variations on a theme

I have a special surprise for you all today! But we'll get to that later.  Let me first say that I came to cookie decorating from the cake side of things. So my love and loyalty do not lie with glacé and royal icing. (Heresy...I know.) Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against royal icing. Its never said a bad thing about me, and I plan to reciprocate that.

Its just that there are so many options, and so many ways to make the SAME cookie design. Even for you strictly royal users, you can choose wet-on-wet or wet-on-dry or....umm...are their more options? (I'll get back to you on that. I'm still working on the details of cookie decorating.)

(royal icing on the left...fondant on the right)

So, today I tried two different mediums for the same design. I discovered -- big breath for dramatic effect -- actually, I discovered nothing. I like both cookies. The squiggly legs on the fondant octopus are much cuter than the royal legs. But the polka dots on the royal cookie are so much more, well, round. This is all well and good -- but on to the surprise! I have a THIRD variation of the design. (What could it be? What could it be?)

I got to decorate cookies with my very own little boy today. He's 3. I couldn't be more proud. On a completely unrelated topic, I have a disclaimer: the royal cookies in today's post are NOT for human consumption. Okay, I was lying about it being unrelated. I mean, I decorated cookies with my 3 year old. I am amazed that he got that much icing on his cookie with how much went into his little mouth. (This cookie is even more impressive when you take that into consideration, isn't it?) The best part about decorating with him? At the end...the white icing was missing. Not just in the wrong place. We're talking, full on, not-in-the-kitchen missing. I'm too worried to go looking for it.