Mother's Day Cookie Pops Flower Bouquet

My mom received a birthday gift and early Mother's Day gift a week ago.  I've been pondering for weeks as to what could get delivered to my mom's house on Mother's Day.  Candies? Cookies?  Flowers? 

My mom loves flowers, so why not have fresh flowers delivered?  I was going through the different flower arrangements, and I embarked on Proflowers.com "gourmet gifts" section.  Looked at their tulip sugar cookie flower arrangement and thought to myself "I can totally do this!".

I don't have that much experience with decorating sugar cookies, but something tells me that this might be my next obsession (cupcakes will always be my first love).  I've decorated sugar cookies once, and it was for one of my friends baby showers. 

Now that I found a great sugar cookie recipe that isn't too sweet and does not give me headaches as the previous rolled sugar cookie recipe did, I think I'm totally into this.  I used Alton Brown's royal icing recipe.  Though, one of these days, I should try out "The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies" icing recipe.

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies from Food.com
Cookie ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Note: This recipe yield 44 flower cookies for me, but it's dependent on the size of your cookie cutters.

Alton Brown's Royal Icing from The Food Network
Ingredients
3 ounces pasteurized egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions
In large bowl of stand mixer combine the egg whites and vanilla and beat until frothy.

Add confectioners' sugar gradually and mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated and mixture is shiny.

Turn speed up to high and beat until mixture forms stiff, glossy peaks. This should take approximately 5 to 7 minutes.

Add food coloring, if desired.

For immediate use, transfer icing to pastry bag or heavy duty storage bag and pipe as desired. If using storage bag, clip corner. Store in airtight container in refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Note:  If you want to flood your sugar cookies, you may want to add more water to make it a bit runny. If its too runny, add more confectioner's sugar (powdered, not granulated sugar) to make it more stiff.

I used Wilton's cookie sticks, pressed it halfway through and pinched the dough above the stick. If you do not care so much of the appearance or will flood the sugar cookie, you can also take extra dough and cover the cookie stick. I tried both ways, and the cookies didn't fall off the stick.

Pre-baked cookie pops

Baked tulip

Let's fast forward and pretend that you are done decorating your cookie pop!  This is what you need:

Cookie Pops Flower Pot Bouquet (Makes Four):
4 Flower pots
2 Round styrofoam
16 Gift wrapping tissue paper (color of your choice)
Cellphone bags (mine came with cookie ties)
Ribbons (to tie cellphone bags if you don't want to use cookie ties)

I bought two styrofoam balls and cut it in half.  Half of the styrofoam ball is wrapped in tissue paper like a Hershey's kiss.  Do not cut the excess amount of tissue paper.  It will be the support for the base of your cookie pops.

The styrofoam wrapped as a Hershey's kiss, flipped upside down

Using half a styrofoam is cost-effective.  If you are making one flower pot arrangement, you can just stick the whole ball into the flower pot or buy half a styrofoam ball.

Half styrofoam flipped upside, other half will be used for another flower arrangement

If you could not find the perfect styrofoam for the flower pot (like me!), you will see that there are gaps around the styrofoam.  Do not panic!  I fixed this by stuffing tissue paper around it to make it more secure.  Push the styrofoam as far down as you can until it cannot pop up.  You want to make sure the styrofoam ball is completely secured before inserting the cookie pops into your flower pot. 

Make sure that it is secure by stuffing tissue paper around the gaps

Once the base is secure, insert cookie pops halfway into the styrofoam base.  Stuff more tissue paper in between the cookie pops to make the cookie pops "pop" with vibrancy.

Mom's cookie pops

More of Mom's cookie pop flowers

Ms. S's cookie pops

Melita's cookie pops

Here are some additional tips:

• Buy different cookie pop stick lengths.  It will make your cookie pop arrangement look so much nicer.
• Michael's sells half a styrofoam ball if you don't want to cut a ball in half.
• You don't have to use styrofoam.  You can use dry foam (what florists use for their flowers) too.
• You can also use a cylinder styrofoam.  It doesn't have to be a round ball.  It's all about preference!
• Having different flower cookie cutters and sizes truly makes the flower cookie pops have a little bit more "personality"
• Found my tulip cookie cutter at Michael's (it comes in a set of 3 cookie cutters--one tulip, another flower cookie cutter, and a butterfly)
• Give yourself enough time for the royal icing to dry.  If you insert the cookie pops into the cellophane too soon, the royal icing will melt
• Do not make this in the last minute.  You will stress yourself way too much as I did!

Happy Mother's Day!