Decorated Bicycle Sugar Cookies to benefit Bike MS

When my friend Regina asked if I would create bike-themed cookies to

benefit her considerable efforts to support this year's BIKE MS bake sale

at work, I immediately agreed. I didn't know how I would deliver nearly

400 bike-themed cookies wearing a leg cast, but I knew it had to happen!

Now, creating 400 decorated cookies requires a lot of sugar! Fortunately, the

amazing Imperial Sugar ladies I met at Mixed last year took my call! Not only

did they donate enough sugar for my cookies, there was enough so that I could

share with the lady baking the pies, cakes and cupcakes for the bake sale too!

It's all about teamwork! Speaking of teamwork... Since I'm off my

feet for a few more weeks, Army dad has been doing everything that

requires standing up. Things like sifting forty pounds of powdered sugar!

I haven't made royal icing since publishing my recipe for you here but

now that I'm mixing up more than I've ever mixed up for a single project

before, it might be the perfect time to answer some of your questions!

First of all, I meant what I said... Sifting your powdered sugar is not optional!

What comes out of the mixer is what I call piping consistency. And, this is

also the point where I color my royal icing if I'm going to color it. A reader

asked if I use white coloring or if my icing comes out of the mixer this brilliant

white. It doesn't, I use Americolor white and believe it makes a big difference!

In terms of how I fill my squeeze bottles without making a huge mess...

I first transfer my icing to a large

disposable pastry bag and secure the top!

This makes it easier for me to portion icing

out into bowls for tinting it into different colors!

After my icing is tinted I load it into another disposable

pastry bag and use that bag to fill my squeeze bottles!

In this case I'm using all white icing and tinted it while it was

mixing so all that's left is to thin what I need to flood-consistency!

Adding just a little water at a time and stirring between

each addition of water, I eventually get to this stage...

Where a line drawn with a knife disappears after counting to ten!

And, it falls like a ribbon into my bag or bowl!

Now I'm ready to load the icing into my

squeeze bottles and begin decorating!

Snip the end of my pastry bag and away we go - No fuss. No muss!

This is the best way I know to load squeeze bottles!

After the bottle is filled, I pinch off the end and wrap it with

a damp paper towel to keep the icing from forming a crust!

Ready to create bike cookies?

Me too!

By the way, CopperGifts.com came through for me in a big way on

this project... As they always do. Because while they offer a bike cutter, it

points to the right and I wanted my bike cookies to point left. Fortunately, all

I had to do was ask because Beth and Ray made sure my bikes were going west!

Although I've seen bike cookies done before, the only design that would

do for my bike cookies was the one created by Dani Fiori of Sweet Dani B

cookies. The only problem is that Dani is a celebrity illustrator. I'm not only

a non-celebrity, I have tremendous difficulty drawing basic stick figures!

Of course, in true Dani fashion, she not only sent me a few photos of

her bike cookies to refer to, she also coached me on which elements

of her design to draw first to make it a little less difficult for me!

However, even with Dani's coaching and her visual inspiration close at hand...

Drawing on cookies like Dani does made me feel like this inside!

But I did it! Not as perfectly as Dani did but I'm only 32 bikes into this...

So who knows? By the time I'm done...

I may just get the hang of drawing on cookies!

Sending big love and my thanks to Imperial Sugar for their generous gift of Dixie Crystals sugar, CopperGifts.com for the wonderful west-facing bicycle copper cookie cutter... And, to the incomparable Dani Fiori, for her friendship, inspiration and guidance! xo