Congrats!!!

It's that time of year again when many of my friends are getting engaged and/or married!! IT'S MY FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR!! One of my good friends, Lauren, got engaged to the love of her life, Daniel, over the weekend. Lauren, Sarah, and I are going to get gelato tomorrow night and I wanted to take Lauren a little something special to let her know how excited we are for her. 

After chilling my chocolate chip cookie dough for about 20 minutes, I rolled it out about 1/2 inch thick.

Then I used cookie cutters and placed the dough on my pizza stone. Yea... I know, weird, but I like cooking on the pizza stone because it is easier to get my spatula underneath the cookies when I transfer them to the cooling rack. 

After baking the cookies, I set them out on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes. During this time I make my royal icing. I use about 4 cups of powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons of meringue, and 6 tablespoons of liquid (water/vanilla/almond). Then I mix on high for approximately 6 minutes. 

Once the icing is finished, I separate it into piles and start mixing up the colors I am going to use. I then use the royal icing to outline my shapes. I noticed that my chocolate chip cookie dough never seems to hold shape the way the sugar cookie dough does. Sometimes I take the cookie cutter and go back over the chocolate chip cookies once they come out of the oven, but I didn't do that this time. I wait about 20 minutes for the outline to dry, add water to the royal icing so that it will spread over the cookie easier, and then I begin flooding. 

After about 30 minutes, I added the monogramming and then the polka dots. 

In the morning I will wrap them up, tie a little ribbon around it, and give them to the new bride-to-be to enjoy! It's all very simple. Give it a try and let me know if you have any advice!!

Congrats Lauren and Daniel!!