It’s been some months since Cookie Con, a convention for sugar cookie artists. This is the third time I have been able to attend and this year I decided to stretch myself and enter a piece into their Sugar Show. Each year they have three different categories and four different levels in which to enter. Since I have never won a competition (and only entered one other), I placed myself in the beginner skill level and entered in the “beach” category. After much thought and a few different ideas (I’ll share that cookie later), I landed on a little beach hut. With a 3D cookie, there were certain requirements to meet, but the main thing was that you could not have more than 6 cookies.
I was flying down to Orlando, so whatever I made I needed to carry with me on the plane. I put all the pieces in a sturdy shoe box and wrapped each piece in bubble wrap. Traveling with cookies is so much scarier than I thought! It was like carrying a baby around; I kept checking the cookies every 5 minutes! Besides decorating the cookies with royal icing, I wanted to add a few challenging elements–fondant, isomalt, airbrushing, and edible paper.
Here is a sketch of the design I came up with.
For the most part, as I was building the hut, I kept to the design. Having only 6 pieces made it a bit of a challenge, because there was more I wanted to include. Instead of closing up the hut, I opted for it to be open and added a surf board. It also allowed for me to decorate the inside of the hut. This was the base of the cookie, the roof, and the surf board.
I added texture to the inside walls of the hut to resemble wood.
These were all the pieces I made out of fondant and edible paper. The many seashells covered the roof.
I used isomalt to mimic a glass window.
A few things I learned about 3D pieces. One, make sure you bake the cookie for a longer period of time. The base of my cookie was softer than it should have been, despite me leaving it out to harden for over a week. Because it was soft, it cracked on the plane. (I didn’t notice this until I took every piece out of bubble wrap, so I guess my checking the cookies every 5 minutes didn’t really work out, haha.) Even though I used icing to glue it together, it took a full day to dry, due to issue number two.
Two, humidity is really not your friend. Yes I know it was Florida in June, and I do deal with it in North Carolina, but the moisture in the hotel room was not to be messed with! I brought super stiff icing to glue the hut together, but even keeping the icing in the fridge until I was ready to pipe, the scalloped edges drooped so badly I had to use a different technique. (I made stars.)
Three, plan way ahead of time, even more time than you think you need. The day before I left I airbrushed white stripes on the blue walls, but it came out splotchy. I had never seen anything like that before (and I’ve airbrushed quite a bit!). I thought maybe my blue icing wasn’t fully dry, so I tried airbrushing again the next morning. Nothing like a panic to set your mind racing! It still had issues, so next time I might flip and have blue airbrushing. Still don’t know why I had this problem.
Even with all the setbacks I experienced and the thought of not bringing my piece down to be judged (as I was not 100% happy with it), I am really glad I did. It challenged me in ways I would not have been otherwise. Seeing all the other Sugar Show pieces inspired me with my next show piece. There were so many amazing designs!
Here is the finished piece displayed for viewing and judging.
I couldn’t believe that I won. What an honor it was! And the piece was also featured in American Cake Decorating’s Sept/Oct issue. Such an added bonus. Until the next cookie challenge! xoxo
2 Comments
This is fabulous! Congratulations on your award!
Thank you! It was surreal for sure. :)