal, and I've discovered a few things. First of all, different brands of meringue powder create different results, and I've found that with some brands you have to add more meringue powder than the recipe calls for-- up to 25% more sometimes. I've also found that using lukewarm water instead of cold helps the meringue powder dissolve and work better. And make sure that you beat it until it has stiff peaks. Sometimes it can take a looooong time, especially if you're using a hand mixer. If you beat and beat and beat and it never gets to stiff peaks, you might need to add more meringue powder next time.

But like I said, if all else fails, thin down the thick stuff with extra water (just a few drops at a time), and thicken it up with powdered sugar.

Good luck!

Karen

Hi Carol,

I just used a 3x5 card placed on the dough and then used a pizza cutter to cut around it. I would really like to find a large rectangle cutter, but so far haven't had much luck. Rectangles work really well just using a pizza cutter, though.

Thanks for the inquiry!

Karen