Memorial Day Cookies ... Lady Bugs (using a heart shape)

We had our annual Memorial Day party at the lake. I love that each year we have some familiar faces and some new. This year I wanted to make some fun cookies, I went with the patriotic color themed. Yesterday I showed the Flag Star Cookies. Today are the patriotic lady bugs. I love taking a shape and turning it into something totally different. These were simple but so fun!

If you're in need or cookies for a party or just to eat, shoot me a msg at SweetPea Cookie Therapy. Thank you!

What you Need:

Heart Cookie Cutter
Royal Icing - Red, Blue, Black and white/uncolored (see recipe below) 

Pipping Bags


I started with a basic heart shape and turned it into lady bugs. I started with making the head with a black triangle. I then added the red or blue (depending on what color I wanted). Before the Red dried I took a piping bag of white and made the dots for the back of the ladybug. I then made the eyes and the antenna's. For the eyes I made a small white dot and added a smaller black dot in the middle. The antenna's was a fancy looking V. Let them dry and you have some cute cookies!

  
Here are both the cookies made:

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INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Julie Usher, she has a GREAT YouTube video on how to make, color and make consistency adjustments. 

Royal Icing what you need:

2 lbs Powdered Sugar

1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

5 Large Egg Whites (or equivalent) 

Flavor to Taste

Gel Icing Color

Mix powder sugar and cream of tartar in your mixer, just to make sure it is incorporated in. Slowly add egg whites, then whip start of slow then go to very high speed. She says around 2 minutes, my friend had an older mixer so it took almost 10 minutes. You want stiff peaks that hold on and won't fall off the spoon. Add in your flavor, I would suggest you use a clear flavoring.  This would be the glue texture great for ginger bread houses etc.

Take 1 cup of royal icing in a smaller bowl then add your coloring, lightly mix so you don't get air into the the icing. I'm like her and like the gel coloring. 

For Top Coating - Add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 tsp Water (This is if you don't want to outline and flood)

For Outlining - Add 1/2 to 3/4 tsp Water

For Flooding  - Add 2 to 3 tsp Water

WATCH her video on How to Top-Coat, Outline, and Flood Cookies. YES it is around 7 minutes BUT if you have never done this technique it's a MUST she explains it perfectly.