The "stop watching this topic" button unclicked to say "watch this topic for replies." Seems a number of my watched topics have done that lately. 
OK... I'm taking a break from finishing up my cookies... hopefully I'll be able to post them tonight or tomorrow. This is fun theme!!
OK... here goes....
I decided to stick with my original plan for a picnic theme (that many people have already had), so that's one picture. The other picture is tropical drinks, because shouldn't you have one (at least) in your hand on every lazy summer day???
bonniebakes, those are sooooooooo creative! I love them all! That one does make me want a daiqiri(?)...mmmmmmm and that coconut-a pina colada...
What type icing do you use? Your's looks silky smooth (I'm sure there's other descriptives better suited to food...)
Those are wonderful, Bonnie!!! I especially love the watermelon seeds. 
I was looking thru an old Colette Peters wedding cake book today and, believe it or not, one of them had RI ants crawling up the side -- to me they're really cute on a playful summer cookie, but on a wedding cake??? Not so much!
I love everyone's cookies!! Now I need to come up with an idea. Hmm what should I do?
thanks you guys! You really made my day!!!
all4cake - I used a combination of icings, actually ( I was in the midst of my "great icing experiment"), so some parts are glace and some are royal. For the royal I use a modified version of Antonia74's recipe (I add corn syrup to it) and the glace recipe is GeminiRJ's (with water instead of milk).
The coconut shell and meat is RI, the cherry is RI, the outside of the watermelon is RI, the blanket is RI, the ants are RI, the watermelon seeds are RI, the pineapple piece, and the flowers and drink umbrellas are RI.
The drinks (outline and colored part) are GI and the flesh of the watermelon is GI.
I just love the depth you were able to achieve on the coconut, just amazing how 3D it looks.........and I love that the table cloth is playful with the dots (I have a lot of those cooky table cloths that are real funky patterns...love them! That tablecloth totally said "summer" to me!
So do you find adding the corn syrup to the royal makes it softer?? Does it still set up enough to bag or stack the cookies?
I love your cookies, bonniebakes In fact, I'm in awe of all of you. You've inspired me to try my hand. I have no piping skills to speak of, so I turned to "sculpting" (if you can call it that). I'm not particularly original, either, because what I came up with is more hamburgers and hot dogs. Both the cookies and the icing are GeminiRJ's recipes - thanks so much, they're delicious! The "hamburgers" are made of two vanilla cookies stacked with a larger chocolate one in the middle. The melted cheese is glacé and the tomatoes, lettuce and onions are fondant. I put them all together with glacé, too. The "hot dog" buns are two cookies put together at an angle with white chocolate. The mayonnaise and mustard are glacé and the franks are fondant. What fun!
I'm not kidding, those are SO realistic that I would've never guessed they were cookies. They're awesome! WOW Marianna!! Those are the best cookies I've ever seen!!!!
Those are great! I love the grill-marks on the hot dogs!
Thanks Gemini, KHalstead and Marianna ! You guys are awesome!
Adding the corn syrup does not seem to effect the drying time or the hardness in any negative way. The icing dries hard to the touch, hard enough to stack and bag without messing up the design, but stays relatively soft on the cookie - so that it's a little "Crunchy" (for lack of better word) on the surface, but soft underneath.
I actually did an experiment comparing glace and royal this past week - I posted the results in a thread just now in the cookie forum...
Marianna - those are amazing!! I love the texture and all of the fixings!! WOW!
kkitchen - we'd love for you to join us! It's just a group of us who love making cookies and want to be challenged to be creative by making cookies relating to a specific theme each month - all are welcome! The "policies" are in the first post of this thread. Each month we choose a new theme and then go to the kitchen to create... and be inspired by everyone's amazing creations!!
Gosh, thanks for all the kind words, you guys. The hot dogs are Satin Ice red fondant with a touch of golden yellow and a drop or so of brown. I'd actually made some franks out of cookie dough, but they flattened and spread, so I turned them into "sausage on a stick" cookies (see photo below!). If I made these again, I'd make them smaller. The hamburger buns are about 2" in diameter and almost 2" tall, which is way more sugar than anybody needs at one time (although my family seemed to have no objection to consuming them bit by bit).
Okay, I'm still new at this attaching photos business, sorry about the double picture!
bonnie and marianna, you guys are amazingly talented and creative.
bonnie, how much corn syrup do you use in a recipe?
I've used anywhere from 2 tablespoons to 1/2 the liquid called for in the original recipe. All without negative results. It just depends on the effect I want to achieve....
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