Glaze, Icing Misunderstood

There are many mediums that can be used to decorate cookies...royal icing, fondant, "royalish icing", rolled  and regular buttercream, and one of the most misunderstood, glaze, also known as corn syrup icing.

It might be a little disloyal, but I don't believe that royal icing is the only way to decorate a cookie.  I think that each person needs to find a medium and make it their own.

Still, I hear a lot of people say, "I prefer the taste of glaze but it's not good for detailed cookies."

I have discussed this several times with my friend Pam, and have even tried glaze myself.

Now that I have, I am even more impressed with the ladies that use it.  It's not as easy as they make it appear, BUT it's not impossible to make detailed, gorgeous cookies using glaze.

Here are some cookies from my favorite ladies of glaze. {click on the photos to see more of their amazing work} 

Of course, there's Cookie Crazie Pam,

And Amanda, AKA, i am baker...

Dawn, who owns her own bakery in Berkley, Michigan,

And my friend Susan, who recently sent me some of her AMAZING cookies for a cookie swap {that's a whole other story =)}...



This said, I'm going to turn things over to Pam, to demonstrate EXACTLY how she creates super detailed cookies with this misunderstood medium.

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Sometimes I get  frustrated when people insist that glaze is inferior to royal icing and that not that much can be done with it. I wholeheartedly disagree! It's true......glaze has its limitations and quirks as does ANY icing, but if you're patient enough, you can do almost everything with glaze that you can with royal icing.

Today I chose to make a flower bouquet because it is one of those cookies that takes lots of time, patience, and details. It seemed like the perfect cookie for "showing off" glaze. :)

For the bouquet, I used the heart bouquet cutter from Ecrandal.  Since I wanted to use a simple string ribbon around the stems, I chose to cut off the bow once I cut the cookie.

Next, I outlined and flooded the entire cookie with dark green.

While the base was still wet, I took my lighter green and made various "leaves" and lines to add a busyness to the background that would be peeking through.

After this, I would let the cookie sit for 10 minutes or more before I added more details. Each one of the following photos shows my additions every few minutes. 

And now, the finished cookie. :)

If you prefer glaze, don't give up on it.  With a little patience and practice, you can create cookies just as gorgeous as any decorated with royal icing or any other medium. 

Thanks Callye, for letting me demonstrate a little bit of the complexity you can get from glaze. :)

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I hope this will encourage everyone, especially those who might not have had good luck with royal icing to try something else.

Have a wonderful weekend, and thank you Pam, for this tutorial =)