Woodgrain Cookies With Royal Icing

This year, much to my dismay, I was pretty short on Father's Day ideas {sorry Dad}.  It seems like everything I came up with had been done, and done, and done.  So, I compromised a little, and just started thinking along the lines of "manly" rather than trying to do theme cookies. 

I settled on wood.  There is something manly and rugged about a plank of wood.

This is one way of getting the wood grain effect with royal icing.  For the record, I also REALLY like THIS METHOD from my friend Renee of Kudos Kitchen, and I am planning on buying a fan brush just for that reason TODAY.  But until then, this is how I make wood grain cookies with royal icing.

For this project, you will need:

• darker brown and lighter brown flood icing
• very dark brown piping icing for outlining, and  #1.5 {or #1} and #3 tips.
• toothpicks
• Flood icing in your choice of colors {for the "DAD" part}

If I had thought this though a little better, I would have made a bigger contrast between the two browns I chose, but since I didn't {can y'all BELIEVE I am not perfect} PRETEND I did =)

First, BTW, I am making this snappy because I have some shopping and Red Lobster eating to do today, outline the cookie with the dark icing and a #3 tip.  Go rugged, like a real piece of old wood you might find lying around.

Next, flood MOST of the cookie with the brown color you want to be most prominent.

Immediately afterward, add the secondary color to the open spaces.

Then, use a toothpick to swirl it all around.

Then, use the dark piping icing to come back and add "wood grain" to the still wet icing, so that it sinks into the base a little.

At this point, let them dry.

Now I will teach you a quick, cool way to nicely pipe a shape onto a cookie without one of those fancy projector thingies. For more on that, by the way, click HERE.

All you need is a food color marker in any color.

I use the marker to map out what I plan to write on the cookie.

Then, I use the dark brown piping icing and #1.5 tip to pipe around my guide letters, and after they are dry, fill them with colored icing.

I hope that makes sense, I'm telling you, I rushed a bit...

The flood icing covers any eveidence you cheated.  Don't we wish it was ALWAYS that easy?

Let them dry completely...

and you will have these. 

You can use this little trick to put about anything you like on a cookie. If your daddy is into DIY, do tools. Sports, balls and such. Hunting or fishing, bobbers and bullets. There are TONS and TONS of options.

They can work well with many other themes including western, kids parties and more.

I used this technique for one of my favorite western platters for a close friend of mine.  As you can see there's a lot more contrast here.

I hope you have fun trying this out.

A few other things, while I'm here.  I havent't posted the winner of the LorAnn giveaway yet, but she has been notified, and I have heard back from her, so if you didn't get an email, it's bad news this time. =(  BUT, I still plan on posting what cutters I used for the cookies, so stay tuned for that.

Also, my big blog switch is coming SOON, so be sure to follow via email if I havent scared you off already so you don't miss anything...

I have a lot coming up for the switch-over and Independence Day, so stick around.  It's going to be FUN!

Now, off to shop and eat and have a little fun.  If you aren't doing the same, I hope you are at least decorating cookies!

Happy Friday!