Ingredients:
Shortbread Cookie Ingredients:
- ¾ cup butter
- 1¼ – 1½ cup flour, plus a pinch for rolling and sprinkling
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 inch egg-shaped cookie cutter
Royal Icing Ingredients:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoons meringue powder
- 3 tablespoons water (more if icing isn’t flowing)
- 1 tablespoon Wilton Color Flow (optional)
Other Ingredients:
- thin kabob sticks
- wire cutters
- Spring or Easter paper shreds
- floral foam
- 6 inch flower pot or other container
- marbles or stones (for weight in the bottom of the bouquet container)
- rolling pin
- piece of parchment paper to line cookie sheet
- edible glitter (optional)
- 2 pastry bags
- pink food coloring
- blue food coloring
- turquoise food coloring
- 1 small roll ¼ inch pink ribbon
- 1 small roll ¼ inch blue ribbon
Instructions:
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 325F.
Step 2: Make the shortbread cookie dough by creaming the butter, vanilla and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until smooth. Add the flour slowly until the dough forms into a crumbly ball that holds together when you knead it.
Step 3: Roll the dough out with a rolling pin on a floured board until it’s about 1/3 to ¼ inch thick. Cut out your cookies with the egg cookie cutter. To make even more eggs, collect the scraps into a ball roll them out again. You should be able to make about 9 egg cookies if your cookie cutter is 3 inches (depending on the thickness of the cookies).
Step 4: Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet lined with parchment paper and insert a kabob stick into the bottom of each cookie, so that part of the stick is couched in the cookie and part is sticking out the wider base of the egg like the end of a lollipop. (The parchment paper will make the cookies easier to get out of the pan when they’re finished baking.)
Step 5: Bake the cookies at 325F for about 15 to 20 minutes until the tops of the cookies just start to turn a light golden brown.
Step 6: When they’re done baking, let the cookies cool on the pan, until they’re almost at room temperature. Carefully remove the cookies from the parchment paper, and let them finish cooling on a cooling rack. If you try to remove the cookies from the cookie sheet too quickly, they may fall apart, so give them ample time to cool in the pan.
Step 7: While the cookies are cooling, prepare a clean flower pot for the cookie bouquet. To do this, add marbles or decorative stones to the bottom of the container to help weigh it down and make it stable, otherwise the container may get top heavy when you add the cookies.
Step 8: Cut a piece of floral foam to fit tightly into the container.
Step 9: Once the floral foam is cut to size and fits snug in the container, top it with fun spring or Easter color paper shreds to hide it. Set the flower pot aside until you’re ready for the bouquet’s final assembly.
Step 10: Mix up the royal icing by combining the powdered sugar, water, meringue powder, and color flow (optional). Mix at low speed until combined. The icing is the right consistency when it flows back into place as you drizzle it. You may need to add more water a few drops at a time to achieve the right consistency.
Step 11: Color 1/3 of the of the icing turquoise by adding a few drops of pink food coloring and mixing until it is the desired shade. Repeat the process to color 1/3 of the icing blue in a separate bowl, and 1/3 pink in a separate bowl.
Step 12: Put the turquoise icing into a pastry bag and attach a round decorator tip. Pipe a turquoise outline around the outside edge of each egg cookie.
Step 13: Fill in the rest of the cookie with the turquoise icing. Slowly pipe icing around and around until you get to the center of the cookie and it’s all filled in with turquoise icing. The icing should flow into place and cover the cookie, if it doesn’t you’ll need to add a little more water to the icing.
Step 14: Repeat the process to ice about 3 of the cookies with the turquoise icing.
Step 15: Repeat the entire process to color 3 of the egg cookies with pink icing, and 3 cookies with blue icing.
Step 16: Set the cookies aside to dry for about an hour.
Step 17: Decorate the eggs with the pastry bag and a coordinating color. Add polka dots, squiggly lines or let your kids get creative with their decorations. You can also add edible glitter or colored sprinkles to the eggs to give them some extra glitz.
Step 18: Add a bow to the base of each cookie by tying a ribbon around the stick, and making a bow. Add blue bows to about half the cookies, and pink bows to the other half.
Step 19: Once the icing is dry, arrange your decorated egg cookies in the container, poking the sticks through the foam. Use wire cutters to cut off some of the kabob sticks so the cookies are different lengths in the bouquet. Enjoy!
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