Teapot and Teacup Sugar Cookies

I love cookie cutters and hope to one day have quite a collection but until recently, all I had were circles, flowers and gingerbread man shapes. The other day I found myself in a situation where I was faced with a wall of cookie cutters! All shapes and sizes! There was so much to choose from but once I saw the teapot and teacup shaped cookie cutters, I knew they were coming home with me that day. 

I searched the internet for a good basic biscuit recipe and found a great one for sugar cookies from the Joy Of Baking. Follow the recipe outlined on the website to make the dough. There is also a very helpful step-by-step video. Once you've made your biscuits/cookies in whatever shape you like, it's time to decorate! There is another great video tutorial for making royal icing and decorating your sugar cookies at Joy Of Baking.

Firstly, I made a thick royal icing of piping consistency to pipe around the edges of each biscuit. I then took about 2 tablespoons of this mixture, dyed it with food colouring and set it aside. With the remainder of the the white royal icing mixture, I added about 2-3 tablespoons of cold water to make what is called flooding consistency. I used this to cover each biscuit. While the icing was still wet, I piped on my decorations using the coloured royal icing mixtures. I piped on dots and lines and using a toothpick I created the patterns that you see in the pictures. If this is all sounding a little complicated to you at this point, please don't be discouraged. Yes, making and decorating these biscuits did take a while but I found it relaxing and fun! The end product is so worth it!

I had plenty of left over dough so my sister made some tea bag shaped cookies to accompany my teapots and teacups. They were inspired by this image she found a few moths ago. I also made some little flowers. It was a fun day! Na xo