Here’s a vertical view of Julia’s royal icing poppies, just to give you another look at their lifelike dimensionality. Every petal, pod, leaf, and stem was individually piped, shaped, and then, once dry, placed on the cookie piecework-style to create
In addition to using both regular and contoured royal icing transfers, Julia’s dimensional poppy cookies are a triumph of other techniques. Royal icing “putty” (a term Julia coined to refer to icing so thick it can be hand-modeled) was used
On some of her poppy cookies, Julia managed to slip in yet another technique! She rubber-stamped messages on wafer paper and stuck them behind petals and stems to add more interest – and meaning. (Poppies are a symbol of remembrance,
How often have you seen a set of cookies at a distance, which you thought looked great, only to later discover upon zooming in that the icing consistency wasn’t quite right?! Icing mishaps happen all too often, but Julia’s poppies
Here’s another zoomed-in view of one of Julia’s dimensional poppy cookies, just to assure you that well-piped results can be achieved as long as you work with the right icing consistency. To learn all about the various icing consistencies used
Here’s a vertical view of Julia’s clematis cookies so you can take in their crazy-good dimensionality from another angle. Each of the flower parts was handpiped with royal icing, and many were subsequently shaped to create contoured royal icing transfers
Let’s zoom in now so you can appreciate all of Julia’s incredible clematis details. The white trellis in the background consists of three stenciled royal icing transfers, whereas the open clematis flower is comprised of 17 individually piped and airbrushed
Another variation of Julia’s crazy clematis cookie! One of the advantages of the piecework technique used here is that the individual icing parts can be shuffled around to try out layouts before anything gets permanently committed to cookies. Another advantage
Wow, just look at this 17-piece flower! Each petal was individually handpiped, shaped, and dried before being airbrushed to introduce realistic gradations of color. A complex propping process was also required to keep the tiny pink petals upright during the
Here, the view on Julia’s dogwood cookies has shifted to hopefully give you a better appreciation for how dimensional these cookies appear from all angles. By making all of the flower parts as royal icing transfers, Julia is able to
Though this overhead view of Julia’s dogwood cookies doesn’t highlight their full dimensionality, it sure is a pleasing one from a photo composition standpoint! It also underscores how using a common cutter shape (Julia’s Genie Plaque) can create a unifying
To make her true-to-life florals, Julia always studies the real flowers long before she starts any decorating and then devises ways to replicate the critical details in cookies or icing. When the flowers are out of season, she relies on
Not only are this cookie’s royal icing details incredible, but they are also beautifully underscored by Julia’s choice of background stencil. She elected to use one of her own design (the background stencil in her Mr. & Mrs. Prettier Plaques™
Yes, there are just so many pretty ways to configure these royal icing dogwood pieces into splendid designs. In this vignette, a cookie with a pink stenciled background looks stunning against the backdrop of others all in white. For more
Bet you did a double take when you first saw these snowdrop cookies! Yes, they’re so lifelike that they easily trick people into thinking they’re the real thing. After studying countless photographs and actual plant specimens, Julia experimented with icing
Given the amount of thought and work that went into each snowdrop flower, it would have been easiest for Julia to skimp on these cookies’ backgrounds. But, oh no! No inveterate more-is-more person ever cuts corners. For the backgrounds, Julia
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