Cookies

Spring is a time to look forward to after a long winter. You can enjoy the flowers beginning to bloom, and bees in the garden.

Spring time also brings Easter to bring together family and friends.

You can make beautiful spring cookies including bunnies, Easter eggs, flowers, and bees for your family and friends.

Flower Cookies

You can make flower spring cookies using either powdered food coloring or gel food coloring with a couple of drops of almond extract to create a “paint”.

In order for you to apply the food coloring to your cookies, you will need to use a food safe paint brush.

Macarons have delicate shells that can be damaged if pressed too hard with a paint brush. Apply the food coloring to the macaron gently, as if you were painting a picture.

You can also paint on sugar cookies that have been flooded with royal icing and let to dry. This way, the paint will not run on the cookie.

When you’re making up your coloring for painting on macarons, you don’t want to use too much almond extract to make your coloring.

If you pour too much, the food coloring will be more like watercolor paint. The color will not go on the cookie as strong, and it will be too runny to really show up.

Just use a little almond extract for your coloring. The color will be strong and easily painted on the the cookies. The color will not run if you only use a drop or two of almond extract.

Sometimes the color will dry out in your bowl, just add another drop or two of almond extract to make it liquid again.

You can use a flat food safe paint brush to paint the color into a teardrop shape for the petal of a flower. Continue making a total of 5 flower petals, making sure you space them out on your cookie.

To make the center of the flower, use a black edible marker and make “dots” in the center of the flower.

To make the leaves, use a narrow, long paint brush, and use wispy lines and float along the cookie for the vinery look.

Bee Cookies

Bee macarons are made by piping out the appropriate shapes using a Bee Macaron Template, and adding a few decorations to it.

White chocolate is painted onto the wings to create the shimmer look for the wings. You could use gold dust and paint on the gold shimmer to give the wings an even more beautiful look to them.

The stripes, face, and antennae are added using an edible marker.

Bee macarons need to be made in forward template and reverse template shapes so they can be sandwiched together easily and have their shapes match.

Place the bee macaron template underneath your silicone mat or parchment paper fitted on a baking pan.

Fill your piping bag with yellow macaron batter fitted with a 1/2” tip.

Pipe the body of the bee first. Start at the front of the bee and drag the tip to the other end of the bee.

Add the wings by starting at the top of the wing and dragging the wing downwards into the body. Repeat for the other wing.

Using a toothpick, guide the stinger of the bee into a point.

Remove your template from underneath your silicone mat or parchment paper.

Remove the air bubbles from the macarons by banging the bottom of the baking pan.

Bake, cool, and fill the macarons.

Add eyes, antennae, and stripes to the bee using an edible marker.

Using melted white chocolate, add the chocolate to the wings in a teardrop shape using a food safe paint brush.

You can also make bee sugar cookies and cutting out a bee shape using a cookie cutter.

Once you’ve baked the cookies, you can add melted white chocolate and paint it onto the wings of the bee.

Add the stripes, eyes, and antennae using a black edible marker.

Bunny Cookies

Make your macaron batter. You don’t need any food coloring added to the macaron batter if you’re making a white colored bunny.

To pipe your bunny macarons, begin by piping a small circle ~ 1″ in diameter.

Pipe one ear off to the side of the circle on the top. You’ll want to drag the macaron batter upward, and then let the batter drip back on to itself to create one ear. Repeat on the other ear.

Use a toothpick to guide both of the ears of the bunny into a point.

Pipe all of your bunny macarons in the same way.

Remove the air bubbles from the macarons by banging the bottom of the baking pan.

Let the macarons dry for 30 minutes.

Bake your bunny macarons for the exact same time it says in the recipe you’re using, and let them cool. Fill your macarons.

Add eyes and eyelashes with an edible marker. Draw 2 wavy lines to create the eyes, then add small lines outwards to create the eye lashes.

Add 2 “U” shaped lines to create the mouth.

Add 2 whiskers on each side of the bunny face.

Use pink powdered food coloring and a little almond extract together to make a paint. Paint the pink color on the inside of the ears of the bunny, and a triangle or round nose using a food safe paint brush.

Let dry for 20 minutes. 

Store your bunny macarons in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

You can also make bunny cookies using shortbread dough or sugar cookie dough.

Use a bunny shaped cookie cutter, and then bake your cookies.

Once they are cooled, you can decorate them with a food safe marker, royal icing, or using a bit of gel food coloring mixed with almond extract.

