It seems that I’m partial to making decorated fruit cookies lately, with these citrus slice cookies from last week, and now these cherry fellas. (Yes, I think I just did call my cookies fellas). Besides being fitting for this time of the year (sweet, tart, tasty cherries have always been a happy reminder of summer for me), there’s a beautiful reason behind why I made these.
And it has to do with cherries (in my case), KitchenAid and this beautiful plate:
Let me back up a bit and explain.
KitchenAid, as a part of their 1,000 Cooks for the Cure efforts, has invited us to host a party (of any kind) at our homes any time from July 20th-July 29th. Rather than bringing a housewarming gift, food or wine, guests could instead bring a small donation for Susan G. Komen for the Cure to help the fight against breast cancer. Their goal is to reach 1,000 homes and offices in the one week period!
I decided to invite my family members to participate, and made the party theme a cherry one, to match the beautiful plate featuring artwork created by award-winning cooking show host, Jacques Pepin. Villeroy & Broch and Pepin have teamed up to produce 5,000 of these limited edition plates. Besides the artwork, the beauty of this plate is that when you purchase or receive it, make a favorite recipe, put it on the plate and pass it to a friend, each time the plate is passed and registered, KitchenAid will make a $5 donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Any party host that raises $50 or more will receive a free plate designed by Jacques Pepin in the mail, and anyone who hosts a party and registers it on KitchenAid’s website will automatically be entered to receive the ultimate “thank you” from Jacques Pepin himself!
Join me on this sweet journey by hosting your own cherry (or anything) kind of gathering. I’ve got a cherry cookie decorating tutorial for you below, and the recipe for these cherry coconut cupcakes is coming soon. (Update – Recipe can be found here).
Here are the links to help you get started:
- Host a Party during 1,000 Cooks for the Cure
- Share the Love with Pass the Plate
Another way to help out the cause too is to purchase pink KitchenAid products (don’t have to convince me to buy anything pink!). A donation is made for each Cook for the Cure product sold.
*
Cherry Cookie How-To
A special thank you goes out to Jamie and Eric Border of ecrandal copper cookie cutters for donating the beautiful, handmade cherry cookie cutters used to make these cookies. Every one of their copper cutters are hand-crafted by Eric, without the use of any automated machinery. You can tell that meticulous attention to detail is given to desiging each unique one, and I’m so thrilled to be able to add these to my collection. You can find another example of cookies I’ve made using their cutters here, and if you’d like to find their cherry cutters, click here.
Before we get into the cookie decorating, a little about the cookies themselves:
- I used my gingerbread recipe as I wasn’t quite ready with my cherry cookie recipe at the time of the party, but have finished it now. You can find it below.
- These cookies are fragile due to their long (but beautiful) stem. Best served on a platter or as a favor in a cute, clear box supported with sizzle, rather than in a cellophane bag.
- I used this ball tool (below) to help me gently remove the cookies from the cutter. You can see the indentations in the cookie, but it was the best solution I could think of to help remove the cookie without breaking it. Dipping the cutter in a bit of flour first helps a bit too. Happy to hear more suggestions if you have them!
The small indentations could be covered with icing if you like. I did that for some of my cookies, but ended up liking a slim line of icing for the cherry stem instead (which doesn’t cover the indents up).
*
How to Make Cherry Decorated Cookies
Click on the item below to find it online:
What you’ll need
What you’ll need
*
*
*
*
*
How to Ice the Cherry Cookies
Here’s a pictorial summary for you:
Step 1. – Outlining – Using a #3 piping tip, outline the cherry with red royal icing. I like using a larger piping tip to outline and fill in larger areas, as the ‘flooding’ goes faster.
Step 2. – Flooding – Fill in the center of your cookie with the same piping bag and icing, either right away to help the icing melt into each other, or 10 minutes later if you’d like to see a distinct outline. I use the same icing to outline and fill in, as it saves time. Here’s a video if you’d like to see how.
Step 3. – Shaking – Shake gently to help smooth icing over. A couple of tips – You need to be gentle with the cookie while you’re shaking it, so that it doesn’t break, and working quickly is important so that the base doesn’t start to dry.
Step 4: – Wet on Wet Technique – Using a #3 piping tip and white icing, pipe a small semi-circle close to one edge of the cherry, to try and simulate the look of a reflection. Shake gently.
