Just Hatched! Mini Speckled Egg Cookies

After making these bird's nest cupcakes with speckled egg cookie toppers last year, I couldn't get speckled eggs off my brain.  They are really so simple...and so much FUN to make!

 

This year, I ditched the cupcakes, added a few colors, piped on some details, and plopped them in berry baskets. {You can get the berry baskets here.} 

Two things you must know about these cookies: 

One: Mini cookies are a lot harder to resist eating.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Two: Flicking the food coloring, it's fun.  It's so much fun that you should do it when your kids are at school...or where they can't see you.  Otherwise, I see food coloring being flicked all over your house. 
{This is a warning from the uptight mom-lifeguard-teacher-prison warden side of me.  If you are one of those cool, laid-back moms I dream of being, by all means, let your kids loose with the flicking.}

To make the mini speckled egg cookies, you will need:

•  mini egg sugar cookies

•  royal icing, tinted with AmeriColor Chocolate Brown, Ivory, Avocado Green, and Turquoise mixed with Ivory
• coupler and tips (#1.5 or #2, #1, #15 star)
• disposable icing bags
• squeeze bottles
• toothpicks
• chocolate brown food coloring
• small ramekin
• small paintbrush
• glove

Using a #1.5 or #2 tip, outline all of the cookies with chocolate brown icing.  Reserve leftover brown icing for piping details the next day. (Just place the bag in the refrigerator.)

{Have I mentioned that piping egg shapes make me nervous?  My eggs are never exactly perfectly shaped.}

Thin the ivory, green, and turquoise icings with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed.  Pour into squeeze bottles as needed.

Flood the cookies with the colors, using a toothpick to guide to edges and pop large air bubbles.

Let the cookies dry uncovered, 6-8 hours or overnight.

The next day, place all of the cookies close together on a cookie sheet.  Mix a few drops of chocolate brown food coloring with a few drops of water in a small ramekin.

Put on your glove...I learned from last year.  Dip the paintbrush in the food coloring mixture, and with one finger, flick it onto the cookies.  Rotate the cookie sheet every so often to get all of the cookies.

Let the reserved brown icing come to room temperature.  Use a #1 or a #15 star tip to add details onto the speckled cookies.

Speckled Egg Cookies...don't you want to try?!?