Blog With Friends: Flour Flowers

Today’s post is the next in our series of Blog With Friends theme collaborations. Each month a group of bloggers get together and each publish a project based on a theme. What I love about this partnership is that it’s not bloggers with similar interests or strengths, but a diverse group coming up with a variety of posts. In any given month we may have recipes, sewing tutorials, crocheting, crafts projects, book reviews and/or a technology post all related to the theme of the month.

There will be individual project pictures and links to what everyone else has to offer at the end of my post.

May's a pretty busy month, but three of us were able to put together theme projects. Here’s a peek at what we all came up with:

This month our theme is May Flowers. Here’s my project:

Spring Flower Cookies

What kind of flowers come to mind for me? Flour Flowers, of course. So for today’s post I set out to make a cookie that looks like a flower. Easy peasy, right? Maybe for you. Not so much for me.

Once I figured out the configuration I was going for, and how I’d make the shape, I had to decide whether to color the dough or to try to use icing to add the color. No question that icing would be the prettiest, but every previous attempt I’d made at decorating with icing turned out looking like it’d been done by a kindergartener.

So although I had a beautifully iced cookie in my head, and I knew I was going to try it, I also colored some of the dough just in case. Well, not really just in case, more like ‘cause I was pretty sure that for me practice does not always make perfect. Or anything close. So instead I went for covering all the bases. I’m smarter than I look.

So I made up a batch of dough and divided it in half. One half I wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated. The other half I divided into thirds, colored each third a different color, wrapped and refrigerated.

 Spring Flower Cookie Doughs

Once chilled, I rolled and cut the dough. I used my small heart shaped cookie cutter for the petals and a circle for the center. Once I had the shapes done, I added my craft stick, refrigerated again and then baked.

 Spring Flower Cookies going in the oven

While the cookies were cooling, I made the icing. And that’s where the crying began. So here’s the deal: my recipe is solid, it’s my artistic skills which are lacking so I’m providing the recipe. Don’t let my results deter you from trying it yourself. But if you’re anything like me, you may want to set some of your dough aside and color the dough like I did.

Whichever way you choose to make them, the flavor is the same. And these Spring Flower Cookies are delsih.

Be sure to visit this month’s other Blog With Friends Projects:

Stacy of Stacy Sews and Schools shares her tutorial for a May Flowers Table Runner.

Robin of Someone Else’s Genius shares her tutorial for Beaded Barefoot Sandals.

Looking for more of my work?
Please vote: the letter to my sons, The Whole Truth, is featured on the The TODAY show Parenting Site. To vote, all you have to do is click "vote" at the top of the page.

My recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Nacho Style is featured in Best Strawberry Shortcake Recipes on MSN: Food and Drink. 

And the voting is in for the Dedicated2Life's top 100 Passionate People of 2015 and I came in at #5!

Spring Flower Cookies

                                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Printable Recipe
 
NOTE: I used craft sticks for flower stems in this recipe, these are optional.
 
Ingredients, Cookie:                                                         
1 stick butter, softened                        
1 stick margarine, softened  
1 cup sugar                                                
1 egg                                                      
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp lemon extract                                              
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
OPT: food coloring of your choice
 
Baking candy pearls
 
Ingredients, Icing (if you’re not coloring the dough but icing the cookies):
3 cups powdered sugar
3 - 5 TBSP milk
3 TBSP corn syrup
1/2 tsp of lemon extract
½ tsp almond extract
food coloring of your choice
 
Directions, Cookie:
*Cream the butter, margarine and sugar.  Beat in egg and vanilla and lemon extract.  Mix in the flour and baking powder until it forms a dough.
*Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
NOTE: If you’re coloring your dough, divide into separate bowls and add food coloring before wrapping and refrigerating.
*When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cover baking sheet with parchment paper.
*Roll out the dough to a little over ¼ inch thickness and cut out using a small heart shaped cookie cutter and a small circular cookie cutter. You need 3 hearts per circle.
*Arrange 3 heart shapes, touching each other. Gently place a craft stick over the flower to about 1/4 of the way up the top petal. Press a circular dough piece into the center, making sure it covers the top of the craft stick. Press down gently with the heel of your hand.
*Place one candy pearl in the center of each circle of the cookies being made with the pre-colored dough.
*Refrigerate for 10 minutes.
*Bake for 12 minutes. Allow to cool for 2 minutes, then carefully remove the parchment paper from the cookie sheets and allow the cookies to cool completely.
 
Directions, Icing:
*Mix all icing ingredients using just 2 TBSP of the milk. Continue to add more milk, 1 tsp at a time, until your icing is of piping consistency. I used 4 TBSP.
*Separate the icing into bowls and add food colorings of your choice.
*Place about ¼ of each color into a piping bag with a #3 piping tip. Pipe outlines onto the flower petals and the center.
*Using more milk, thin the icings to cookie flooding consistency (I used about another 1/2 tsp of milk per half cup of icing) and place into either squeeze bottles or piping bags with a #5 tip. Fill in the pedals and the centers. Use a toothpick to even out the filling. Place a baking pearl in the center of each circle.
*Allow to set completely.
NOTE: When piping and filling, it works best to have each cookie on an individual piece of parchment paper so it can easily be turned while you work your way around the cookie.