Easter Egg Cookies

Easter egg cookies can be shaped into an oval to look like an egg. You can also just make them into a regular circle as well.

You can make Easter egg cookies by making sugar cookies, and cutting out the eggs using a cookie cutter.

Another option is to make macaron batter, and shape them into an oval for the egg shape.

To decorate Easter egg cookies, you can make royal icing for some fine detail work.

Royal icing will dry hard, and you can use piping tips to create small lines on your Easter egg cookies.

You can also decorate your Easter egg cookies with an edible marker, and draw lines on the cookies.

To make your Easter egg cookies full of color, you can make your own paint using powdered food coloring and almond extract.

Paint your Easter egg cookies using a food safe paint brush.

Criss-crosses, circular lines, triangles, circles, all look beautiful to make your Easter egg cookies.

Cookie bakers tend to go through a ton of piping bags, sprinkles, and food coloring.

We’ve complied a list of gift to give to your favorite cookie baker, including a few specialty items they might love to include in their cookie baking tools!

Piping Bags

Piping bags are essential for decorating cookies.

You can give your cookie baker reusable silicone piping bags or disposable piping bags depending on their preference.

There are a few different sizes of piping bags you can get, but usually for icing they don’t need too large of piping bags, unless they are flooding a ton of cookies.

You could go with a variety of piping bags for your cookie decorator both for flooding or for fine details.

Stamps

Stamps can be used to make designs on cookies by adding gel food coloring and almond extract together.

The stamp in pressed into the color, and then the stamp is pressed into the cookie.

The stamp will work well on top of royal icing flooded cookies as long as the icing has fully dried.

Using a stamp on a cookie makes them look very professional and usually gives more detail than using icing.

Sprinkles

Sprinkles can be added to cookies before the royal icing dries.

Sprinkles are an easy way for a cookie decorator to add a bit of coloring to their decorated cookies.

There are a few different types of sprinkles you can get, from rectangular shapes, to small or large circles.

I find the larger sprinkles are best used for details like snowflakes, ornaments on a Christmas tree, etc.

Edible Markers

You can get a few different colored edible markers that work just like a regular marker, but for a cookie.

The tips on the edible marker are quite sharp so they can do both fine and thicker lines by level of pressure used.

Black edible markers are used the most with adding faces, or other fancy designs on the cookies without having to use icing.

Sometimes you just need a touch of black for eyes or eyelashes, edible markers work much better for this than using icing.

Cake Writing Tool

A cake writing tool is simply a way to write with icing easily.

A bit more of a fancier way to write with icing is using a cake decorating pen.

Food Coloring

Cookie bakers use a variety of food coloring to color their icing, including using gel food coloring.

They don’t use very much food coloring, yet the color is extremely vibrant.

Gel food coloring is unique in that it will not change the consistency of icing, unlike liquid food coloring.

When they’re trying to get the perfect consistency of their icing for either flooding or fine detail, liquid food coloring will not be helpful to them.

Typically cookie bakers prefer use gel food coloring.

Cookie Decorating Scribe Tool

A cookie decorating scribe tool is used to spread, or move icing with a very fine point.

A cookie decorating scribe tool can be used to spread icing into tight corners, make fine details, or pop air bubbles that can form in icing.

Since the scribe has a fine point, they can tip the point into icing and then make small dots of icing on their cookies.

Cookies with fine details use the cookie scribe tool to make intricate designs.

Squeeze Bottles

Decorating squeeze bottles are helpful for flooding cookies.

Piping icing takes a toll on your arms and fingers with the intricate work it takes to pipe icing.

Decorating squeeze bottles allow cookie bakers fill the icing in them, and then they just squeeze the bottle and the icing flows out of the tip with ease.

If your cookie baker is flooding a bunch of cookies, these squeeze bottles come in very handy.

They can also put the closing tip on it and save it for another day.

Shortbread cookies are buttery and melt in your mouth when you bite into them. You can add extracts, zest, chocolate, toffee, or nuts to flavor shortbread cookies into your own custom cookies.

Here a few of our favorite shortbread cookies flavors to try out.

Lemon Shortbread Cookies

Lemon shortbread cookies have a tart, citrusy flavor.

Lemon shortbread cookies are made by adding lemon zest and vanilla extract to shortbread cookie dough.

An optional addition is to add lemon extract, but you don’t need to add this to have a pungent lemon flavor to your lemon shortbread cookies.

