You all know I enjoy icing cookies, right? Well, there was a couple of techniques that I have seen a few times on the gazillion cookie Facebook pages I follow that I have been dying for an excuse to try. As no one has specifically asked for them, I decided to make some cookies just for the hell of it, giving me the opportunity to practice. As Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone, and make some Valentine cookies for the office. I also decided to play with the flavours. I did a rich chocolate cookie, and flavoured the icing with Strawberry Lorann Oils. I love Lorann products as a little goes a long way.

There were three main techniques I wanted to practice: Brush Embroidery, Filigree and Lace Effect.

The brush embroidery technique I have seen in lots of places, but by far the best tutorial I have found was from Sweetambs. Following her instructions, and after a few attempts, I think I cracked it. I am still not as good as her, but I think that I would definitely consider this technique in a set of cookies. In another of her tutorials, she also included another effect that was reminiscent of fishnet tights, which I quite liked.

For the Filigree technique, again, I found the best tutorial was from Sweetambs. Her tutorials are great, and it didn’t come as a great surprise to discover Amber won ‘Cookie Educator of the year’ on Julie Usher’s Cookie Connection (THE site for all things cookie related). I wasn’t 100% happy with the Filigree effect I got. I think perhaps the consistency of my icing was maybe a fraction too stiff so it didn’t loop and curl as soft as it should. Some of the curls are a little jagged – more Tim Burton-esque.

For the Lace Effect, I watched a video from My Little Bakery, who in my opinion is the queen of lace cookies. Again, I think my icing was perhaps a little stiff as I kept getting breakages in the lines but I was very pleased with the overall result. I would like to do more of this style, but I don’t think I could do large sets of this as it is very time consuming, and I was a little cross-eyed by the end.

After doing a few of the various effects, I started to notice they looked reminiscent of underwear, especially when I combined them. I guess that’s appropriate for Valentine’s though, right?.