Cute As A Bug

My adorable neighbor Peyton just turned one!  Her party was all about lady bugs, so her mother Marina and I thought some lady bug cookies were in order! I threw in some butterflies as well for variety.  These were the party favors.  

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I started with a basic sugar cookie.  I was careful to pull out the cookies out of the oven as soon as the edges showed any brown because otherwise they are hard and cardboardish! This was sort of half day thing in itself because I needed about 50 cookies.  
For the lady bugs I used an egg shaped cookie cutter then took a little triangle out of the bottom to make it look like wings. 

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After baking the cookies I made royal icing for the top.  Royal icing is egg white based.  So it dries very quickly and firmly.  This makes it so you can place the cookies in bags or containers without disturbing the frosting.

Royal icing is pretty hard to work with.  So if you are trying this, make sure you have everything out and ready so that the icing doesn't harden before you get the cookies frosted. This includes, the cookies, icing bags, rubber bands to seal the top and slow hardening, food coloring, bowls to mix fod coloring, and paper towels. Also, the more you beat the egg the harder the frosting will be.   If you can't tell it was kind of a learning experience for me!

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My friend Kim came over to help me with this and was kind of a life saver! We put on the base color, then added details.  After that was dry I lines it with black frosting or a dramatic edge. 

I plopped each of them into an individual bag, so they could be taken home as favors. Repeat fifty time and you're done!

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