I feel like I live my cookie life on an elusive hunt for texture. When everyone else is chatting away about getting the smoothest, shiniest surface possible...I'm over here poking holes in mine with a scriber. I've seen this icing comb and other similar variations used on cakes for years. But when I saw the ATECO ICING COMB again a few weeks ago...I realized I just wasn't seeing it's true potential. So...you know... I bought one or seven of them.
And I tried it out with some cookies in my nautical baby set. And now I have a lot to say about it. (Surprise!) (Not really.) Are you ready?
The comb is designed to be used with gobs of frosting. As in...you put gobs of frosting on a cake and take part of it off with the comb...creating texture literally in it's wake. I'm not really into gobs of royal icing on a cookie, so I used it more like I do when scraping icing across a stencil. I used a knife to put a thick consistency icing on the edge of the comb and then dragged it across the surface of the cookie at an angle.
I immediately noticed two things. ONE -- it made a bit of a mess around the edges of the cookie. And TWO -- You have to actually *think* about what you're doing or your lines get all wonky. The good news though, is that you can re-comb the icing again to fix your mistakes. It literally takes 2 seconds to spread the icing across the cookie, so you can totally justify doing it again if you need to. And you can use a knife or a boo-boo tool to scrape the excess icing off the edges of the cookie.
Also, the amount of pressure you use on the comb matters. If you press too hard, you'll get cleaner lines, but you'll be able to see the cookie underneath the icing. At least, *I* could because I make chocolate cookies. You might be okay if you only make vanilla cookies. So I flooded some cookies white, let them dry, and tried again. I like the way that looked MUCH better. And it seemed to make less of a mess because I wasn't worried about the icing touching every micro-space along the edge of the cookie. I could pipe a border over that and it would clean right up.
This particular icing comb has 3 different edges. It will create a bead-board look, stripes, and a slatted board look. Surprisingly, the slatted board look is my favorite of the three. I thought the stripes might be super fun if you flooded the cookie in one color and added stripes in another color.
But...it didn't work out so well. Too bad though, right? American flags would be the easiest cookies EVER if I could figure that out.
It takes a little bit of playing to really master the art of the icing comb. I recommend swiping it across your counter or other clean, smooth surface so you can re-use the icing and don't make a mess of your cookie until you've got it under control.
You could get the look of similar background texture by piping lines of icing next to each other, but I'm pretty sure I'll never do that. Because I'm lazy. But also because I just can't imagine that I would ever be able to pipe that many parallel lines and have them end up actually straight.
BOTTOM LINE: It's $2. I'll probably buy a bunch more of these to give as gifts to friends or students. It's definitely not a necessary cookie decorating item. But it's super fun to play with if you like texture. (And I do!) I'll definitely be using it again in the near future.
Now....who wants to try one out? I've got another one of these that needs to go to a good home. Just click that Easy Entry button below before midnight on Friday, April 22, 2016 for your chance to win.
a Rafflecopter giveaway Can't wait to see if you've won? I got my Icing Comb HERE. (And if you use that link it will save you 20%)
Have YOU ever used an icing comb on cookies? I'd love to hear about it and see your pictures!
