Summertime and the livin’ is easy. I wish! This summer has been the crazy busiest I’ve ever had and it doesn’t slow down until August. But I can imagine I have all the time in the world to sit on the beach combing through the sand for treasures and chasing down the ice cream truck. Those are the images I wanted to capture with this month’s McGoo U class.
Our palette for July is mostly red, white, and blue with some fun textures. There are a lot of techniques this month including wet-on-wet, stippling, royal icing transfers, a glass effect, and some unexpected piping techniques. My awesomely talented friends who came to decorate the summer day away with me were Christina Ramsey who is a fantastic cookier but not on Facebook, Andrea Garner of Bella Cakes, and Sally Fraise of Sweetiedoodle.
The ever so lovely Laura Ewing of Cadillac Cookies and familiar face around the U, came to teach us a thing or two… or a million in the Expert Lab. She amazes me with all of the techniques she has mastered in the 18 months she has been cookieying! She came to the Expert Lab armed with an airbrush gun and blew me away when she showed me how she makes her adorable shave ice cookie design that is perfect for summer and will inspire you to pull out your airbrush. And FYI she has an awesome tutorial on Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle on how to take apart and clean your airbrush. I used it just the other day and it saved my sanity and my airbrush!. Brilliant!
All of us gathered around the kitchen table for a chat with Laura In Mixing it Up! We discuss procrastibaking, is there crying in cookies? and finding a balance between being artistic and a perfectionist.
Have you ever wondered what it is like at Real Media? who’s behind these cameras? and what a day looks like? We take you behind the scenes of McGoo U in After School! The crew and I have a lot of fun and work really hard to create new episodes every month. Take a look at a day in the life of our McGoo U crew!
Thank you so much to my fabulous fellow decorators Sally, Andrea, and Christina, for decorating awesome summer cookies with me! We did a little series of McGoo U classes together and had so much fun with them. A special thank you to Laura for sharing her airbrushing knowledge with us and always being willing to help lend a hand or a forgotten tool or supply. Since she lives so close to the studio, she has become an invaluable support and friend to the show and to me. Thank YOU!
All of the segments can be viewed as a show, but the McGoo U in particular is meant to be a class experience that you can cookie right along with. So, if you’d like to cookie with me, here is what you will need for this month’s McGoo U:
McGoo U July Supply List
- Cookies: jar, ice cream sundae, bus cutter + mini cupcake (or do it the easy way and get the cutter from Bobbi’s Cookies & Cutters)
- Royal Icing
- food coloring (see color guide below)
- Piping bags (optional closure of your choice)
- couplers & rings (optional)
- 4: #1.5 or #1 tips
- 1: #2 tips
- Filbert paintbrush
- (optional) stippling brush
- wax paper
- sanding sugar
- 2 silver dragees
- 1 pearl dragee
- multi-collored jimmies and/or sprinkles
- Paint palette with silver metallic airbrush color + silver luster dust (new silver)
- (optional) can of silver metallic spray or airbrush
- scribe tool or toothpick
- cup of water
- paper towel
Prepare:
- Fill one piping bag with white royal icing of piping consistency, coupler, and a #1 or 1.5 tip
- Fill one piping bag with flood-consistency white royal icing, coupler, and #1 or 1.5 tip
- Fill one piping bag with flood-consistency pale blue royal icing, coupler, and #2
- Fill one piping bag with flood-consistency red royal icing, coupler, and #1 or #1.5 tip
- Fill one piping bag with flood-consistency brown royal icing, coupler, and #1 or #1.5 tip
- Color a small amount of black flood-consistency and put in either a tipless bag or a small lidded cup.
- Color a small amount of beige flood-consistency and put in either a tipless bag or a small lidded cup
Color Recipes:
Pale Blue: Wilton Sky Blue, very small amount
Red: Americolor Super Red
Green: Americolor Chocolate Brown
Black: Americolor Very Black
Beige: Wilton Ivory + a little bit of the brown frosting added
Consistencies: Cookiers develop their preference of thickness through experience. The piping consistency I prefer is very thick and I typically use a 12 second flood. To determine what thickness your flood is: run a knife through your thinned royal icing and count the seconds for the surface to become smooth again.
FYI: When I say “fill one piping bag” the amount completely depends on how many cookies you are making. If you decorate 3 cookies you will only need a very small amount of RI in your bag.
A lot of these supplies can be modified to your preferences. If you use tipless bags, you can forgo the tips entirely (except when petal tips are used) or you can choose to use different food colorings. (Click here for a detailed guide to setting up your palette for painting) I always appreciate when people make things their own and let their own creativity be their guide. I’d love to see your creations! This is all about having fun and not stressing. Happy cookie-ying!
