As promised, here is the tutorial for my silhouette cookies I made for Veronica's Tea. I am crazy about silhouettes and after seeing some of the silhouette cookie creations online, I came up with my own design. Some of the blogs that inspired me; My Sweet & Saucy, Bake at 350, and Ohdeedoh, to name a few.
Here's how to make them:
1. Take a sheet of parchment paper and draw or trace your silhouettes onto it. You can use any size you want just make sure they will fit on a cookie. Mine were about 1" X 1.5". I drew them freehand but there are a lot of images that you can find in magazines or the Internet that you can use to trace. Then flip it so that the pencil markings are facing down. You should still be able to see your drawings through the paper.
2. In a disposable pastry bag, melt a few discs of Wilton Candy Melts, following directions on candy bag. You can use any flavor/color you like. I used chocolate, pink and white for my silhouettes.
3. Once the candy has completely melted in the pastry bag, snip a small piece off the tip of the pastry bag and pipe over your drawings. Tracing and then filling them in one at a time. You will need to re-melt the candy as you work since it hardens quickly. Just pop the pastry bag in the oven but be sure to prop it in a shallow bowl so that the snipped end is pointing upward and the candy does not ooze out as it melts.
4. When your silhouettes dry (it only takes a few minutes), very carefully lift the silhouettes from the parchment paper using a small offset spatula and set aside. I have a huge cookie sheet that I put them on while I was working.
Note: You will want to display the bottom side of the silhouette since the top side is too uneven from the way the candy melts and the bottom is smooth. The bottom becomes the top.
5. Once you have your silhouettes completed, store them in an airtight container in the freezer until you are ready to use them. I stacked them in a container with a sheet of parchment paper in between each row, being careful not to have any of the silhouettes overlap and being careful not to press down on the silhouettes as they are very fragile. HANDLE WITH CARE!
6. Bake the sugar cookies using your favorite sugar cookie recipe. I love Alton Brown's recipe. You can use a square or oval cookie cutter or anything that resembles a picture frame. I didn't have either so I bent one of my round cutters to make an oval shape.
7. You can store the baked cookies in the freezer in an airtight container until you are ready to decorate. In fact, if you are using royal icing to decorate your cookies, they work better when frozen. The icing sets a bit quicker as the cookie thaws. A little tip I picked up somewhere along the way. I use Martha Stewart's recipe for the icing.8. Once you have iced a few of them with the background icing in the color of your choice and the icing is not quite set yet, place a silhouette with the smooth side up on the cookie. You will find that as the icing sets, the silhouette will "melt" into it and give you a smooth finish. This will be hit and miss as it was for me. If you have some silhouettes that did not melt into the icing and are a bit raised, don't worry. No one will notice.
9. Once the icing has completely set, you can decorate your cookies by adding borders and other decorative items. I made tiny bows out of ribbons for their hair and pearl necklaces with dragees.
10. Once decorated, I placed the cookies on cookie sheets and covered them with a huge Ziploc bag and let them set for 24 hours on the counter.
I hope you decide to make these for yourself. If you do or you have other ideas, please share.
Enjoy!