These sharp lemon shortbread cookies are topped with a plain icing.

The icing adds a bit of sweetness to the tart cookies.

A little bit of lemon zest is sprinkled on top of the icing for a beautiful look to the lemon shortbread cookies.

Almond Shortbread Cookies

Almond shortbread cookies have a lovely nutty flavor to them.

Almond shortbread cookies are made by using almond extract to flavor the shortbread cookies.

To decorate the tops of the cookies you can add a couple of sliced almonds to the top of the cookies prior to them cooling out of the oven.

Otherwise they look like the same flavor as plain shortbread cookies.

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

Lavender shortbread cookies have a hint of an earthy lavender flavor.

Lavender cookies are a unique flavor that are more of a specialty cookie.

Lavender shortbread cookies are made by using a mortar and pestle to grind up culinary lavender into a powder.

By grinding up the lavender, this creates the aroma of lavender to be infused into the shortbread cookies

Chocolate Orange Shortbread Cookies

Chocolate orange shortbread cookies are made by adding orange zest to the shortbread cookie dough.

Orange is a flavor that entices your senses, and when paired with chocolate it’s an absolutely divine shortbread cookie flavor.

The orange shortbread cookies are half dipped into melted semi-sweet chocolate.

Chocolate orange shortbread cookies have a rich flavor that you’ll love!

Mint Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies

Mint chocolate chip shortbread cookies are full of minty flavor, with a hint of chocolate chips throughout the shortbread cookies.

Mint flavor is added by chopping up fresh mint leaves and adding them into the butter when it’s creaming with the sugar.

By chopping up the mint leaves, the flavor will release from the leaves and infuse the butter with the incredible mint flavor for your shortbread cookies.

Chocolate chips are added to the dough for the perfect combination of chocolate and mint in a shortbread cookie.

Another option would be to dip the shortbread cookies halfway into melted semi-sweet chocolate for a beautiful look to the cookies.

Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies

Cranberry orange shortbread cookies are packed with a few different flavors to give them a unique flavor.

Cranberry orange shortbread cookies are flavored with almond extract, and orange zest. You can also add a little bit of orange juice for more of an orange flavor, but it’s not necessarily needed.

The orange zest will give a hint of orange flavor to your shortbread cookies.

Dried cranberries are added to the shortbread dough for a chewy texture and holiday flavor to your shortbread cookies.

To give these cookies a sweet finish, they are dusted with a bit of granulated sugar.

Coconut Shortbread Cookies

Coconut shortbread cookies have a hint of coconut flavor to them, so it’s not too overwhelming.

Coconut shortbread cookies are made by adding coconut extract and toasted shredded coconut to shortbread dough.

By toasting the shredded coconut it enhances the flavor of the coconut which adds more flavor to the cookies.

To decorate your shortbread cookies you can add a couple of pieces of shredded coconut to the tops of the shortbread cookies before they begin to cool.

Toffee Pecan Shortbread Cookies

Toffee pecan shortbread cookies have a caramel, chocolate and nutty flavor to them.

Toffee pecan shortbread cookies are made by adding toffee bits and chopped pecans to shortbread dough.

Once the cookies have finished baking and are cooled, they are half dipped into semi-sweet chocolate and sprinkles with a few more toffee bits and pecans.

The shortbread cookies have a unique texture and flavor to them that will be sure to impress your taste buds!

There are many types of cookie that are made without using chocolate chips. Cookies can have nuts or raisins added to them instead of chocolate chips. Some cookies don’t have any fillings at all, and may have an icing on top or jam added to them for some added packed flavor.

Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread cookies only have a few ingredients, and are full of buttery creamy flavor. When you place one in your hand, you can see the greasy film it leaves. Shortbread cookies can be flavored many different ways including with: earl grey, lemon, lavender, orange or chocolate. Shortbread cookies are made without chocolate chips because they have their own unique, powerful flavor.

Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are made with a similar dough to chocolate chip cookies, except instead of filling the dough with chocolate chips, they are glazed with icing stead. Sugar cookies can be decorated with royal icing, buttercream icing, sprinkles, or edible markers to make them beautiful and eye catching.

Gingersnap Cookies

Gingersnap cookies are made with molasses, ginger and cinnamon. Instead of adding chocolate chips to sweeten it, they are rolled in granulated sugar. Gingersnaps are packed with ginger flavor, and are wonderfully sweet to serve during the fall or winter.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter cookies are made by adding brown sugar and creamy peanut butter to cookie dough. The brown sugar gives a caramelized sugar flavor, therefor you do not need to add any chocolate chips for this delicious cookie dough. Peanut butter cookies are best served with a fresh glass of milk, due to their rich and creamy flavor.

