I've been fairly new at this whole cookie-decorating thing, so bear with me here!

I was wondering if it's possible to use fondant on cookies, and how thick you must roll it out in order for it to be not too thick. And do you guys like the taste of this combination, or would you rather just use icing?

Also, I see you guys all use many different colors of icing on your cookies. I usually just stick to 2 colors, 1 for outlining and 1 for filling, because it's just such a hassle with all those piping bags. I use the ready to use plastic bags, but I would love to use my own from parchment paper, because of the costs of the plastic bags. Also, I always have parchment paper at home and I don't always have the plastic ones when I need them. But I just can't seem to fold my own bags...I have like no technical insight whatsoever and I haven't been able to find a good explanation with pictures on the net. I can't seem to get the point right, it just keeps sliding open. Does anyone have some good tips on this?

And to conclude my question list , I made the no fail sugar cookies last week, with just plain royal icing from egg whites and I noticed my cookies went a bit stale. They got all chewy and not nice and crusty. I did store them in carton boxes right after I decorated them, could this have something to do with it? My icing was nice and not too hard this time, so I actually really liked that, but the cookies weren't what they were supposed to be. Does someone know what went wrong?

Thank you!

Roos
If you look at my gallery you will see some of my cookies. ALL of them were made with fondant, and I personally found that the fondant was too thick. You get a nice effect and they look pretty but they're not as nice to eat as if you use royal icing.
This is just my opinion though : )
Nati

I made some at christmas using candy clay. It's really easy to make and works just like fondant. If you use a really good fondant and roll it out alittle thinner, that is great too.

Thanx for you replies on the fondant. I keep running into this word candy clay. What is it exactly? I've never seen it anywhere here in the Netherlands.

Gosh, I'm sorry. That was unthoughtful of me. If you use the candy pellets, there like circles of chocolate. That's the easiest to use. You gently melt them and add corn syrup, put it on some waxed paper, wrap it and let it cool. After it cools it will be stiff and you just knead it like fondant, it starts to soften.

There might be a recipe for exact measurements and instructions here, if not I can look it up in my Wilton Yearbook. Very easy to make.

Thanx Nati and Vitade! And Vitade, don't worry, thank you for the info!

Here's a link with pictures on rolling the parchment triangles into cones. In my Wilton class, the instructor said that once the points match up, you can slide the inner and outer points past each other a bit, so that the seam section is actually three layers thick, while the rest is just two. That probably makes no sense, but is hard to explain!

After you get that part finished (after step 'c' in the directions) you can fold the top edge down and tear about 1/4 inch, to keep it from slipping apart.

I hope this helps some, once you get the hang of it, it's easy to do, but very hard to explain in writing, LOL!

Laura.

http://www.baking911.com/decorating/pb_prchmtcones_pg2.htm