Craftsy Class Review: Designer Cookies

I have a confession to make. I love cookies. I like making them, sure! I love eating them, too. But most of all I like coming up with a design and decorating them. It can be done with fondant, run-in sugar, whatever!

And I almost never get to here at Pink Cake Box, so I jumped at the chance to have some real fun with this review. First off, this class has a nice range of information for both the experienced baker or the new hobbyist. You can follow her instructions directly or jump off the deep end with whatever you dream up (as I did).

Ms. Carpenter has suggestions for rolling and cutting cookies that eases the process and eliminates possible snafus. As someone who rarely gets to make cookies, I really appreciated that. She also encourages students to plan out their designs ahead. This is something I do as force of habit, so I’m thrilled to see it put forth.

Let’s start with the baking part. There were two recipes included in the class. A Sugar Cookie with a cream cheese base and a chocolate cookie. I had the kitchen assistants here at the shop make up a batch of each dough while I was on a day off. I sat down, planned out my cookie designs and made templates. While Ms. Carpenter instructs to use cooking spray to prevent the template sticking to the dough, I used Mike McCarey’s Poor Man’s Lamination over oaktag (see his custom car cake class).

I cut out my cookies and threw them in the freezer while I waited for the oven to heat. I don’t know if freezing the uncooked dough had anything to do with it, or if it is simply the dough recipe, but my cookies kept a perfect, clean line after baking with no spreading or puffing. I was shocked — the cookies must taste like particle board, right? Wrong! They were tender and delicious. When I make the dough again (and I will, I’m sure) I’ll add a higher quality vanilla just to fancy them up.

The first technique I tackled was run-in sugar. Because I love the look of it. Because I never get to use it. And it is fun! Ms. Carpenter has a range of ways to make the best use of this method, including different types of outlining and effects.

But watch out for using high contrast colors. I found I had a lot of bleeding when my cookies dried.

Still, the marbling is so cool and worth an hour or two of experimenting.

After that I moved on to fondanted cookies. We decorate cookies with fondant at work, and Ms. Carpenter even uses Satin Ice, our local brand.

Here I was on home territory and went right ahead doing what I usually do. Namely I stopped watching the class and started painting on cookies.

One thing I really found interesting was Ms. Carpenter’s use of icing sheets. We use them on cookies a lot, too. But she applies them directly to rolled out fondant and then cuts the shape before icing the cookie. Well, of course I had to give it a shot. While I suspect my icing sheets are different than hers, I did get decent results and want to try to do more in the future.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, though. She goes on to show other techniques, to explain display possibilities (cookie pops, anyone?), every possibility!

Go make some cookies!

Does Designer Cookies sound right for you? Purchase it here for 25% Off! Not ready to purchase? Then we recommend starting with one of Craftsy's free mini cake decorating classes!