Danish Butter Cookies

Danish butter cookies are made using only 4 ingredients. Danish butter cookies have a delicate dough that are piped using the flower tip. These cookies are crisp, buttery and melt in your mouth!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Oatmeal raisin cookies are made by adding rolled oats, raisins, cinnamon, and vanilla extract to cookie dough. Oatmeal raisin cookies are chewy and have a cinnamon raisin flavored finish to them.

Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprint cookies are made by creating cookie dough and rolling the dough into circles. Roll the dough in granulated sugar to give the cookie and sugar coating. Using your thumb, press the center of the cookie to create an indent in the cookie dough. Using your favorite jam, place a spoonful in the center and bake the cookies. The result is a jam filled decadent cookie.

Macarons must be delicately packaged in order to give them away, or to sell them.

Macarons have a short shelf life of 24 hours if they are packaged at room temperature.

For people that are shipping macarons to customers, typically they are packed with a ice pack to ensure they stay at fridge temperature while they are in transit. Macarons packaged at fridge temperature are good for 3 days.

Keep in mind when packaging your macarons, how long they will stay good for. You may need to try for freezer temperature if you need the macarons to stay good for more than 3 days. Macarons at freezer temperature are good for 1 month.

Macaron Packaging Ideas

Macarons can be packaged in a ton of different ways! Packaging macaron is almost as important as the macarons themselves. People eat with their eyes first! Your packaging needs to be eye catching, thoughtful, and stand out.

Depending on on if you’re packaging your macarons to sell or to give away, here are a couple of macaron packaging ideas to try out.

• macarons stacked on top of one another, and wrapped cellophane. Tie the top of the cellophane with ribbons and a small card for an intimate hand written message
• clear macaron box – these come in a couple different sizes. You can find clear macaron boxes for 1, 2 or 6 macarons.
• macaron packaging boxes – these come with a cardboard box, and a clear window so you can clearly see the colorful macarons inside the bakery box just waiting to be eaten!
• plastic macaron inserts – macarons will fit snugly in the round plastic to make sure they are secure and not rolling around
• cookie tin – if you’re short on clear boxes or cellophane, you can place them in your favorite cookie tin that you use for packing Christmas cookies in.
• on a plate – you can beautifully color coordinate your macarons on a white plate. Cover the white plate with clear cling wraps so your gift can be admired by the recipient.

Macaron Packaging Boxes

Macaron packaging boxes are a beautiful way to display and sell your macarons. They have a peak a boo window in them. Macaron packaging boxes make macarons look like they are professionally baked and packaged. It gives a small glimpse to the gorgeous macarons inside which is just enough for people’s interest to be peaked!

• White cardboard macaron box with a clear window – enough for 12 macarons to fit on their sides showing their different flavors and colors
• Brown cardboard macaron box with a clear window
• Black cardboard macaron box with clear window – sleek & stylish. Fits 5 macarons that are shock proof. Each macaron has a cut out for it to fit into.
• White cardboard macaron box with a gold strip and a clear window – fits 6 macarons

Clear macaron packaging

Clear macaron packaging is where the entire box is clear so you can see the macarons from every angle.

Clear macaron packaging is perfect for a smaller number of macarons.

Clear packaging can make the macarons look professional and enticing. An added ribbon to clear macaron packaging will be the perfect finishing touch to your macarons.

• 1 macaron
• 2 macarons
• 6 macarons

12 macarons are a bit more difficult to find all clear macaron packaging. You have 2 options for packaging 12 macarons.

You can place them into a carboard box with a clear window, which looks professionally packaged. It gives enough of a peak into the box to see the colorful, eye catching macarons even from a distance.

Another option is to package them in a clear plastic macaron insert tray. Each side of the tray has semi circles so the macarons fit snug inside. Then the other half of the tray is placed over top to fully encase the macarons. This type of packaging is more fore transit, and you may want a nice box to place the insert inside.

