What would it be, and why?

Best for basic coverage?

Best for details?

Fastest drying?

Softest?


I am new to decorating cookies, and want a good recipe that will give a smooth background, but can be stiffened up for details, soft to bite, but can be bagged. I tried Alice's this evening, but it did not work for me. Anyone have secrets to that smooth cookie? I am not interested in usuing fondant, because it is like using fondant for cakes, right?

I use Antonia74's icing, using the recipe and method that she describes in her tutorial (How to bake & decorate cookies).

I love it! It's easy to work with, looks great, tastes great (and can be flavored as well), and most of all, everybody who has eaten one of the cookies just loved it!

I keep meaning to try some of the other recipes, but it works so well, I just haven't gotten around to trying any others!

Laura.

I used Alice's the first time and then used Antonia's. I like them both with same results. I didn't have a problem with Alice's. I have to do several cookies and ship them later in the year, and am going with the NO FAIL cookies and ANTONIA'S ICING only because it's easy to work with and I've already shipped a few cookies with success with both of these latter two recipes.

Anybody tried Toba Garrets Glaze Icing? I would like to know if it hardens well so that the cookies are stackable?

I love the idea of covering the cookies in MMF immediately after coming out of the oven........I'm impatient and it is wonderful to be able to start decorating as soon as the cookies are cool........when the last tray comes out of the oven I can start putting details on the first cookies that were bakes.......usually within 20 min. of them coming out of the oven....I love it!!! It stays soft to the tooth....however it's firm enough to write on with food pens or to stack and not have any sticking. I also started using the wilton fondant icing writers...and though I normally don't like premade anything in a bottle, I have to say these are very convenient and taste wonderful with the MMF. They go on like royal icing but dry completely in under an hour. So within an hour or so of baking I can bag my cookies!!! Perfect for an impatient person...or even a procrastinator which I have also been known to be LOL

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=KHalstead&cat=0&pos=0

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=allby&uname=KHalstead&cat=0&pos=3

these were both covered in MMF and the onesie cookies were detailed with the fondant icing writers by wilton.

Can Antonia74's royal icing be flavored since it is, in fact, royal icing? I guess as long as it don't have a oily base??? Any suggestions will be appreciated.


Thanks!

Wanda

I've used lemon extract in Antonia's icing, and it was great! I used about 1/2 teaspoon in a batch, just enough to give it some flavor without being too strong.

It worked great! I've read that people have used other flavorings as well. Just be sure to use the alcohol-based extracts, just to make sure you don't have any problems with introducing oil into the royal icing.

Laura.

It's funny though, that I thought Antonia's icing tasted like it HAD some sort of lemony taste. Was I tasting the meringue powder?

I like antonia's icing. It takes a couple of tries to learn to thin it just right for flooding, but it is easy to work with. I add vanilla to it. I also use MMF on my cookies. It seems to me that they taste the same w/only antonia's icing or w/MMF and antonia's icing. MMF has such a better taste than Wilton fondant. I love it!! When you bite into a cookie w/MMF, you can't tell it's fondant on the cookie. It just tastes like icing.

I have a quick tip to decorate the cookies with fondant or MMF.

I make a "GLUE GLAZE" I sift a bit of powdered sugar with a little melted butter and a little extract, enough to make a "wet" paste, I brush it on my cookie and then pop the fondant on the cookie.

I've even used this to glaze a cookie when I've wanted a little additional sweetness or extra flavor.

when I have a lot of cookies to do, I will pop on a glove and use my finger to smear the glaze! and I do my piping with chocolate.

I can get my cookies done in less than a couple of hours this way.

Hope this tip can help someone!

Sometimes when I use Fondant on cookies it comes out too think. Rolling it thin..gets tricky. Any tips?

if you knead it with a little shortening in your hands or on the table, you can "soften" it just enough so you can roll it out.

also make sure that you powder the bottomof the fondant or the surface you're going to roll it out on.

I roll mine thin and then stick them in the fridge while the cookies are baking...it's just enough time 10-12 min. to firm up the mmf so that when I pick it up it doesn't stretch out of shape and can just be laid right on the cookie with no problems and the heat of the cookie usually melts it and when they cool it firms up again. I don't use any glue or anything just stick the MMF on them when they first come out of the oven.

