Watercolor Cookies

How sweet are these WATERCOLOR COOKIES from the amazing Becky at Bite of Delight! These are a delight and kids will love them during Art week! A fun and pretty treat!

 

Are you looking for a fun way to entertain the kids while keeping their brains active? Watercolor Cookies are the perfect summer activity—and treat—all in one! They’re simple to make, and they’ll keep your kids busy longer than Netflix. Okay, maybe not quite that long…but a long time! My kids think this is THE best art activity around.

And if you want to get really fancy, you can impress your children by telling them things like:

• watercolor dates back to primitive man painting cave walls
• western artists weren’t painting with watercolors until the 1400’s
• artists used to make their own watercolor paints!

For this easy treat/craft, you don’t have to be a professional baker. You can use sugar cookie dough from the grocery store, if that’s how you roll. But if you need a simple, delicious, cookie recipe with basic ingredients (that doesn’t even need to chill!) then try these sugar cookies. For real, it’s the easiest sugar cookie recipe ever. And the marshmallow fondant is so simple, you’ll think you’re cheating.

If you’ve had fondant before and you’re thinking, “Gross, fondant is the worst!” then just trust me and give this marshmallow fondant a try. It tastes like marshmallows, but you can also add in an extract like lemon or almond, if you like that better. It’s honestly the best fondant I’ve had and my kids LOVE it! In fact, we sent some of these cookies to our next door neighbor and she said they were the best sugar cookies she’d ever had.

What you need for this project:

1. sugar cookies
2. buttercream frosting (store-bought frosting is fine)
3. marshmallow fondant
4. painting supplies
5. silicone mat or parchment paper

Painting Supplies

• paint palette
• paint brushes
• lemon extract (or other clear extract)
• liquid or gel food coloring
• small bowl of water
• paper towels

 

Marshmallow Fondant

Ingredients:

• 16 oz mini marshmallows
• 2 Tbsp water
• 2 lb powdered sugar (roughly 8 cups), divided
• 1 tsp flavored extract (if using)

Directions:

1. In a microwave-safe bowl, pour in marshmallows and sprinkle with water. Microwave on high until the marshmallows are melted, about 1 minute.
2. If using a flavored extract, add it after the marshmallows are melted.
3. At this point, I transfer everything to the mixing bowl of my stand mixer so I can use the dough hook to knead everything together.
4. Add six cups of the powdered sugar. Incorporate sugar, adding more sugar if necessary, until it’s about the consistency of play dough. I always add in more sugar, but I don’t usually use it all.
5. Roll out the fondant on parchment paper or a silicone mat and cut with the same cookie cutters you used for the cookies…they will be the perfect shape for the cookies!
6. Add a thin layer of buttercream to the sugar cookie, then place the fondant cutout on the buttercream (this will “glue” the fondant to the cookie).
7. You’re ready to paint!

To Paint The Watercolor Cookies

1. Pour a small amount of lemon extract into the wells of the paint palette.
2. Add a drop of liquid OR some gel food color (I always use a toothpick to get it out of the jar…a little goes a long way!) and mix into the lemon extract. (My gel was pretty hard and didn’t mix in to the extract well, so I let it sit for a few minutes to let the color develop.)
3. Grab a clean brush and you’re ready to paint!
4. A little bit of paint will go farther than you think, so always start with just a little in your brush, and add from there.
5. To get a creamy paint color, add in a little bit of the buttercream.
6. If you paint a cookie black for a chalkboard effect, use straight buttercream to paint on your chalkboard.

Watercolor Cookie Notes:

• We got great results with both kinds of food coloring, so rest easy if you’re worried about not getting vibrant colors with one or the other.
• The black color came from a gel (and mildly diluted, it’s actually a very pretty purple), but if you don’t have a black gel color, you can probably mix your liquid colors to get black.
• I got my inexpensive paint palettes at Hobby Lobby (with a 40% off coupon).
• You can use other flavored extracts as long as they are clear. You can also use everclear or vodka in place of the extract for making the watercolors.
• Depending on how thick you roll your fondant, you may only need half of the recipe listed. I typically halve the fondant recipe and it’s enough for how I work with it.

Want more? Check out all of our Exploring Art posts here!

 

Still want more, you won’t want to miss our past Summer Survival Series.