We celebrated my big brother's birthday this weekend, and, in true I Bake fashion, that meant making some of my favorite sugar cookies. Every time I make cookies, I look for new ways to decorate and this time, I went for gridlines and, for the first time ever, venture into the land of fondant.
Fondant virgin
We started by heading to the craft store and piling up on pre-made fondant, tools, and, Ingrid's favorite, disco dust.
For a first-timer, I may have gone a little overboard on fondant tools
Once we got home, we started baking, using our favorite sugar cookie recipe. Let me just tell you -- baking with an enthusiastic 4-year-old is incredibly fun, but also remarkably slow. What is normally a 20 minute process probably took double that, but hey, she had fun!
My (adorable!) assistant. Notice the apron...
While the cookies were baking, I set Ingrid up with the "edible Play-doh". She has a hard time rolling dough, so having an Ingrid-sized rolling pin and small amounts of fondant made her night.
Mesmerized with the "stitching" roller
We spent hours experimenting with shapes, colors, and stamps; we loved how easy it was to work with fondant. It's so forgiving -- if you don't like the way a piece turns out, you just re-roll it and try again, which is important to a Type-A personality like myself. The flower shapers were especially fun, but you definitely need more than one set if you want to do more than a few at a time. I really should have taken more pictures of the fondant process, but I was so engrossed that it slipped my mind. Next time!
Here are a few of the final products: