April Cookie Countess Cutter Club

     Welcome to the April Cutter Club subscription box! If it is your first month - welcome! If you are a returning Cutter Club member - thanks for coming back! 

     As we move into Spring and Summer, and the weather starts to warm up, it's the perfect time for a picnic! Strawberries and lemonade are iconic picnic essentials, and I see strawberries taking over for cherries as the new trendy fruit. 

This set does have a lot of steps. But with a little planning it can still come together easily. Making the strawberries and lemon slices as transfers is a huge help!  And the painted details add so much depth and are really not difficult. My hope for cutter club members is that the cookie sets will have maybe one technique you have not tried before, you can learn a new cookie skill. Even 14 years later, I am still learning and trying new things! 

These cookie cutters can definitely be used for different occasions as well! The strawberries would make a great fish cookie. The picnic basket, could be an Easter basket, or a purse. The pie you pull back out in the fall for pumpkin or apple pie - place the whipped cream dollop where the little bump out is currently used for the strawberry. The sign could be used for a realtors set, or camping, or even a North Pole sign at Christmas. And the mason jar could be for any yummy drink, or or even jam! Lots of possibilities.

There are more colors in this set than past months, so I didn't do any special color blending. Everything was I made was straight from the bottle.

I made a piping and flood consistency for the red, and dark brown. The yellow and lightest brown I did a 15 sec (hybrid). For the white I did a stiff and hybrid. For the green and middle brown I did a stiff. If you a beginner and are still learning consistencies, we have a helpful blog here. We also have a very thorough online class here. 

If you are comfortable cutting and piping/flooding with tipless bags, go for it! If you prefer tips I would recommend a #1 or #1.5 tip for details and outlines , and a #2 or 2.5 for flooding. You will need a rose 101 tip to make the crust (this is the same tip we used last month for the ribbons). You will also need a leaf tip for the strawberries, and a star tip for the whipped cream.

Below you will find step by step instructions for our first 4 cookies. Followed by videos for the 5th. The painting techniques that are used on the strawberry and picnic basket are also shown in the video. This is of course only if you want to replicate these cookies exactly. Feel free to have fun! Use different colors, or different techniques. Let your creativity shine if you want!  

Before you begin decorating your cookies, consider if you want to make royal icing transfers for the different strawberries and lemon slices. This is not required, you can pipe them directly on the cookie, but I do think it's a heck of a lot easier to do it as transfers. For the strawberries I only did the berry, not the leaves, those I did once the berry was on the cookie. For the yellow of the strawberry seeds, you can do those while still attached to the transfer sheet, this just makes it easier and keeps them in place. 

I used acetate placed over the printouts to pipe on - parchment also works. You can also cut up the transfer sheet to make it more manageable. If you are new to trying transfers, you can read more about them here. The download for the transfers is at the bottom of this blog.

You can watch our basket tutorial here. I did not pipe it as tight/detailed as the video. But the same technique is used. 

For the video video tutorial this month, we'll be making the lemonade mason jar. In this tutorial I'll show you 3 different types/ways of painting on royal icing. You'll also use this same technique on the strawberries and picnic basket cookies. If you want to practice some of painting ahead of time, pipe some squares of white icing on acetate, or parchment ahead of time and practice on those. Or if you have any old cookies lying around you can use those for practice too! 

Your icing will need to be very crusted over before you start painting, so just plan out your steps as you'll be bouncing back and forth between cookies and you wait for different sections to crust.

Once again thanks so much for being a Cutter Club member! I hope you love making this set as much as I did! Click the button below to download the icing transfer PDF and all the cutter designs. Remember to print at 100% for accurate sizing - don't let your printer adjust the scale. Sometimes it's sneaky that way ;) 

This month's coupon is 10% off any paints or markers.  

I would love to hear what you think of the Cutter club and see your cookies! you can post a pic and leave a review on the product page. It makes me so happy to see your cookies when they are completed!! 

Happy Baking! 

xo Hillary