Postcard Cookies

As you may have read recently, we have had a spell in hospital with our 19 month old son who had a terrible chest infection/bronchialitis/bronchial-pneumonia/RSV virus {all the things each different doctor we saw mentioned}.  Anyway, while we were in hospital, and since we’ve been home, we’ve been so blessed by our wonderful family and a few special friends – dropping off meals, coming over for a spell to let me take a nap in the afternoon {as soon as we got home myself and my Miss 3 both came down with a cold to top it all off!}, doing our laundry, delivering cookies and generally just being lovely. 

I wanted to do something special to say Thank you!  A few weeks back I had whipped up a batch of Chocolate Sugar Cookie dough and put it straight in the freezer for a time such as this.  I also made up four batches of the delicious Best Chocolate Chip and White Chocolate, Cranberry & Cinnamon cookies, as well as another couple of varieties.  Learning that I can make cookie dough and freeze it in balls, ready to be popped into the oven any time the urge for a cookie strikes has been revolutionary in my kitchen! 

Also a while ago I saw something similar to this concept on a blog or a Facebook page or something – I can’t quite remember where I saw this idea, but since seeing it, I got busy searching for all the things I would need to give it a go.  I have since fallen head over heels in love with Etsy and purchased all the necessary components.  When my edible food pens arrived this week in the mail, I knew it was time to make this cool idea come to life. 

The process starts the same as a regular sugar cookie with the dough prep, refrigeration, rolling, cutting, baking, cooling, outlining & flooding.  And then it enters a whole new dimension. 

I used a set of foam stamps for this project, as well as these awesome Foodoodler pens which are completely food-safe.

Once my flooded icing was completely dry {left out overnight is best}, I mixed some black and red food gel colouring with a couple of drops of vodka each and painted it with a small brush directly onto the stamps.  I then made the impression on the ‘postcard’ as you would when stamping any paper surface and waited for them to dry.  

Then I used the Foodoodler pens to write a message on the surface.  After packaging them up in little cellophane bags and tying with bakers twine, they were ready to be delivered.  The batch of cookie dough didn’t make many cookies {next time I’d likely double this recipe}, but in actual fact the total yield was perfect.  We gave one ‘postcard’ to each of those lovely people who had been so gracious and kind and added another bag with some cute wee decorated hearts and it was a nice gift of thanks.