How to: Make Character Cookies

A month ago was my Grandma's 90th birthday, and to celebrate my family all went to dinner.  I made these cookies to go on the place settings when everyone was seated.  My Grandma loves Tweety so we went with him for the cookies.  Decorating cookies is what I specialize in...especially character cookies.  Once you learn how to do a basic character it's easy to take that idea and use it as a template for any other characters you do.  Especially animation characters with black outlines.  This tutorial is to show you how to do a basic character.  The more you decorate the more you'll learn how to break down a design and in what order to decorate it.  This tutorial will show you how to decorate Tweety, with general instructions that will apply to any cartoon character!

Tweety Bird Cookies

Decorating level: Medium
Concept and execution by Jesika Rose, Tweety Bird is a creation of Bob Clampett, Looney Tunes, and Warner Brothers.  I claim no ownership of his design and these cookies were for personal use only.

• Gluten Free Chocolate Sugar Dough Recipe or the gluten free regular sugar dough recipe of your choice.  I'll be posting a "regular" gluten free dough recipe in the next few weeks =)
• Royal Icing Recipe
• 4" Circle Cutter
• 7 Decorating bags, couplers, tips, and rubber bands
• Two #3 round tips
• Four #2 round tips
• Four #1 round tips
• Toothpicks 
• Edible Ink Food Safe Markers
• Gel food coloring:
• Sky Blue
• Lemon Yellow
• Orange
• Black

Cake Pops

I wouldn't necessarily call cake pops the new cupcake, but their trend definitely is going around.  Personally, I find them a little too time consuming to be worth the effort.  I am a cookie person though and if I'm going to spend my time on decorating I'd rather decorate cookies!  However, I had some leftover cake from an event and I didn't know what to do with it...and then the idea struck me to finally try to make cake pops!  I didn't want to do any crazy decorating, just something bright and cute and perfect for spring but that had great flavor.  The leftover cake I had was my Honey, Lavender, & Lemon Cake and a plain yellow cake, and I thought it would be nice to do a Lemon Cream Cheese Icing since I also had leftover lemon curd.  For me cake pops are the perfect way to re-purpose left over ingredients in a new, bright, fun form! The result was sweet and floral cake with a bit of tang from the cream cheese and lemon.  Between the flavor and the bright colors they were the perfect spring treat!

Below I have the recipe I used for the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting and a link to the cake recipe I used...but this post is really a template to do any flavor you'd like!  All you need is cake and icing essentially and just follow the instructions below!  Like I said before, the perfect thing to do if you have any leftovers!  Especially if you were carving or leveling or forming cakes...don't waste all those little pieces!  Turn them into cake pops!

Cake Pops

Recipe for Lemon Cream Cheese Icing adapted from The Hobby Rome Diaries
Makes about 3 dozen cake pops
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Ingredients for Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 8 oz cream cheese

- 1/3 cup of lemon curd

- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

- 1/2 sheet cake.  I used my Honey, Lavender, & Lemon cake.

Cupcakes for Two!

Have you ever just wanted one cupcake??  Sometimes I have a craving for cupcakes, but I know I don't want one dozen sitting around my apartment.  This recipe comes to the rescue!  It's so simple, takes less than a half hour to make, and yields just TWO cupcakes (or in my case 1 dozen mini cupcakes).   This is the perfect recipe to satisfy a quick cupcake craving!!

Cupcakes for Two

Recipe adapted from How Sweet it is
Makes about 2 standard cupcakes or 1 dozen mini cupcakes.
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Ingredients

- 1 egg white

- 2 Tbsp sugar

- 2 Tbsp butter, melted

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/4 cup - 1 Tbsp brown rice flour

- 1 Tbsp tapioca flour

- 1/4 rounded tsp gluten free baking powder

- pinch of salt

- 1 1/2 Tbsp milk (dairy, almond, or soy, I use almond)

Vegan Apple Peanute Butter Cookies

My mom recently switched from vegetarian to vegan.  As a congratulations for her first month, I wanted to make her some celebratory cookies.  The only complication was I had never made cookies before that had neither butter, eggs, nor refined sugar (regular refined white sugar or any brown sugar is not vegan.  Only organic white sugar  or brown sugar is.  You can find lists of vegan white sugar online). So I did some research, found ways to substitute that I preferred and found a recipe that I thought she would like and that I could also make gluten free easily.  Apples and Peanut Butter and a perfect match.  They're healthy but they're also something I used to have when I was a kid as a healthy treat--and still frequently have!  These cookies are for everyone, not just vegans, looking for a healthier version of a cookie, while still being just as indulgent any other cookie.