Step 5: – Piping the Stem – Using a #2 tip, pipe either a single line for the stem or a thicker line (covering the whole surface of the cookie stem). Outline the leaf and flood immediately.
Step 7. – Drying – Let your icing dry for 12-24 hours. If you’d like to see a video on drying decorated cookies click here.
A few notes about the cherry cookies:
- Adapted from my shortbread recipe.
- You could leave the maraschino cherries out (or chop them finer than I did!)
- Add maraschino juice and cherries to this sugar cookie recipe for a sturdier cookie. I’m enjoying the melt-in-your mouth flavour of the shortbread right now, so really wanted to adapt that one. If you try the sugar cookie version, if your dough is too sticky once you add the cherry juice, slowly add more flour until you’re happy wth the texture
- The recipe isn’t sweet… The icing on the top of the cookie is meant to add sweetness, while the cookie is meant to have a melt-in-your-mouth texture/base.
*
Cherry Shortbread Recipe
{Click here to find printable recipe}
Thank you for reading me here, I appreciate each and every comment, and love to hear from you!
If you’d like, drop me a line below, on Facebook, twitter, youtube or instagram, if you have any questions or comments.
Have fun baking!
xo,
Marian
p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’d like to find out about my newest videos.
p.s.s. 
yum! And how fun, I so have to do this next year:) And I always buy the pink things when I see them, I so want a pink kitchen aid, but a huge one, they don’t make them that big:(
The cherries are so cute!
These cookies are SO great! I have a little bit of a vintage cherry obsession and you’re totally giving my a fix. 🙂 I can’t wait to try them for myself.
They are ABSOLUTELY precious, Marian! I have that cookie cutter…you are inspiring me to get it out and USE it! I cannot wait to try your cherry cookie recipe, too!
The cherry design is super cute! Most of all I’m excited to try a cherry flavored cut out!
One thing I do to reduce distortion of cut out cookies is to roll the dough onto parchment paper and cut shapes out at the distance I usually use for baking. Then I gentle remove the surrounding dough without disturbing the cookie itself and transfer the parchment paper to a cookie sheet. This works well for shapes with thin parts like stems or legs or ears.
Hi @ sue @ Cakeballs, cookies and more: Oh I know what you mean! Wouldn’t the 7 quart be beautiful in pink?! Hopefully it’s just a matter of time.
Thanks, @ Maria!
That’s a great obsession to have! @ Julie @White Lights on Wednesday
Thanks @ bridget {bake at 350}! So many cutters, so little time! =)
Yay! Have fun, @ Janine (sugarkissed.net)!
Thanks so much for sharing, @ Susan!
What a lovely cookie (and recipe) and a great reason to throw a party! I’m sure all your family had a great time and enjoyed eating these cookies as much as they enjoyed raising the money for such a worthy cause.
Oh those look so good! I was also wondering if the cherries in the shortbread have to be maraschino. I have a lot of fresh cherries on hand and would love to use them.
Thanks so much @ Paula for your sweet comment!
Hi @ Cassie D.: Absolutely, use fresh ones for sure! It’ll be a little harder to get your juice out, I think, but you never know! Fresh is always better in my opinion. Let me know how it goes!
Perfect work as always!
Thanks for your kindness, as usual, @ Eftychia!
These are so incredibly cute. I love cherries and it would be perfect to find some cherry flavouring to add to the royal icing too! I loved the citrus slices too. Can’t wait to see the coconut cupcakes. They’re so pretty.
P.S. I’m not sure if you were subscribed to my blog but if you are, I changed servers on my blog so if you were subscribed, you may need to re-subscribe. See this post.
beautiful work like always… love your presentation and tutorial. great way of raising money for breast cancer.
ML
Hi Marion. Your blog is amazing and inspiring for a newbie blogger and first time author that I have nominated you for an award – check it out here: http://www.aliceinbakingland.com/awards-and-other-lazy-sunday-afternoon-doings/ Hopefully it’ll gain you a few new readers from New Zealand xAlice
Thanks again for another amazing post! Always admire your talent!!
you are my idol
They are perfect!!! even without icing!!! :p
@ Susan: How do you do this? I have tried , but found it very difficult because the parchment paper moves around. Thanks!
