Super Mario Baking Project

The baking club at work gathers every other Monday to share our baked goods based on a predetermined theme. This week we all contributed to a Super Mario game board made completely out of baked goods (the only exception was the background graphics). We had a list of characters to choose from and I wanted to try making marzipan figurines, but was unable to get it together for this time. So I volunteered to make Fire Flower sugar cookies with royal icing. I thought this project wouldn't be too challenging, but then I wondered how I would make uniform shapes without a cookie cutter. I tried at first to do it freehand using a paring knife, but I was really unhappy with the way they turned out. So I rummaged through my stash of cookie cutters and found some leaf cookie cutters that would work, and then used a small water glass to cut out the flower. Then I carefully pressed the leaves against the flower. I decided against making a stem because i knew it would break easily. The cookies baked nicely and the next task was to frost them using four different colors of royal icing (plus black frosting for the eyes). Here are the cookies with the white center frosted:

Next I painted the leaves:

To apply the yellow and red rings around the white center, I used a pastry bag to pipe the frosting, which made nice, even rings. For the eyes, I used Wilton Black Decorating Icing.

I think the cookies turned out pretty good. Here's one with the cut out I had tried using as a template:

Everyone did a really awesome job with their baking. I thought the display was especially impressive. The Goomba cupcakes were great and the Thwomps were made out of marshmallows.