Check it off the list, babay!

So, I did it! With the help from my dear friend Jessie, I finally decorated sugar cookies with royal icing. For those of you who are not bakers: it's not your standard icing that you spread on with a knife... it's fancy. You've got to do all these crazy things and all this crazy prep work (which Jessie pretty much did all by her lonesome; have I mentioned she's awesome?) but it was fun and looks pretty! Jessie and I both decided that we like normal frosting better (if you want to see my favorite recipe for sugar cookies with normal frosting, go here) but it was still a fun experience trying something new and expanding our baking horizons...

Anyway, number 19 of my 24 Things Before 24 Years is officially checked off the list! (I have also met three new co-workers AND have been writing down the beauties of the day AND have written two letters. I'm on a roll...) Here's a picture play by play of the royal icing experience... (Also, you can go here to hear Jessie's take on the experience.)

Here's all the crazy stuff that decorating cookies with royal icing requires. Well, at least according to Annie's Eats it is. And we love Annie, so we went with what she said.

Step 1: Outline the cookies. Easy enough, right?

Step 2: Kill some time by drinking slushie. Here's my beautiful friend Jessie.

Step 3: After waiting an hour and drinking lots of slushie, we filled it in! We attempted to do the marbling effect that yet another baking blog showed us how to do.

Check out all of those cookies!

Some intense decorating going on here...

Let me interpret Jessie's face: "This is disgusting!" We later decided she was being a tad dramatic but truth is, royal icing just isn't as good as the other stuff.

Tada! Jessie's favorites that she decorated.
Jessie's favorite's closer up. (Yep, that's a swirly dinosaur. Don't act like you're not jealous...)
My favorite's that I decorated. Not sure if you can tell, but that's a beach ball. In honor of my trip to Florida tomorrow!

Can't wait to keep the list coming! (P.S. Joy the Baker totally commented on my post about her. Kind of made my day, ok, maybe my week.)