Make a Cookie Bouquet
A cookie bouquet makes a thoughtful and edible gift for any occasion. You can also use a cookie bouquet as an edible centerpiece at a party. Simply design your bouquet around the theme of the holiday, occasion or party for a presentation that guests will love.
Contents
Ingredients
Servings: Varies depending on the size and shape of your cookie cutters
Cookies
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups caster sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 4 tbsp. milk, room temperature
- 2 tbsp. vanilla extract
- 4 cups flour
- 4 tsp. baking powder
Decorative Glaze
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 tbsp. corn syrup
- 3 drops vanilla or almond extract
Steps
Design the Bouquet
Take the time to design your bouquet in advance and to purchase all of the materials that you will need.
- Choose a theme. If you want a literal “bouquet” of flowers, for example, then you will need to purchase flower-shaped cookie cutters. You will also need to purchase appropriate colors of food coloring for your cookie designs.
- Choose a container. You can choose, for instance, a coffee mug, a small basket, a small bucket or a small plant pot. In addition to the container, you will need to purchase florist foam. You’ll insert your favors and cookie sticks into the foam to hold them into place.
- Decide how you want to decorate your container. If you want to paint it, or if you want to purchase items to glue onto the container, then you will need to purchase those items in advance from a craft store or discount store. Alternatively, you can choose to leave the container “as-is.”
- Choose the appropriate cookie cutters. Choose a larger size as opposed to a smaller size because this will work better in the bouquet. Alternatively, you can choose a variety of sizes to create additional detail.
- Draw out your cookie decoration on a piece of paper. This will give you a point of reference to use while you decorate your cookies with glaze.
- Choose additional decorations to add to your bouquet. For instance, you may want to place Easter grass or confetti at the base of the bouquet or insert additional favors into the bouquet.
Prepare the Cookie Dough
This dough is a basic sugar cookie dough. Be sure not to skip the step of chilling the dough. You need a stiffer dough to ensure that your cookie cutouts hold their shapes.
- Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and mix the ingredients on medium speed until they are light and fluffy, which should take about 2 minutes. You can use either a handheld mixer or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
- Add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing for 30 seconds after each addition.
- Add the milk and vanilla extract and mix until the ingredients are thoroughly combined.
- Whisk together the flour and baking powder in a separate mixing bowl.
- Add 1 cup of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
- Turn your mixer down to low speed and mix the dry ingredients in until they are just incorporated. Continue adding the dry ingredients, 1 cup at a time, until they are all incorporated into the mixture.
- Dump the dough out onto a floured work surface. You can sprinkle some flour on a cutting board, a piece of wax paper or a clean countertop.
- Flatten the dough and shape it into a disc using clean hands.
- Wrap the disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour.
Cut Out the Cookie Shapes
Cookie cutouts for a bouquet will need to be thicker than usual so that you can insert the wooden skewers or lollipop sticks without breaking the cookies. Using some clean paint stirrers from a paint store will help you to achieve the perfect thickness for your cookies.
- Sprinkle some flour on your work surface, wax paper or cutting board.
- Unwrap your dough and place it on the floured work surface.
- Stack two paint stirrers on either side of the dough. These will guarantee that your dough has the right thickness.
- Place your rolling pin on top of the dough and roll it out. When your rolling pin pushes the dough down enough so that the pin is directly on top of the paint stirrers, you will know that your dough is 1/2” thick.
- Spread some additional flour onto a shallow plate.
- Dip your chosen cookie cutter into the flour. This will keep it from adhering to the dough as you cut out your cookies.
- Press the cutter into the dough, starting at the top right corner of your dough. Cut out as many shapes as you can from the dough, dipping the cutter in flour as needed to prevent sticking.
- Remove the scrap dough from the cookies and roll it out a second time until it is 1/2" thick. You can always use the paint stirrers as a guide.
- Cut out additional shapes from the scrap dough.
- Reserve any remaining scrap dough because you may need it to patch up mistakes later.
Bake the Cookies
You can use either lollipop sticks purchased from either a craft store or kitchen store, or you can use wooden skewers. If you choose the wooden skewers, then soak them in water for 30 minutes before you insert them into the cookies. This will keep them from drying out and becoming brittle in the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray and then line it with parchment paper. The spray will help the parchment paper to adhere to the baking sheet because the paper tends to curl up during longer baking times.
- Insert your lollipop sticks or wooden skewers into the base of your cookies. Try to keep the sticks parallel to the work surface so that they don’t poke through the back of the cookie.
- Patch up any places where your sticks protrude through the back of the cookie. With your reserved dough, make small patches. You may need to lightly moisten your dough with water so that the patches will stick. Gently press the edges of the patch down so that it blends with the surface of the cookie.
- Place the entire cookie stick onto the baking sheet.
- Create an alternating pattern with the remaining sticks. For instance, the top cookie should be in the right hand corner of the baking sheet with the stick pointing to the left. Place the next cookie on the left side of the baking sheet, parallel to the first cookie, with the stick pointing right.
- Continue laying out cookies onto your baking sheet in the alternating pattern. Leave about 1” (2.5 centimeters) of space between each cookie stick.
- Bake the cookie sticks for 15 to 20 minutes. Watch them carefully throughout the process; the thicker cookies make the baking time a little trickier. You should remove them from the oven when the edges of the cookies begin to darken.
