Watercolor Perfume Bottle Cookies
It’s funny how an idea for a cookie develops. First, I was inspired to make perfume bottle cookies after seeing a new Chanel ad campaign at the mall. You can catch that very easy tutorial in my Instagram Story highlights.
But after making the moss covered cookies I still had a few perfume bottle shaped cookies to play with and was trying to think of a quick and easy way to decorate them.
Enter fondant and watercolor! Topping cookies in fondant and painting them with a “watercolor” is one of my favorite quick and easy decorating techniques.
And doesn’t it make such a beautiful cookie?
What You Need
To make these cookies, you need a few supplies that you may not have on hand since these use fondant.
Sugar cookies shaped like perfume bottles. (this is the cookie cutter I used, or you can cut by hand with a pen blade.)
A fondant roller (a normal rolling pin would be fine, too)
Clear alcohol (I recommend Everclear or Vodka)
How to Make Them
This is the fun part! One thing I love about watercolor is that it doesn’t have to precise and it open to interpretation. You can use one, two, three, or more colors if you want using the same technique. Although I recommend only using 1 or 2.
First, roll out the fondant to about 1/4 inch thick and cut it out using the same cookie cutter. Adhere it to the cookie with a bit of water. I like to let my fondant dry a little bit before painting on top, so while that happens you can make the labels.
To make the labels, roll the fondant out and cut out to a square or rectangle. If you have time, let harden before writing on top. Use a black marker to write on the label. If you have a projector, that will help ensure the letters are spaced properly.
Then you can start painting away! I start by dabbing gel food directly onto the fondant, then I use the alcohol as my “water” to blend the color over the fondant. The final touch is to add drops of vodka to the top.
Once the paint has dried, stick the label on top by painting a little water on the back. Then you can start sketching in the details with the black food marker.
I found it helpful to Google “Chanel perfume bottle sketch” to see where I should draw the lines.
A quick not on using fondant versus royal icing. I used fondant for this technique primarily because it’s easy and didn’t require me to whip up a batch of icing and then wait for it to dry after it was piped.
But fondant is also preferred because of the amount of alcohol used to create the watercolor effect. While alcohol evaporates quickly, it can degrade the icing if too much is used at once. Fondant will not degrade and will only become sticky until it dries out again.
And that is all you need to know to make these beautiful cookies! I love them so much and I know I will be making them again!