Hope everyone had a great weekend! I’m still in crazy sugar cookie mode, working on a large order. My mom came to my rescue yesterday and helped me roll out 600 sugar cookies. And yes, I know what a great mom I have. I kept saying every twenty minutes, “Aren’t you over this?” (I was) and I cursed at the poor starfish cookies too many times to count. My mom said she wasn’t over it. Even five hours into it, she claimed she was “having fun”. Oh, how I love that woman! Now all 900 cookies have been baked and I’m onto the decorating phase. See that cute little monkey smiling, that’s going to be me on Friday, except I’ll also have a cocktail in hand to toast to the end of the sugar cookie madness, and an end to all starfish! 

These monkey cookies were made for Jen at Swank Web Design. She redesigned my site a few months back. If you’re looking for a website designer, she is amazing and super easy to work with. Jen was throwing her son his first birthday party with a jungle theme. Don’t you love first birthday parties? When my son turned one, my mom and I scooted the boy in his highchair outside to hose them both down after he dug into his cake. 

Jen decided on monkey and personalized banana cookies for party favors. She’s with me on my “say no to junk” party favor policy. Oh, how I hate all of the crap that my son brings home from parties. In his defense, he absolutely loves it. Jen said that her little boy, Van, enjoyed the cookies, and since he’s too young to know about all of the plasic party loot he missed out on, I think these were a success.  

Here’s a quick step-by-step on how I made these, plus a few tips on decorating sugar cookies: 

The monkey face and banana cookie cutters came from coppergifts.com.  Copper cookie cutters are more expensive… a lot more expensive, but are so much easier to work with. They make clean cuts when cutting the cookie dough and are easier to handle. Most of my cookie cutters are the cheapie kind, but I will say there is a world of difference in quality. 

As for the monkeys, I started by outlining the face with Americolor gel in dark brown. When outlining sugar cookies, I usually use Wilton’s tip #2 and squeeze bottles. The royal icing should be the consistency of maple syrup for outlining. It should flow easily out of the squeeze bottle, but not spread when piping.

After outlining the monkey faces, I flooded the ears and top of the head with the dark brown icing. The royal icing for flooding the cookie needs to a much thinner consistency than outlining. It should move a bit when you squeeze it onto the cookie. A toothpick works great to spread the flood icing evenly. The rest of the cookie was flooded with Americolor soft brown. After each area of the cookie is flooded, it is important to look for air bubbles that have formed. Use a toothpick to gently pop the air bubbles before the icing sets. Don’t be obsessive compulsive, just get the ones that you can and move on.

After the flooded cookie dries (at least a few hours or overnight), add any details on top. For the monkeys, I went back and added the eyes, nose, and mouth using Americolor Super Red and Super Black.

I was thrilled with how the bananas turned out. My biggest challenge is always piping letters. I’m a lefty and have never had great handwriting (that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it).  Practice may not make perfect, but it definitely helps. The Wilton tip#1 is what I use for piping letters and numbers. The hole is very tiny and can easily get clogged with royal icing, but toothpicks work wonders for that.

I added sanding sugar on the outside of the bananas for two reasons. First it added a little sparkly touch (it needed something), and second because one of my girlfriends, who recently helped me reorganize my kitchen, called me a “sprinkle hoarder”. That’s why I love my girlfriends. They aren’t afraid to say it like it is. Anyway, I’ve been banned from buying any type of sprinkles until I use up some of my stash.

To add sanding sugar to cookies, mix a small amount of meringue powder with water. Use a small paintbrush to brush the mixture where you want to add the sugar. Sprinkle sugar onto the cookie and shake off the excess. After it dries, a dry paintbrush works great to brush off any remaining loose sugar on the cookie.

These little guys were bagged up and sent on their way. I’m on my way to decorate another hundred sugar cookies. I promise to refrain from cursing at the starfish!