Football Helmet Men Cookies ... Royal Icing (SeaHawks Men)

I did some football helmet men cookies a few years back using just dyed icing. They were fun and worked for Cole's football theme mates. Every year our church ask for us to make (or buy) cookies and take to another church. I figured this time I would show off my new royal icing skills and try to make these cookies in the past but in a cleaner version.

Here are the football helmet men cookies made. Since SeaHawk season is upon us I did their colors (you can make these in the color of whatever theme you like):

Before & After's

 

 

What you Need:

Sugar Cookies cut into Lobsters (see my fav sugar cookie recipe below)

Royal Icing in Green, Blue and white (recipe below)

AmeriColor Gel Food Coloring Green and Blue (to dye Icing - Color for your favorite team)
Black Food Marker
Licorice Strips 

I rolled out the cookies dough out and cut out circles. In half of the circles I cut out a rectangle at the bottom to make the face part of the mask.

Tint your Royal Icing to the perfect shade of green and blue, I then left 1/3 of it white. I use the dipping method with my royal icing. I started to do this about 6 months ago to speed up my decorating time. You can pipe each cookie which is a little cleaner but I find the dipping method to be the best. You get your royal icing to the outline consistency and put into a pie dish (I find this is not too deep). Once you dip the top of the cookie you tap off the extra icing and then you let dry! I first did the football helmets in the two colors, before they dried I added the licorice strips as the face mask guard spot. While those dried I dipped the circles in white (this will be the face) before the white dried I added the face mask cookie on top. These are double-decker cookies making them 3d which is so cool (look below a pic to see how we do this).

Once dry you can add the eyes. I like to do my cookies the night before to give plenty of time for the icing to harden. Once dry I took a black food marker and added the eyes.

Cookies being delivered to a neighbor church

 Cookies made for teachers and my dance instructors

Click HERE to see who I link with

 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.