3-Day Cookie Bouquet

One of my co-workers recently approached me and asked if I'd be willing to make something for the dessert dash portion of her upcoming Komen 3-Day fundraiser. OF COURSE I'd help her out. Baking and helping breast cancer research ... win and win! After pondering a few ideas (including breast cakes, breast cupcakes, etc.), I settled on making a pink ribbon cookie bouquet.

I used the cookie and royal icing recipes that I almost always use... they are definitely tried and true. The twist to this project was the colored sugar used to decorate the cookies. Until now, I never really had much success getting the sugar to stick like I wanted. A few days ago, I looked online to see if I could find any tips and one video I saw on YouTube suggested not using water, but using a 1:1 ratio of water and meringue powder to adhere the sugar to the dried cookies. I tried the method and will never look back; it worked perfectly!

I filled a jar with curly pink ribbon and used and inverted Styrofoam cone to assemble the bouquet. This morning, I carefully wrapped it with plastic wrap and hauled it (ever so carefully) on the bus with me. Fortunately, it got to the office safe and sound!