Shhhh....Sheep

I've been straining at the reigns to post these pictures but had to wait until after the surprise baby shower that these were made for.  My coworker Stacy is expecting her second child, a little boy, and the idea for the sheep theme was suggested by my other coworker, Kim, author of these two really cool blogs Cute Fan Girl Goes Local and Road to Nowhere. 

This first picture is of my prototype cookies. I was pleased with my first attempt but thought they needed to be jazzed up a bit with more color.
These were a chocolate rolled cookie and the recipe adapted from Glorious Treats.  They were ok but I think I need to adjust the recipe somewhat or try a different icing. The icing used on these cookies was a royal icing, It dries rock hard and it not flavored, can be a bit bland.



 I wanted to go with a blue and brown theme to coordinate with the colors Stacy picked for the baby's room. The cookies were flooded with blue icing and I wanted to decorate the edges with brown dots but after adding the sheep, realized there wasn't enough room. 

For these cookies I went with sugar cookies but rather than royal icing, I tried a new recipe from The Decorated Cookie, called Royal Icing (sort of).  The taste was really good and complemented the cookie.  While the icing was wet, it resembled a royal icing in it's consistency for piping and even flooding.  The recipe does state that it will not dry rock hard like royal icing but firm enough for packing/stacking. 

I decorated the cookies and let them sit overnight to dry. The following day (about 12 hours later) I stacked the cookies in 3 layers in a container to protect them with parchment paper in between each layer. Several hours later I checked on them since I wanted to be sure they were ok,. Well, unlike royal icing, this one takes a lot longer to set up.  All of the sheeps's faces on the bottom later were smooshed! I was so deflated and didn't have enough time to make a new batch! A couple cookies in the middle layer smooshed too but many and the top layer were fine. They all went back onto cookie sheets to sit out for full drying time.

On the plus side, I've been told that my cookies are too pretty to eat. Now I won't have that problem! :-)
I put the smooshed cookies on the bottom of the tray with the good ones on top.