Halloween is another foreign holiday that still hasn't caught on here yet. I didn't even see any decorated cookies at my favorite pastry shops today. However, there are a few bars and clubs hosting parties tonight. (Check @tgistanbul on Twitter for the latest updates on where to celebrate Halloween in Istanbul tonight.)
I'm not feeling that festive so I will be hanging out at home with hubby and a steamy bowl of pesto vegetable soup. It's inevitable that I would get a cold after spending the last several weeks traveling.
This morning, I finished baking some more mini apple pies and lemon curd tarts for Denizen Coffee. I had some leftover tart dough so I decided to bake a few Halloween cookies. I had a bucket full of new Halloween cookie cutters purchased in America that I was aching to use.
Of course, I couldn't leave the cookies plain; and yesterday I had purchased some orange fondant at one of my baking supply stores in Emin�n� just in case I felt up to doing this.
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| I baked and decorated two dozen Halloween cookies for some friends here in Istanbul. |
Here's how you can make your own decorated fondant cookies:
Make a batch of your favorite sugar cookie dough recipe. I just use leftover tart dough sometimes.
Cut out and bake the cookies.
Make a batch of royal icing. I beat one egg white with about 1 cup of powdered sugar until its creamy. If it's too thick, I add a drop or two of water. Too thin, add a little more powdered sugar. The royal icing is used as glue to adhere the fondant to the cookies.
Melt some dark chocolate in a double boiler. I love using chocolate for decorating cookies, cakes and tarts!
Roll out and cut out the fondant into the same shape as the cookies.
Using a pastry bag with a small rounded tip, pipe an outline of the royal icing and fill in the middle of the cookie. Place the cutout fondant on top and glue" down the fondant on top of the cookie. The royal icing hardens fairly quickly so only pipe two or three cookies at a time.
Next, place some of the melted chocolate into a cornet made from parchment baking paper. Pipe silly faces onto your pumpkin cookies or use it to outline other cookies too.
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| Using a cornet to pipe faces onto the Halloween cookies makes the job fast and easy. |
Eat. Enjoy. Share with friends. Eat another cookie.
Happy Halloween from Istanbul!