Printer-friendly versionMy dear friend Liz moved away two years ago, but she recently came back for a visit. She's always been my biggest fan and supporter, so I decided to make her some special sugar cookies. She doesn't get to enjoy all my experiments and leftovers now that she's several states away, after all. I've been wanting to try making geode crystal cookies for a while, and thought this was a perfect opportunity.
Purple geode crystal cookies, because purple is Liz's favorite color.
I made a few standard geode slice type cookies, but then went full-on-punny and made some "Liz Rocks" sugar cookies, too. I didn't have a full alphabet of cookie cutter letters, so I just hand-cut them out with a sharp knife. I figure geodes should look organic and kind of wonky, right?
I even liked that the knife kind of made ragged, cracked edges to the cookies when I cut the dough, because I thought it looked more like the rough exterior of a geode that way.
And look, I made a video tutorial for you, too! Check the top of the page.
Sparkling Sugar Cookie Geodes Tutorial:
Materials for Sugar Cookie Geodes:
- one batch of sugar cookie dough (here's my favorite recipe)
- one batch of white royal icing
- clear (uncolored) rock candy crystals
- gel food coloring, thinned with vodka or everclear
- Gold luster dust
Roll out the sugar cookie dough (you could even use store bought sugar cookie dough) and use a sharp paring knife to cut oval and oblong shapes. Cut the centers out of some of the cookies, and press the dough down so that it's thinner toward the center hole. Bake cookies according to directions and let cool.
I experimented with colored rock candy and just plain clear/white rock candy crystals, and using the smaller, loose, uncolored candy crystals turned out to be WAY easier and way better looking than the pretty pre-colored crystals.
The rock candy on sticks worked better than the larger rock candy on string, if that's all you have around. It was easy to break apart the crystals, but it was SO hard to get all the string out of the pieces. My recommendation? Stick to the lose, uncolored crystals and add the color later.
Use piping consistency icing (thicker, not flooding consistency), and embed the rock crystals in the royal icing. Let dry.
When the royal icing on the cookies has dried, thin food coloring with some vodka or everclear (you could use water, but the alcohol evaporates much more quickly and works better) and paint the clear crystals to turn them into colorful geodes. With this kind of watercolor style food coloring painting, the colors blend gorgeously, and it's easy to make cookies with beautiful ranges of color.
I ended up liking the cookies with larger holes in the center than the ones with smaller holes. I didn't expect that, but I'll be sure to remember that the next time I make these.
Who rocks your life? That person deserves a cookie, doesn't she?
Other Gemstone, Geode, and Crystal Posts You Might Like:
Other Sugar Cookies You might Like:
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