Saturday, December 18, 2010

Frosting and Fellowship

Years ago, my friend Angie and I decided to plan regular craft nights for our friends.  We'd set the date, gather some snack foods and invite our friends to join us for "Glue & Gab," a dedicated time to work on projects in the company of other like-minded people.  Fun, right?  Well, for whatever reason, Angie and I were the only regular attendees and ultimately it became just me going to her house or her coming here.  We faithfully still refer to our crafting as "Glue & Gab" and I was so happy when she called to invite me to her next brainchild, "Frosting and Fellowship."  Ha!

So this week I headed over to her house to experiment with Royal White icing. In all my years of baking, somehow I had never tried it!  I knew all kinds of tips and techniques from my years of watching Martha, but I had never put my knowledge in to practice.  So with all the time in the world, we gave it a try. 

A friend had shown Angie a technique for decorating cookies with Royal White icing that involves piping an edge around the perimeter of each cookie and then "painting" in the open area with thinned icing and a paint brush (as opposed to flooding with a pastry bag).  It worked like a charm and our cookies are gorgeous!  What I like about this icing is the smooth finish and "stackability" - the icing hardens and it won't get dented or ruined on a cookie tray or in transit to a party.  

Long live "Frosting & Fellowship!"

2 comments:

Elaine said...

I pipe the thicker icing around the edges of my cookies, but I didn't know about the paint brush method - I usually flood it with thinner icing in a squeeze bottle. I like the idea of the paint brush because I would think you have more control over it and by the looks of the cookies I can see it was a great success. I love the idea of your Glue & Gab get togethers. How fun!

Anne Reeves said...

I am going to try using the RW icing for some"gingerbread house" cookies too. To outline the windows and such.