- Allow the baked cookies to rest on the stovetop for 2 minutes.
- Loosen the cookies from the baking sheet with a spatula. Transfer the cookie sticks to wire racks to cool. You will be able to fit more cookies onto the rack if you lay them out in the same alternating pattern that you used on the baking sheet.
Add the Glaze
Making the glaze and dyeing different portions of it with food coloring will provide you with the decorative materials for your cookies and will also give the bouquet a shiny finish, thanks to the corn syrup. You can decorate your cookies while they are on the wire racks or move them to a clean work surface.
- Combine the confectioner’s sugar, milk, corn syrup and almond extract in a mixing bowl using a whisk.
- Divide the glaze into separate bowls according to the proportions you will need for each color that you want to create.
- Mix in food coloring using a whisk. Add just a small amount of food coloring to each bowl. If you want a deeper shade of color, then continue adding food coloring a few drops at a time. Stir the glaze, check the color, and add more food coloring if needed.
- Check the consistency of the glaze in each bowl. You want the glaze to have the consistency of cold honey so that it is easy to spread over the surface of the cookies. If any of the glazes are too thick, then add a teaspoon of milk and whisk it into the glaze.
- Pour the glaze that will serve as your background color into a pastry bag fitted with a plain 3/4” tip. Pipe some glaze around the edge of the cookie, leaving a small border between your glaze line and the edge of the cookie. This step creates a border for your background color. In a sense, this is like tracing a picture before coloring it with crayons. The border will ensure that the rest of your glaze doesn’t go “outside the lines.”
- Fill in the design with glaze from the pastry bag. If you need to spread it out a bit, then use a butter knife or a cheese spreader but be careful not to spread it beyond the piped border that you created earlier.
- Allow the background glaze to dry and set before you add additional details.
- For each detail that you want to add to your design, fill a pastry bag with the appropriate glaze and use the appropriate tip.
- For straight lines, circles or other solid shapes, continue to use the plain tip.
- To make stars, attach a star tip to the pastry bag. The tip should have a slightly smaller opening than your plain 3/4" tip. Place the tip perpendicular to the surface of the cookie. Squeeze the bag from the top, releasing some glaze, and then pull the bag upward to create the star.
- To create a fluted ribbon or border, use the star tip. Hold the pastry bag at a 45-degree angle to the surface of the cookie. Steadily release the filling as you pull the bag along the surface of the cookie to create the fluted design.
- Allow the glaze to dry completely before assembling your bouquet.
Assemble the Bouquet
Create your cookie bouquet according to the design that you mapped out earlier. Be careful not to damage the cookies as you place them into the florist’s foam and as you surround them with other decorations.
- Place florist’s foam into your container.
- Cover the foam with Easter grass, shredded paper, straw, cotton or other filler.
- Insert the back row of decorations or cookies by pushing the sticks into the florist’s foam. This row will be the tallest row.
- Insert a middle row of cookies and decorations. Push the sticks down into the foam so that the decorations and cookies are slightly lower than the back row.
- Create the front row of decorations, pushing them into the foam so that the front row is the lowest row in height.
- Attach a card for the recipient. Either attach the card to the container or attach the card to the stick and insert the stick into the florist’s foam.
- Cover the bouquet with cellophane, leaving plenty of room around the top of the bouquet so that the cellophane does not touch the cookies or decorations.
- Gather the edge of the cellophane around the top of the container.
- Tie a decorative ribbon to hold the cellophane in place.
- Finished.
Tips
- If you don’t want to frost your cookies, you can dip them in various kinds of melted chocolate.
- Pastry bags and tips are good investments that make cookie decorating easier. However, if you want to create simple, solid designs without purchasing a pastry kit, then cut a diagonal hole in the bottom corner of a plastic resealable bag. Fill the bag with glaze and squeeze the glaze to push it out of the bag and onto the surface of the cookie.
- If you are in a rush, then purchase prepared white buttercream frosting from the supermarket, divide it into portions, and stir in food coloring with a whisk. Use the buttercream to decorate your cookies.
- If you don’t want to take the time to make a full bouquet, then you can simply decorate your cookie sticks and allow them to dry. Then, wrap each individual cookie in cellophane and tie a ribbon around the stick at the base of the cookie to create thoughtful gifts that require a little less time and effort.
Warnings
- Avoid placing the cookies on a baking sheet that has only been sprayed with nonstick spray or greased with butter. Parchment paper helps to prevent the cookies from spreading so that they maintain their intended shape.
Things You'll Need
- Container for the bouquet
- Florist’s foam
- Easter grass, paper shreds or other filler for the bouquet base
- Lollipop sticks or thick wooden skewers
- Decorative additions for the bouquet
- Paper to sketch the bouquet
- 2 mixing bowls
- Stand mixer with a paddle attachment or a handheld mixer
- Whisk
- Flour for work surface and cookie cutters
- Cutting board or wax paper (optional)
- Plastic wrap
- Paint stirrers
- Rolling pin
- Cookie cutters
- Plate
- Baking sheet
- Nonstick cooking spray
- Parchment paper
- Spatula
- Wire racks
- Bowls for different colors of glaze
- Food coloring
- Pastry bags
- Pastry tips
- Card for recipient
- Cellophane
- Decorative ribbon
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