decorated egg cookies for a red egg party

Remember these baby face cookies that I made for a baby shower several months ago for my friend Stephanie, who was hosting a baby shower for her twin sister Selena? Well Selena's adorable baby boy was welcomed into the world last April, and when he turned 1 month she asked me to make decorated egg cookies for his Red Egg and Ginger Party!

In case you're not familiar with it, here is a description that Selena had sent me: "A Red Egg and Ginger Party is a Chinese tradition that celebrates a newborn's 30th day (1 month of life).  Eggs were considered a delicacy in China and were usually the present brought by the maternal grandmother.  The egg symbolizes fertility and renewal of life, and when it is dyed red it is believed to bring good luck to the child."

For the design of the cookie, I referenced a picture that Selena had sent me of a decorated egg cookie, which I later found on the blog Lizy B Bakes (love her work!). For the cookie cutter, I used a custom copper cutter that my husband had made me a few years ago. It was meant for these Spiderman cookies, but worked just as well for egg cookies! And for the cookie dough, I used my favorite sugar cookie recipe which can be found in my book The Hello Kitty Baking Book (and I also used the royal icing recipe in the book as well!)

Once the cookies were baked and cooled, I piped an outline around the egg with stiff white icing, and then filled it in with runny white icing. Once that had hardened after several hours, I again outlined it with stiff red icing.

Next I used stiff yellow icing to pipe the baby's name at the bottom of the egg.

Then I used stiff brown icing to pipe branches and a tiny bird nest in the middle of the cookie.

After that I added a red egg and two little blue birds.

Next came more branches with red blossoms, along with little green leaves on the bottom branches. And the final touch was the eyes and beaks for the little blue birds.

Although they weren't as perfect as the ones by Lizy B Bakes, I thought they came out pretty cute!

To go along with these decorated egg cookies, I also made goat/ram cookies, as this is the Year of the Goat/Ram (details in my next post)!

Happy one month, little Dominic! Hope you had a wonderful Red Egg and Ginger Party!