Lollipop Cookies

{Part 2}

If you missed Part 1 from yesterday, go here to catch-up.

After your cookies have completely cooled, you can decorate them.  I made a glaze ... it dried, got hard, and had a very nice shine.

Sugar Cookie Glaze

This recipe made enough glaze for 15-20 cookies.

1 C Powdered Sugar

2 t Milk

2 t light corn syrup

1/4 t vanilla (or be like me & just pour a bunch in)

Food Coloring

Pour the milk in to a small bowl and then slowly add the powdered sugar ... maybe about 1/4 cup at a time; mix well after each addition.  I just used a fork to do my mixing.  DO NOT put the powdered sugar into the bowl and then add the milk.  I tried that on my first batch and I ran into much difficulty & ended up having to add more milk which made my glaze too runny and then the glaze seeped into the cookies instead of floating on top of the cookies. (That is why the cookies with the orange glaze don't look as nice as the cookies with turquoise colored glaze.) Add your remaining ingredients.  The glaze will seem thick, but my thicker glaze turned out so much better than my thinner glaze.  If you really want it more runny, the recipe recommends adding more corn syrup.

I only use Wilton's Icing Colors when I need to color my food.  A 1/2 oz container of color will sit on your pantry shelf for like 10 years if you store & use the coloring properly.  I always take a clean toothpick, dip it into the color, and then dip my colored toothpick into the food that I'm coloring.  It doesn't take much coloring to color your food.  If you must add more coloring, get out a clean toothpick ... don't double-dip your toothpicks.  Toothpicks are nice cause you can just throw them away when you are done with them.  FYI: red & black are the hardest colors to make & use the most coloring.

Once your glaze is ready, use it immediately and spread it onto the tops of your cookies.  I just used the back of a metal spoon to push the glaze around on the cookie and make everything smooth & pretty.  If you want sprinkles on your cookies, you have to add the sprinkles right after you glaze the cookie because once the glaze has hardened and dried, the sprinkles will not stick.

Now, if you want to put your lollipop cookies into a pail ...

I headed over to Michael's ... again ... good thing it's only a mile from my house!  I was after some of that green floral foam stuff ... like this:

(This is what you do NOT want!)

Good thing I called one of my BFF's, Natalie, on my way to Michael's.  Natalie creates the most beautiful & creative floral arrangements!!  She's the woman to call if you are getting married.  She reminded me that the green foam stuff would just crumble and not hold up my heavy cookies.  Natalie told me to get the harder styrofoam that comes in white or a glittery green.  I found it on the same aisle as the soft, green stuff.  I opted for a disc of white styrofoam that would fit nicely into a pail.

I filled the bottom of my pail with rocks & trimmed the styrofoam disc a bit so it would sit about an inch from the top of the pail.  I then pushed my lollipop sticks into the styrofoam and quickly learned that if the stick pokes all the way through the styrofoam, then the cookies won't stay up where you want it to stay.  So you have to kinda gauge how far down to push the sticks so that they're down far enough but not so far that they go all the way through.  If a stick pokes through, just take it out & pick a new spot for it.  Next time I think I'll look for a thicker styrofoam at Michael's.  Questions?