Today's raspberry ripple ice cream cookies are made with the second of my lovely samples from Sugar and Crumbs (the flavoured sugar specialists). When I was a girl, not so long ago (!), ice cream pretty much came in one flavour, vanilla. There was hard vanilla ice cream that was scooped from the tub, or the Mr Whippy sort of soft ice cream, that came from the ice-cream van, hopefully with a chocolate flake in the top and if you were really lucky a drizzle of strawberry sauce. Then, one day there was a newcomer on the block, raspberry ripple. Like the vanilla in many ways, but, with that lovely pink streak of bright raspberry flavour rippling its way through the tub. It was these childish delights I had in mind when creating these raspberry ripple ice cream cookies.
Raspberry ripple has that certain "je ne sais quois", about it, a special taste, not quite raspberry and vanilla, somehow, a little more and sugar and crumbs have captured this perfectly. This icing sugar is unmistakably raspberry ripple, not raspberry and vanilla, but exactly raspberry ripple. This is guaranteed to transport you to some other raspberry ripple time and place and if you decide to try these, it will take every ounce of will power you have not to lift that piping bag in the air and squirt it directly into your mouth.
These cookies are all made with a basic sugar cookie recipe, to see how to make, roll, cut and bake sugar cookies, have a look at this post.
You might normally expect a sugar cookie to be decorated with royal icing or perhaps using a fill and flow technique, but, I haven't really made friends with royal icing yet and fill and flow and I definitely don't get along. Because of this, I am always looking to find innovative and unusual ways to decorate a cookie using anything other than royal icing and that dreaded fill and flow technique
I am really pleased with the way these cookies turned out, I hope that you like them too, The raspberry ripple icing sugar really makes them extra special. If you do decide to pop over to sugar and crumbs to get some raspberry ripple for yourself or to see what else they have, don't forget to let them know I sent you.
Equipment
Waffle (or other) embossing mat. (I used one from Katy Sue)
Bow Mould (I used one from First Impressions)
Petal piping nozzle (I used Wilton 124)
Piping Bag
Edibles and Sundries
A batch of ice cream cone shaped sugar cookies
Sugar paste / roll out icing
Modelling paste or sugar paste treated with a little CMC, Tylose or whatever you like to use added
Gel colour (I used Squires Kitchen Rose)
Water, edible glue or piping gel
Batch of buttercream made with sugar and crumbs raspberry ripple icing sugar. See here for my buttercream recipe, or here for the sugar and crumbs buttercream recipe.
Method
Start by colouring your sugar paste pale pink and your modelling or treated sugar paste a darker pink. Both these colours have been achieved with Squires Kitchen rose gel colour. A little to get the pale pink colour and a lot more to get the darker pink. I like to use two tones of the same colour, just because you know that your colours are going to go together.
Mould a bow for each of the cookies using the darker pink colour. If you don't have any modelling paste or treated sugar paste, then use ordinary sugar paste and freeze it in the mould for about 20 minutes before popping out. You will then need to leave the frozen bows at room temperature for about 24 hours before using as they go a little sticky when they have been frozen.
Take a freshly baked and cooled sugar cookie ready for decorating. This one was cut out using an ice cream cutter from Ecrandal.
Make the ice cream cone part of the decoration before piping the butter cream. I used this waffle mat from Katy Sue (UK site, US site). I love the fact that this mat looks so ordinary and innocuous, but magically transforms sugar paste into something rather special. Any embossing mat would work well here, lace, in particular, would give a lovely vintage feel.
Roll our your sugar paste to about a half centimetre thick, then put on top of the waffle mat, press down with your fingers then roll, with a rolling pin on top to emboss the pattern. My paste doesn't usually stick to this mat, should your paste stick, use one of those cornflower pouches to dust it with cornflower or rub a small amount of vegetable fat (Trex / Crisco) onto the sugar paste before putting it on the mat.
Turn over and lift the mat off.
How such an ordinary looking mat produces such a beautiful effect is a mystery! Use your cookie cutter to cut out the cone shape from the waffle embossed sugar paste.
To get a nice shape to the top of your cone, use a large cookie cutter, to cut off everything above the cone.
Carefully lift off your cone and attach in place on your cookie. Use a little water, edible glue or piping gel to make it stick.
The first cookie, I made with the waffle pattern, the square way round, then I decided to try it the diamond way round. I decided I liked the diamond pattern better, so continued with this for the rest of the cookies.
Now for the star of the show, my butter cream icing interpretation of Mr Whippy ice cream, made with this delightful raspberry ripple icing sugar from sugar and crumbs.
The ice cream swirl is piped in ruffles using a petal nozzle. I used a fairly large one - the Wilton 124. You pipe ruffles with the wide end of the tip on the cookie and the narrow end pointing upwards, you just need to pip back and forwards in a zig zag motion to make a ruffle.
From the bottom almost to the top on the other side
From the bottom all the way to the very tip of the cookie next to where you piped the first ruffle
And then fill in the remaining gap. If your piping should go horribly wrong, just carefully scrape it off and start again.
Finally, add the moulded bow, attaching it with a little water or edible glue and you are finished.
That's all for today
Thanks for popping by and please call again soon
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