Macaron Boxes for 2 Macarons

Packaging macarons in sets of 2 macarons are perfect for:

• a bridal shower thank you for coming gift
• wedding guest thank you for coming gift
• adding a small set of sweets to a birthday gift
• teacher’s gift

Single Macaron Packaging

• clear macaron box – perfect to tie ribbon around to make it a little more fancy. Include a small card with a thoughtful handwritten note inside
• Black, gold or pink bottom plastic topped with a clear lid. Macaron will be placed on the bottom and you will see the color below the macaron, keep this in mind when selecting the color of bottom plastic.

How to Pack Macarons for Shipping

To ship macarons, you’re going to need a few ice packs in order for your macarons to stay chilled while they are in transit.

Ideally, you’ll have 1-2 ice packs surrounding your macaron packaging. If you have 1-2 ice packs, 1 on each side, this will ensure the macarons travel at freezer temperature.

If you’re wanting to ship at freezer temperature, the ice packs will stay good longer in a Styrofoam box.

The Styrofoam is able to keep the temperature inside much colder than if you were to ship the macarons in a cardboard box.

The Styrofoam also keeps the liquid from the ice packs from leaking on the cardboard.

1. Obtain a cardboard box for shipping your macarons. Make sure it’s large enough to fit everything.
2. Place the Styrofoam box inside the cardboard box. Remove the lid from the Styrofoam box.
3. Place 1 ice pack on the bottom and 1 on the side inside the Styrofoam box.
4. Place macarons inside a clear packaging box. Put the clear packaging box inside the Styrofoam box.
5. Place the lid on the Styrofoam box.
6. Seal the cardboard box and place shipping labels on the cardboard box.
7. Ship macarons.

Decorating chocolate chip cookies is a fun way to dress up your cookies.

Some of the decorating examples involve the cookies needing to be laid flat, and not stacked for storage purposes.

Make sure you have a big enough storage container for all of your decorated chocolate chip cookies before beginning.

Sprinkles

1. Bake your chocolate chip cookies. As soon as the cookies are placed on the cooling rack, toss your sprinkles on top of the chocolate chip cookie.
2. The heat from the cookie will let the sprinkles adhere to the cookie.

Frosting and Sprinkles

1. Make your favorite vanilla or chocolate buttercream frosting to top your chocolate chip cookies with.
2. Add any food coloring you wish to the buttercream icing (vanilla buttercream).
3. Let your chocolate chip cookies come to room temperature. You do not want to frost the cookies if they are too warm, or the frosting will melt on the cookie.
4. You can use a piping bag fitted with a decorative tip, or use a knife to place your buttercream on the top of the chocolate chip cookie.
5. Before the buttercream starts to dry, toss your sprinkles on top of the buttercream icing.
6. Buttercream icing will not fully dry, therefore the cookies cannot to be stacked on top of one another. Place the cookies so they are sitting beside one another when storing them.

Candy eyes

1. Melt 1/4 cup of chocolate in the microwave. It should take about 30 – 45 sec to melt the chocolate. Use a spoon to mix the chocolate until it’s fully melted.
2. Use a toothpick to pick up a small amount of chocolate. Place the small amount of chocolate on the chocolate chip cookie where you would like the candy eye to go.
3. Place the candy eye on top of the melted chocolate on the cookie, and press down so it “glues” together.
4. Let it sit and harden together for 20-30 minutes before stacking the chocolate chip cookies together.

Cookie monster

1. Make your favorite vanilla buttercream icing. Add blue food coloring and mix together.
2. Fit a piping bag with the star tip and add your icing to the bag.
3. Pipe the icing by placing a small amount of icing on the cookie and lift vertically to create the monster cookie body.
4. Pipe the entire cookie this way until the edges are covered.
5. Add 2 candy eyes to the cookie. The eyes should be right next to one another. The pupil of the eye should be faced inward to make the cookie monster look crosseyed.
6. To create the mouth of the cookie monster you have a couple of options. One way is to break a cookie in half, and place the broken half in the icing. This will make the cookie monster look like he’s eating a cookie. Another option is to create the mouth using icing or melted chocolate. Create the mouth to look like the cookie monster is smiling wide open.

Whipped cream

1. Only decorate your chocolate chip cookies with whipped cream right before serving, otherwise the whipped cream with melt. Place a chocolate chip cookie on a clean plate. Hold a can of whipping cream in an upside down vertical position right above the cookie.
2. Gently place a small amount of whipping cream in the center of the cookie.
3. Top the whipping cream cookie with a drizzle of chocolate sauce or caramel sauce.
4. Gently hover over the whipped cream and put a couple of sprinkles to finish off the decorated chocolate chip cookie.