Hi Marian,
What an amazing design. The theme and presentation looks incredible. I’m a big fan of the cherries. Wish I had the patience and talent you do 🙂
X
Hi @ Tammy: If you let a little bit of the parchment paper hang over the counter, and then you lean against it, it won’t roll around.
Thanks for letting me know, @ Lisa {Sweet 2 Eat Baking} and for dropping by!
@ Maria, @ Alice Arndell, @ Julie, @ rosmawati, @ briciola, @ Nina: Thanks guys!
Stunning Cherries! Can’t wait to try making some cherry cookies…problem for me is to find cherry cookie cutter in my country 🙁
I’m trying this out today!
@Marian & @ Tammy – that is exactly what I do too – lean on the parchment to keep it in place while rolling, works great for me!
Your cherry cookies are beautiful Marian. I’ve also printed out your cherry shortbread cookie recipe to give it a try. That was very nice of Eric & Jamie to send you the cherry cookie cutters for this worthwhile cause. Thanks for sharing the information about pass the plate and hosting the fundraiser! Cristin
Thanks, @ Samantha Lee! I hope you find a cutter!
@ Janice, @ Cristin (Pinkie) of Cristin’s Cookies: Just an fyi, I forgot to put in the recipe where the cherry juice and chopped cherries go. I put them in at the end, after the dry ingredients. Thought I’d let you know as I’ll have the recipe corrected by tomorrow! xo
This dough is so easy to work with – I love the texture. I added almond extract to bump up the cherry flavor but I think I could do with even more because we really like cherries. The cookies are great. I did not have the cutters that Marian used so I improvised and my cutters must be a LOT smaller than the cherry cutters Marian used because this recipe made dozens of delicious melt-in-your-mouth cherry shortbread cookies!
Oh that’s so great to hear, @ Janice! Thanks SO much for being a tester and communicating with me along the way! xo
The cookies look absolutely delectable! Your instructions are always so detailed. I cant wait to try these out.
Thanks so much, @ Norman!
Thank you for leaving in the cups and tbs measurements. I’m not that great at doing the conversions to grams, etc. so I really appreciate it when you provide both! The cherry cookies are really cute, can’t wait to try the cherry shortbread.
Marian, these cookies are so beautiful!! I threw my Cook for the Cure party last night and it was a blast!
Thanks, @ JulieD! Can’t wait to see yours! I haven’t seen it yet, haven’t been on Instagram much the last few days. Off to see your blog. =)
Wow, Marian! Your cherry-cookies are amazing…as usual! Great idea, to join a cooking party with such a beautiful reason! I have to try your cherry-cookie recipe. I’ll write you back with my experience, but IT won’t be so nice as yours, for sure!
Best wishes from Spain!
What great ideas, Im looking forward to my next bake day.
Love your ideas, keep them coming.
I am always impressed by your work. You should come to Ottawa and teach us 🙂
Oh, I’ll bet it will, @ Isabel! Looking forward to hearing all about it. Besos 😉
@ alice soepboer: Thanks so much for dropping by and commenting! xo
@ Helene: That would be fun! You could teach me some of your delectable, savoury dishes. 🙂 I get hungry every time I visit your site.
Hi Marian-
On the Gingerbread recipe, do you have the measurement equivalents for those of us who do not weigh ingredients, specifically for the flour and butter? Thanks so much!
Hello
I always follow your posts. They are really interesing!
At this moment, I’m starting a new blog of cookies and other sweets. If someone wants to look it, this is the web:
http://sweeteningtheworld.wordpress.com/
Thank you!
Marian, not sure if you answered this question before…. how do you achieve large batches of Red Royal Icing? So hard for me to accomplish this. Just makes the taste so bad. Do you have problems making Red RI? Can u give me any tips? How about a tutorial? I tried mixing Soft Pink with Super Red but i don’t see it getting red. 🙁
Hi @ Yaneri: Unfortunately, it’s a lot of red coloring. You could try Wilton’s ‘no-taste’ red and here is a post on how I color deep colors such as black (same idea for red):
https://sweetopia.net/2011/05/how-to-color-royal-icing-black/
these are BEYOND cute!!!
Those cherry cookies look so good!
When do you add the rest of the ingredients in the Cherry Shortbread recipe? It only talks about the dry ingredients and the butter.