Leprechaun Cookie Tutorial

  Happy St. Patrick's Day... I'm feeling lucky today!!!  This week I had the pleasure of working with my sweet, artistic mother.

Most of the good things that happen to me in my life start with my mother.  She has always encouraged me to use my creativity, and has been saying, "Linda, you are an artist" since I was in kindergarten! ;))  The truth is, SHE is the artist!!  Still, at 82 years young, she is SO clever and funny and is always drawing on everything from newspapers to mailing envelopes.  I'm pretty sure I've never gotten mail from her that didn't have some sort of funny drawing on it.   Well, last week I found a sketch she had drawn of a leprechaun sitting on a rainbow and decided I needed to "cookie it".  It was such a fun project for me, so I  decided to make this tutorial for you guys.

The steps are pretty easy to follow and I've included lots of pictures, taken by my talented photographer friend, Nicole of Expressions by Nicole Marie.

                             What you'll need~

Your favorite sugar cookie recipe

fondant

food coloring.

fondant roller

corn syrup

pearl dust

gold disco dust

food use only- paint brushes

black food writer

scissors

sharp knife or blade

parchment or tracing paper

                                          
                           My Mom's sketch~

 

 1.) Start out by tracing the original drawing onto parchment paper.

2.) Make an outline around your drawing to determine the size of your cookie. (I actually scaled my copy down a little because I didn't want a huge cookie. By doing this, I think the drawing started taking on the characteristics of my own drawing style).

3.) Roll out the sugar cookie dough. Using your drawing as a guide, cut out your cookie.

 

                     While your cookie is baking...

4.) Now you can cut your drawing apart to use as a template for forming your fondant pieces.

 For each color, I used around a 2 inch ball of fondant. I added food coloring a little at a time until I had the color I wanted.  I use Duff Goldman brand in white, vanilla, it has a nice flavor and is easy to work with. The fondant comes in a 2 lb container. I buy it at Michaels. You can use any brand of fondant or make your own.  

 

To make the fondant stripes for the rainbow, roll out the colored fondant into long, thin strips. Make sure to apply even pressure while you're rolling them out so they are uniform in size.

 

   Lay your colored strips down, pressing them lightly together, and roll them flat.

5.) Brush your cookie with corn syrup. This will act as your "glue" sticking the fondant pieces to the cookie.

*Make sure you add the fondant pieces to your cookie in the right order. (I'd recommend setting them up on parchment first. Then once you're happy with the layout, add them to the cookie). The corn syrup is sticky so it will be difficult to remove the fondant once you've laid it down.

 

 

6.) Finishing touches~ I add pearl, lustre dust to almost all of my cookies, because it really makes the fondant pop. I used my large brush to add it to the rainbow and the pot of gold. To add the gold disco dust to the pieces of gold, brush them with a tiny bit of water. Then take your large brush, dip it into the disco dust and shake it out over the wet areas. Shake the excess off, it will stick to only the wet areas.

 Near misty stream in Ireland
in the hollow of a tree
Live mystical, magical leprechauns
who are clever as can be

With their pointed ears,
and turned up toes and little coats of green
The leprechauns busily make their shoes
and try hard not to be seen.

Only those who really believe
have seen these little elves
And if we are all believers
We can surely see for ourselves.
{Irish Blessing~ author unknown}
                       xo