Hello fall! Today’s cookies are decidedly in the brown tones and I thought I’d create a little post on my favorite brown food gel colorings to share with you, and as a great visual reminder to me when I’m looking for a specific brown shade.

You could technically start with almost any shade of brown and make the brown icing warmer by adding orange or yellow food gels, darker with touches of black, and bluer with blue food coloring etc., but sometimes it’s nice to just begin with the brown you already want to achieve.

It saves time, especially if you have myriad of icing colors to make, and takes a little bit of the experimenting out of it.

That being said, you may need to tweak just a bit, especially if you’re trying to achieve a very specific color, for example, matching to a brand logo. Starting with as close as possible helps, and then adding different colors to slightly change the shade might be necessary.

Again, you may not need to match colors perfectly, so perhaps the exact shade isn’t important, but in the case of these cookies, I wanted to match them to the design inspiration as closely as possible (More on the source in a bit).

Favorite Brown Food Gel Colors

In the photo below, you can see dabs of royal icing on a plate and a few drops of each brown food gel mixed in with a toothpick.

More or less drops of each will of course make deeper or lighter shades of each. You can see how the Americolor Espresso Brown is a deep, dark brown, the Sugarflair Woodland Brown has quite the reddish tinge, and Sugarflair Honey Brown is very golden. Rainbow Dust Brown and Wilton Brown are two of my favorites for a “generic” mid-tone brown, as is the Americolor Mauve, which surprising does really nicely as a brown (to my eyes). I’ll list my favorites below (these are Amazon affiliate links):

• Americolor Espresso Brown
• Sugarflair Brown
• Sugarflair Woodland Brown
• Wilton Brown
• Sugarflair Honey Brown
• Americolor Mauve
• Rainbow Dust Brown

Let me know in the comment section or social media if you have any questions, happy to help!

Autumn Girl and Bunny Cookies

I have such a soft spot for bunnies, having had them as pets since 2010, and have long auburn hair, so these cookies were a lovely representation.

That’s my Ginger, above.

Thank you so much to Sherry of How Sweet is That? and Tracy of Wella Cookie Cutter Co. for making the beautiful custom cookie cutters for me!

You can find the cutters by clicking on the links below. Note that one of the fall floral cutters are available for sale in Wella Cookie Cutter Co.’s shop, and the Girl with Bunnies and other fall floral cutter can be requested as a custom cutter:

Bunny 1

Bunny 2

Girl with Bunnies – Custom cutter by Wella Cookie Cutter Co

Fall Floral – Custom cutter by Wella Cookie Cutter Co

Whimsical Flower – Custom cutter by Wella Cookie Cutter Co

Cookie Design

The girl and bunnies, as well as the rose and whimsical flower, are designed by Teaghan White, an extremely talented artist and designer of the fabric and print pictured above.

She has illustrated some charming and gorgeous children’s books, which you can find HERE.

Making the Cookies

I will be posting a video on decorating these videos as soon as I can get it done, but for now, below are links to recipes I used.

Royal Icing Recipe

Spiced Apple Cut Out Sugar Cookie Recipe

Since I need help in the drawing department, I used the AAXA P8 Smart Projector. It’s plugged into my Samsung Galaxy Tablet and mounted on an Arkon mount.  The mount is called the Remarkable Creators Phone and Tablet Stand, is $139.95 and you can get it on Arkon’s site here. You can get 20% off with the coupon code sweetopia. You should know I am an affiliate of Arkon and Amazon, but only share products I use and love with you.

I think that’s everything for now! I’ll be back soon with videos of these cookies being decorated.

Please feel free to ask me any questions in the comment section or on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube.

Happy fall!

xo,

Marian