The Duo Dishes

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October 8, 2009 · 42 Comments

Engagement cookies-Duo Dishes

There’s so much going on friends! First and foremost, thanks to any and everyone who voted for us in the Foodbuzz Blog Awards. It’s great that you guys think we’re the bloggers you’d want to see open a restaurant. Was it the Canelé experience that led you in that direction? Either way, we hope you’ll vote! We’ll be in San Fran for the Foodbuzz Festival, and it would rock our striped socks off if we came back to LA with a golden baguette…or whatever the award will be! There are some great folks up for awards, so get your votes in. We already did!

Recently, two near and dear friends were engaged, and in their honor, we made cookies for the party.  Here is one thing you should know about us: we occasionally bite off more than we can chew. Neither one of us has any experience really decorating cookies or cakes, unless you want to count those gingerbread men from back in the day. There is a small chance you may not, but if you are so kind as to do so, we will love you forever. Cookie decorating may not be quite the same as decking out a cake, but it takes patience and perhaps precision, which are two qualities that can wane once you become frustrated. Like a lot of things in life, it’s a matter of practice. If at first you don’t succeed…

Earlier this year, we ventured to study the steps of leveling and frosting a cake. We never claimed to be experts, but we did figure out a few techniques along the way that will hopefully help with a few things we have on deck for this lovely month of October. We should’ve done the same for cookie decorating, but occasionally you just run out of time. That’s when you do something we fondly refer to as ‘winging it’. There will be more cakes in the future, and there will be more cookies as well, so we’ll have more time to perfect technique. Here’s how three days of preparation went down:

Thursday…Make the dough exactly to Wilton’s large batch roll-out sugar cookie recipe.  Well, we did add the zest of one lemon and one orange and triple the vanilla, but those are just small changes.  Little dough mounds were rolled into balls, flattened, wrapped and chilled over night.

Friday…Unwrapped and rolled dough into 1/8″ thick rectangles, made heart shapes with a 3″ cutter and baked 5 dozen cookies.  (The Wilton recipe claims this makes 3 to 4 dozen cookies, but we clearly had enough dough for just over 6 dozen cookies.) Once they were cooled, they were packed in airtight containers for the next day.

Saturday morning…Whipped up Wilton’s egg white royal icing, dropped in a tiny bit of food coloring, spread a thin layer over the cookies, covered an edge with colored sprinkles, then let them dry. Once they dried completely, another batch of royal icing was used to pipe their initials.

Saturday evening…Into bags they go! Sealed up of course with a silver tie.

Wilton’s recipes for both the cookie worked perfectly. The icing is not quite the one we’d use again for a smooth finish, although we have no complaints taste-wise. In fact, we’ve found a great glacé icing that is really what we should’ve used the first time. It has the smooth, glossy finish that we wanted all along. Again, it’s all a learning process. This is just the beginning of a month full of treat worthy celebrations, including five birthdays (two of which belong to us), a dinner party, and potentially a Halloween party. Have any good cake and cookie decorating suggestions? The piping bag and tips are ready!

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Categories: Cookies and Bars
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