Vegan and Gluten Free Apple Peanut Butter Cookies

Recipe adapted from The Tolerant Vegan
Makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies
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Ingredients

- 1 Tbsp flax, ground
- 3 Tbsp water
- 1 1/2 cups brown rice flour*
- 1/8 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I used Earth Balance Natural Shortening)
- 1/2 cup Peanut Butter (I used Nature's Promise Smooth, Salted Organic Peanut Butter)
- 1 cup organic brown sugar (I used Florida's Crystals)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 tsp gluten free vanilla
- 1 apple, peeled, cored, and diced (I used a fuji)

*When I made these I used a mixture of flours (1/2 cup brown rice four, 1/3 cup oat flour, 1/3 cup white rice flour, 1/3 cup tapioca flour).  The result was the cookies were very soft when baked.  The were delicious but a little too soft.  I think using only brown rice flour, or maybe even brown rice and oat flour, will toughen them up and make them the correct texture.  If you try it let me know the outcome!!  I will update this when I try the recipe again!

Jesicakes has been very busy...

...but I will return with new recipes next week!  I'm planning on trying a vegan and gluten free recipe inspired by my mom who just made the transition from vegetarian to vegan.  Also I have a lot of lemon curd in my freezer left over from of the reasons I haven't posted in a while so I'm going to make Poppy Seed Lemon Linzer Cookies.

So the past few weeks I did the dessert tables for two events! 

Vanilla Bean Whoopie Pies

I love Whoopie Pies but I've never made them myself, let alone tried a gluten free one.  I recently acquired some vanilla bean pods and wanted to think of a recipe to use them in.  I decided to make simple vanilla bean whoopie pies.  Then was the question of the filling.  I wanted something to compliment the vanilla bean but not overpower it.  I decided to go with a light mocha buttercream.  Once I made everything, I was 4 whoopie pies short of filling them all.  So I also whipped up some really quick strawberry buttercream as well.  Both were delicious although I think I preferred the mocha buttercream.  Coffee with a hint of chocolate didn't outshine the vanilla bean cake but paired nicely with it.  The cake was light and moist and filled with vanilla flavor.  They're a perfect balance of delicate and flavorful.  And as my boyfriend put it, the coffee flavor makes it acceptable to have them in the morning!

Vanilla Bean Whoopie Pies with Mocha Buttercream

Recipe adapted from Tracey's Culinary Adventures
Makes 2 1/2-3 dozen cookies
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Ingredients

- 3/4 cup brown rice flour
- 3/4 cup sorghum flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca flour
- 1/4 cup white rice flour
- 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder (gluten free)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, roome temperature
- 4 Tbsp shortening
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 2 Tbsp milk
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 Vanilla Bean Pods, split and seeds removed

Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies

I had this bag of Nestle half Mint half Semisweet Chocolate Chips, so for the past month I had been wanting to come up with a recipe for perfect soft center with crispy edge chocolate cookies to put these in. I found a recipe for inspiration and the outcome was exactly what I wanted. Not as dense or as extremely rich as the Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookies or the Andes Fudge or Peppermint Bark Cookies, but still nice soft, centers with crisp edges. Not too intensely rich but still having a strong chocolate flavor to pair with the mint while not overpowering it. The mint chips are perfect little bites of freshness and lightness to the cookie. These cookies are the perfect after dinner treat...chocolate and sweet with a nice bit of refreshing mint!

Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies

Recipe adapted from Ginger and Berries
Makes 2 1/2-3 dozen cookies
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Ingredients

- 1/2 cup room temperature unsalted butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 3 oz 60% chocolate
- 1 oz unsweetened chocolate
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey's, use any non-Dutch processed)
- 1/4 + 1/8 cup brown rice flour
- 1/4 + 1/8 cup sorghum flour
- 1/8 cup tapioca flour
- 1/8 cup white rice flour
- 1/8 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups of mixed Nestle mint chocolate chips and chocolate chips