American Flag Cookies

Date Completed: 6/14/2024

Cookbook: Creative Cooking Decorating for Everyone by Emily Hutchinson

Chapter: Summer

I’ve wanted to add the skill of cookie decorating to my kitchen toolbelt for a long time! I bought this book last year because I loved the idea of decorating with buttercream, and the book’s step-by-step images made success seem more attainable.

We have a group of friends that rotates hosting a themed cocktail club dinner party each month. When I heard that the theme of our June meetup was Flag Day, I jumped at the chance to try this recipe! I made these again for my grandmother’s birthday, which happens to be on the 4th of July!

Process Report:

I had a wonderful time making these cookies! My first step was locating a flag-shaped cookie cutter, a task that led us to discover a fun baking supply store with a seemingly endless array of available cookie cutters.

I’ll tell you more about the base cookie recipe I used in the Taste Report section!

Once I had the cookies baked and cooled, I set out to make the buttercream. I chose the Stiffening Buttercream recipe in the book because I wanted my decoration to set up slightly firm.

I didn’t have the exact piping tip the author recommended, but I did have a closed-star tip, so I used that for everything!

The process went color-by-color, starting with blue to create the background for the stars.

It was easier than I expected to create the blue background. The technique is best described as setting up the piping bag perpendicular to the cookies to squeeze out little blobs of blue frosting in a rectangle outline. Then you continue filling it in with more blobs. You start squeezing with the tip about a quarter inch above the cookie, press down, and then pull the bag up as you release.

The next step was adding the white portions. The stars were a little trickier, as I tried a quick flicking motion with my wrist to get the buttercream to break off the tip neatly (most weren’t neat, but they were good enough to get the idea across!).

The white stripes had me practicing my swooping techniques. I was trying to angle the piping bag closer to parallel to the cookie’s surface and then drag a line of frosting forward for about a quarter inch before dragging it backward onto itself. Then repeat!

The red was the same swooping technique. I got lucky with that color because I made barely enough to add the stripes to all the cookies. I was sweating it out for the last 3 cookies, but I made it!

I had to improvise with the flag poles because the example cookie in the book didn’t have a flag pole. I went with a drop of black food gel in the frosting to get the grayish/silvery color.

Overall, I was so thrilled with the way these turned out visually!

Taste Report:

I have to admit that I struggled with the cookies themselves. It was definitely a “me” problem! Instead of my tried and true Aunt Rose sugar cookie recipe, I experimented with one of the recipes in the book: Brown Butter Sugar Cookies. I’m sure I’ve mentioned my love of brown butter before. My favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe uses brown butter. I thought this had the potential to be wonderful!

The process was complicated and involved more waiting time than I’d estimated. After browning the butter, I had to wait for it to solidify again. By the time I made it to whipping up the dough, I was so distracted that I forgot to add a key ingredient! I ended up having to start over from scratch because my dough was too crumbly to roll out.

Once I made them correctly and got them baked, I really liked the taste of the Brown Butter Sugar Cookies. However, they weren’t life-changing. Given the time investment of decorating, I would choose an easier cookie recipe in the future (and that’s exactly what I did when I made these cookies the second time!).

Mess Report:

My kitchen definitely looked like an explosion happened after I finished decorating! It took a bunch of little bowls to mix up the different colors of frosting. Luckily, all that could go into the dishwasher!

Leftover Report:

Because the buttercream stiffens, I found that it was important to store these cookies in an airtight container as soon as possible! The first time I made them, I left them out on the serving platter for most of the day and evening. The buttercream dried out a bit too much.

The next few times I practiced, I stored them sooner and had better results with the buttercream being firm but not crumbly.

Another great thing was that the extra buttercream could be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks! I did this, and it had the exact same taste and texture later!

Would I make it again?

Well, yes! I did make them again! They’re really cute and festive! I like how you can keep it simple by using the same tip for every color if you want to do it.

I’m excited to try some more of the techniques in this book! The only thing holding me back is my lack of understanding of the tip numbering schemes. I bought a bunch of decorating tips, but the numbers on them don’t make sense when I match them up to the tip numbers recommended in the book. We’ll see if I can learn more!

Here’s another cookie I made as an experiment with different tips - a blue hydrangea!

It’s always a great day to learn a new technique for cookie decorating!