I've always said Marshmallow Fondant...

Easy, tasty, quick and looks perfect...NO mixing, NO waiting, NO piping, NO bleeding, NO croocked edges, NO drips and NO failing..

I am shocked, really! After all the fondant that gets thrown away on cakes, I had no idea it would be good on cookies.

I will try mmf next time. Thanks!

I have a question in regards to the MMF on top of the cookies. How exactly do you decorate a cookie with MMF on top of it? Do you use the food markers, watered down gel coloring, or something else? Does the MMF only work good if you are doing round sugar cookies, or will it work okay if you are doing different shaped cookies? I'm assuming if you want to get the shape of the MMF right, you would need to use the same cookie cutter on the MMF, right?

MMF will go with any shape of cookie, as long as it is
"Iceable" cookie like sugar cookies. Because, when you cut the MMF, you will use the same cookie cutter of the cookie you are decorating..

I make sugar paste made of powdered sugar and water (consistency like Elmers Glue) as my glue to stick the cut out MMF on top of the cookie.

Then you can decorate with anything you want.. You can use FoodDoodles (edible markers) to write on it. If you look at my cookies, I decorated them with molded Fondant medallions painted in gold and Calla Lilies and White bows. They are all MMF.

My MMF has cracks in it....Mixed it to the tee per directions. So what went wrong? Can't use it on my cookies now ans don't want to have to start over! Bummed.

NO NO NO,, don't give up!!...
regardless of the outcome, it can be fixed...
Add water AND a little Crisco, but go easy.. don't dump a whole bag of powdered sugar or a whole cup of water....

Add little bit of water until it is more pliable and stretchy.. good luck .

I LOVE Toba Garrett's Glace icing. It dries enough to stack or package the cookies, but it doesn't get crunchy hard like royal icing. I'm a vegetarian and don't use marshmallows because of the gelatin, so I can't weigh in on the MMF, but I find the royal icing to be a bit too hard.

Does anyone know which of the icings can be frozen on the cookie? I'm making cookie favors for my son's b-day at the end of the month, and I was wondering if I could do the cookies a week in advance and freeze them until a couple of days before the party.

GRRRR! My fiance is adament - "I want your REGULAR icing on my cookies" ie the bc recipe I inherited from the woman who did my first wedding cake. It *should* harden enough to bag, but not to stack. Plus, might have to smooth each cookie, and worry about the edges, which could get frustrating.

Any tips to make it harden up nicely?

add some meringue powder? I don't know...

btw, DH likes the taste of MMF on NFSC...

I'm going to try butter flavoring in mmf to see if it can taste like buttercream...it will be an experiment (unless someone has already done it and tells me "NO!!!) lol

I'm also going to try freezing some NFSC with MMF and edible image to see how much the image bleeds...

Good idea, let us know how it goes!

MMF is Marshmallow Fondant.

There are recipes for it here, and several threads going in the Cookie forum about using it on cutout cookies.

I used the NFSC recipe and Antonia74's royal icing recipe last night. The cookies turned out great. However, using the royal icing is just as detailed as decorating a cake so I think I will try the MMF method next.

This was my first time making cookies and I love it so far.

Best Icing..Antonias by far...I tried many and I like her taste and consistency and EASY to make!! It dries fast but isn't rock hard to break your teeth.

ok, so I tried the butter flavoring in MMF...couldn't really taste it...oh and butter flavoring smells like movie popcorn butter!

as for the edible image on mmf...I tried 3 and only the 1st one stuck to the mmf. I put the mmf on immediately out of the oven, and then the image right on top. I suppose if I had a spray bottle of water that would have helped. Anyway, 2 of the images peeled right off. I'm going to try it with regular icing (be it antonia's, alice's, or my own glaze) next. Also, for edible images on round cookies, I think it might be more efficient to ice the cookies rather than use mmf b/c rolling and cutting the mmf is quite time consuming...more than I'd want to spend on a round cookie. Now for complex cutters, mmf is definitely the way to go...