Rocket Pop Cookies

When my little boy turned one, I wanted to make his party extra special.  I needed a way to make an extraordinary party with a little time.  I love things that can be made in advance, and cookies are one of those things that add extra pizzazz to a party and can be made and stored easily.  I found this rocket cutter, and I knew it would be perfect.  I wanted these cookies to stand up so that they could be used as a standing element on a dessert table.  I also wanted to package and give out the rest of the cookies as party favors.

It all starts with cutting out the cookies.  I always use my Excellent Sugar Cookie Recipe, and roll the dough about 1/4″ thick.

I like to use a non-stick baking mat, like the Silpat mat shown here, because nothing sticks and I am able to use little to no flour when rolling out my cookies.

I used 4-1/2″ lollipop sticks for the rocket pop cookies.  I laid out all of the sticks and then placed one cookie on top of each stick and pressed down gently. You can see from the picture that the sticks went about halfway up the rocket cookies.

Here are the baked cookies cooling on a rack.  Always make sure they are nice and cool before you begin decorating.

I set up an assembly line to begin decorating the cookies.  To get the red icing I used AmeriColor super red gel paste in the royal icing. I outlined the cookies with a Wilton #2 tip and filled in the center with flood icing using a squeeze bottle. The cookie icing recipe is from Bridget Edwards, who has an amazing blog, Bake at 350.  I let the red icing dry a bit before piping on the white details.  All of the details are piped with a Wilton #2 tip and the white icing is brightened with AmeriColor bright white gel paste.

There were a few bubbles in the red icing here and there, but overall the cookies came out nicely.

For the favors, I slipped each cookie into a clear bag and tied a ribbon around the bottom.

For the remaining cookies, that were for the dessert table, I stored them in Ziploc containers.  I stored the packaged cookies in Ziploc containers as well, to preserve the freshness.  Just before the party, I stuck the cookies in their places on a Styrofoam stand I covered in scrap paper.  I think this makes such a pretty display for a dessert table.