Art Museum Inspired Ginger Cookies

 Last week I posted about my plans for the staff cookie exchange and my art museum inspired cookies. I had watched a video online about painting fondant. I learned about fondant at a class I took at Bettie's Cakes.  I bought a huge box of it at a craft store. I also bought some gel food colors, and some vodka. I rolled out the fondant and cut it up in squares. The first batch I did I put too much vodka mixed in with the colors. This made them take forever to dry, and therefore the coloring was still wet while the fondant got a little hard. You want a little vodka (you can also use vanilla or lemon extract). It is not like a watercolor painting. You just want to add a very small amount to thin it a little bit, and prevent the color from globbing up. I also bought some brushes from the cake decorating section of the craft store.

 This is my Edward Hopper's "Morning in a City".

After they got a little hard, and I had a disastrous time trying to put plastic wrap over the baking sheets they were on, and I realized it might be better to paint the fondant after the cookies were made. I made the ginger sugar cookies recipe from The Gourmet Cookie Book. The recipe is originally from the 1930s, and it is not dry or hard like a lot of gingerbread recipes. We tested it out and it wasn't too soft to hold up to the frosting either. I rolled out the dough and cut it in squares.

Here's my Sol Lewitt Wall Drawing cookies.

Grant Wood's "Death on the Ridge Road".

This is a very fun way to decorate baked goods. The possibilities are endless - a family portrait, a cupid for Valentine's Day - anything you can think of to paint. My only advice is to wait until they dry to put plastic wrap over them, and do not use too much vodka to thin the color - just a few drops at a time. Now I am very excited to see what the rest of my coworkers have made!