The Oscars are coming in March and it’s going to be exciting this year. So who’s your pick for best picture? Me? I don’t know yet. I’ve got to catch up on some of these and quick so I can decide. Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air. Tough choices.
While I am indecisive, how about a little Cookie Award how-to?
[2]
The cookies are pretty easy to make and stand up as statues. (Recipe below.) You just need to set aside some time before the big night. You can make the cookies one day and decorate them on another to spread out the work.
Roll sugar cookie dough between two pieces of parchment paper and you won’t need to flour your surface.
Cut out one award and one circle shape for each standing cookie. Use a sharp edge to cut a section out of the middle of each round cookie. It should be slightly wider than the bottom of your statue cutter so that when the cookie bakes and spreads a little, there will be a pretty snug fit.
Bake the cookies in batches for about 10 minutes each.
If the slots on the round cookies start to narrow, go ahead and recut the straight edge while the cookies are still warm. Then you can remove the scraps easily without hurting the cookies.
You should have enough dough to make 15 large cookie award statues with bases.
When you have all your pieces, place each statue into a cookie base and score the bottom with a toothpick.
This is so you have a guide and so you don’t accidentally pipe your royal icing down too far.
After you make and tint the royal icing, pipe the outlines of the cookie statues.
Then add a little water to the remaining icing to create the “flooding” consistency.
Fill in each of the outlines. You can sprinkle them with gold sanding sugar as seen above or …
… let the icing dry completely for several hours and paint them to look metallic.
You can use a product called luster dust. It’s a powder that you can add a tiny bit of extract to and mix it together and then simply paint on the surface of the royal icing.
You can also paint directly on the cookie bases with the luster dust to give the actual cookies a metallic look.
Once the statues are dry, make some more royal icing and tint it black. Pipe outlines around all the circle bases. Pipe some of the royal icing on the bottom of each cookie statue and place in the slot. Let the cookies stand up straight to dry. The royal icing will act as a glue. If the cookie needs help to balance, you can prop it up with a toothpick. When stable, add a little water to the black royal icing and flood the inside with color. Let dry completely before moving.
For presentation, you can print out these small signs [13] on heavyweight card stock paper. Place in front of each cookie for extra pizazz.
Red carpet ready.
Here they are all glittered up with gold sanding sugar.
And here’s what the cookies look like painted with gold luster dust. Pretty.
Feel free to use your own favorite sugar cookie recipe if you like and use the decorating and assembly instructions below or use this sugar cookie recipe.
Awards Night Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Awards Night Sugar Cookies
Royal Icing for Statues
Royal Icing for Circles
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
When you remove from the oven, you may need to recut the slots on the cookie bases after baking to maintain straight edges. Do this while the cookies are still warm.
UPDATE: The statue cutter is no longer available, but you can make the project using this Mummy Cutter [19]. It’s slightly smaller and the base is a bit different, but the concept will still work.
This movie award recipe sponsored by Hyundai and over the next few weeks, you’ll find more recipes here [20]… Should be fun.
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319850530/
[2] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319848778/
[3] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319848840/
[4] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319115797/
[5] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319849038/
[6] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319115997/
[7] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319849226/
[8] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319116195/
[9] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319849390/
[10] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319849482/
[11] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319116465/
[12] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319116563/
[13] print out these small signs: http://www.bakelove.com/movie-award-tags.pdf
[14] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319117519/
[15] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319116667/
[16] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319849862/
[17] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bakerella/4319850148/
[18] coppergifts.com: http://www.coppergifts.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=0&idproduct=471
[19] Mummy Cutter: http://www.coppergifts.com/cookie-cutters/pc/Mummy-Cookie-Cutter-127p5452.htm
[20] recipes here: http://www.bakerella.com/movie-award-season-recipes/