I have a potential order that made me wonder the best way to do this. The client wants round cookies decorated with the number "40" to celebrate her husband's 40th work anniversary.

To simplify my question: what is the best way to draw the #s on the cookie to flood them, if I can't draw a hallow number freehand to save my life?

I thought about creating a stencil to trace, but also wondered if some of you masters out there had a better solution?

Oh, and I don't have a projector, so that's out. :/

Or would it just be easier to flood the background and not worry about the hallow numbers?

TIA!!

personally i would flood the entire cookie and then once the RI dried I would use a stencil (can be paper or use acetate paper) that i made and either airbrush the number on or use a dry brush and some powder (all depends on the look you're going for.

Or you could cut-out really thin piece of fondant and cut them with a cutter.. and then, you could "glue" them to the already flood-and-dry cookie

i was going to suggest what verono said
i do it with initials all the time!

Oooh, both those sound infinitely easier than what I was thinking. See, I don't do cookies often, but I know enough to be dangerous.

I might experiment with both techniques and see what comes out looking better. If this order doesn't pan out, I'll know for future ones!

Thanks sooo much!!

Those are really great suggestions.
If you really want to make it simple, you could just use edible markers and draw the number on the dried and flooded cookie.

You could also use royal icing and put a sheet of parchment over some printed out number 4's and 0''s (print from your comp.) and make them in royal and let them set up a few days, flood your cookies, pop on the numbers and give the numbers a little push down so they are flush with the flooded part and let it dry.

I did that with these cookies (only I used white choc. but same idea)

if you have number cutters the right size, you can also "imprint" them into the cookie before baking. The impression will still be there after baking, and you can use that as a guide for flooding in a nice "40".

Stencil it!

Flood first then stencil with thicker royal icing.

Pretty quick and dries fast!