May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

***Want more Hunger Games? Check out my guest post on Rae Gun Ramblings for arrow cookie pops for Katniss!***

Are you Team Peeta or Team Gale? Or perhaps Team Finnick or Team Cinna?

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple months, you have probably heard of the popular young adult trilogy “The Hunger Games.”

Image from EW.com

The first movie will be out on March 23rd and I. cannot. wait. I mean, check out this trailer. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

………………..

Amazing, right? So, I’m excited to show you these cookies today!

Anyone familiar with the series will recognize the Mockingjay pin. Here is how you make them.

You will need:

• Circle shaped cookies
• Black 10 second icing (for outlining and flooding)
• Gold 10 second icing (for outlining and flooding)
• #2 tips, pastry bags, and couplers
• Food writer marker
• Gold luster dust
• Vodka, Everclear, or lemon extract
• A small paintbrush

To help me create the right porportions, I found a graphic of the Mockingjay pin, like this:

I printed it on some cardstock I had lying around, just to give me a stiff template.

I then used my trusty food writer to trace an outline to get the circle outline right. I still can’t pipe a perfect circle to save my life, so this step is necessary for me!

Here’s a tip: when tracing a circle like this, it helps to use small, short strokes rather than tracing with one line. You’re more likely to mess up that way. And, it doesn’t matter if your circle is nice-looking – the icing will be covering it! This is only to help you pipe the outline.

Then, I drew another, smaller circle on the inside (I did this free hand).

Now, let’s get piping!

First, pipe the outline of the circle with the gold icing (I used a #2 tip):

Oh, night-time pictures. How you disappoint me. Anyway…

Next, fill in your circle with the same icing:

Now, exercise patience – let the circle dry for a bit before adding in the black. You don’t want your colors to bleed!

When you’re ready (did you wait for it to dry? You better have!), outline the entire cookie with black icing (also with a #2 tip):

Then, flood the rest of the cookie with the black icing, using a toothpick to spread the icing up against the gold icing.

Pretty and shiny! Let it dry for a while before continuing.

Now, you have a couple options for piping the Mockingjay on the cookie. My trusty food writer isn’t helpful here, since the icing is so dark. You can use the push pin trick (see Sweet Sugarbelle for a tutorial). You basically using a sharp pin to gently prick the surface of the icing to use as a guide for piping. For this project though, I chose to do it free-hand by referencing the template I printed out while piping. It might not be the most exact method, but I did not want to make a super detailed cookie here either.

Here is the result with a #2 tip:

Weird angle = a lopsided looking cookie. Sorry about that

At this point, the cookie could be finished. But, I had to take it one step further…and this is where the vodka comes in!

Let the cookies dry overnight. They MUST be completely dry to perform the next step. I know I keep saying that, but I mean it this time! You will ruin your cookie if it is not totally dry – then you will cry… I will cry…and then we will all be crying for your tragically disfigured cookies. Seriously, let them dry overnight (or longer).

It is luster dust time!

Luster dust is a non-toxic, fine, glittery powder that can be applied to cookies, cakes, and other confections. It can be applied wet or dry – I used a wet application here and referenced this wonderful tutorial from the University of Cookie.

First, gather your supplies:

Gold luster dust, a baby bottle of vodka (lushes may have a large bottle lying around), a small paintbrush, and a small bowl to mix up this shiny magic. If you don’t have vodka, you can also use Everclear or lemon extract. I tried to buy Everclear, but apparently it is illegal in Virginia. That was an interesting conversation at the ABC store…

Also, no worries about getting drunk from these cookies or giving them to little ones – the vodka evaporates.

Add a little bit of luster dust to your bowl (a little goes a long way). Then, add a couple drops of vodka and mix!

You want it to be a painting consistency – you can always add more dust or vodka to adjust as needed.

Grab your cookies that you let dry overnight.

Carefully start painting over the gold icing…

Soooo pretty. Your application of luster dust doesn’t have to be even –  it will still look good. However, try not to get any on the black icing – it will be very noticeable!

Voila! Beautiful, shiny Mockingjay pins to celebrate your love for The Hunger Games… and the fact that we don’t have to sacrifice our children in a brutal, government-sponsored deathmatch. Yay!

 

 

Tagged as: black, books, cookies, gold, hunger games, luster dust, mockingjay, pop culture