This month’s project features a dimensional cookie platter comprised of two contoured flowers with detailed petals, centers, and leaves. The tutorial explores the popular comic-style trend in cookie decorating, offering a step-by-step guide to achieving this unique look. While the contouring technique is considered intermediate, the comic book style design is achievable for all skill levels.
You will need cookie dough, nested teardrop and round cookie cutters, a silicone hemisphere mold, perforated baking mats, stainless steel cake rings, a baguette pan (optional), aluminum foil, royal icing in various colors and consistencies, a scribe tool, and a long serving platter.
Seventeen contoured cookies are required: 15 teardrop-shaped cookies in three sizes (five extra-large, five large, and five medium) and two round cookies (one 1 9/16-inch and one 1-inch). The teardrop cookies will form the petals and leaves, while the round cookies will serve as the flower centers.
Contouring is achieved using two methods. Round cookies are baked on a silicone hemisphere mold. Teardrop cookies are baked on a rolled perforated baking mat, secured with a stainless steel ring and placed in a baguette pan or propped with aluminum foil.
Before decorating, assemble the un-iced cookies to visualize the final arrangement. This provides a clear picture of how the contoured pieces fit together and allows for adjustments.
Outlining the cookies begins with creating a piping guide. With the cookies assembled, pipe three dots on each petal to mark the area covered by the center cookie. These dots serve as a guide for outlining. Then, outline each petal, center, and leaf with white piping-consistency royal icing. For the leaves, outline them upside down for an upward curve in the final design.
Flooding the petals requires medium thick-consistency royal icing. Place each petal on a rolled mat, ensuring the area to be flooded is level. Flood the larger petals with hot pink, leaving space for a lighter pink shade. Flood the smaller petals with pink, leaving space for hot pink. Immediately dry the iced petals with a heat fan or dehydrator to prevent draining.
Flood the flower centers with yellow icing and add wet-on-wet dots of darker yellow. Flood the leaves with green icing. Dry all flooded pieces immediately.
For the comic-style effect, use dark grey piping-consistency icing. Instead of smooth outlines, drag the piping tip across the dried icing, creating rough, broken lines. This detailing gives the cookies a hand-drawn cartoon appearance.
Finally, assemble the cookies on a platter. Arrange the petals in circles, points inward, for each flower. Distribute the leaves around the flowers. Add the center cookies. The finished platter is a dimensional, comic-style floral centerpiece.
