Martha Didn't Lie: 4th of July Pinwheel Royal Icing Cookies

I don't even like royal icing cookies, yet I keep making them.  I'm so weird.  "Hey kids, let's spend 2 hours making cookies that I'm not going to even eat!"  "Hooray", say the kids!  They are way too sweet for my liking; as you may recall I much prefer a sweet & savory cookie like a flaky shortbread for instance.  But really, I just can't help it, they are so darned pretty and let's be honest, impressive.  Especially these patriotic pinwheel ones, claiming to be "easy" on the cover of this month's Martha Stewart Living.  I have to say, she didn't lie, they are in fact easy.  And oh the kids love them!  Instant sugar high no doubt.

I posted a video tutorial on how to use royal icing back in February if you'd like to check it out.  I was told it was a tad too long, but at any rate, I share some tricks I learned along the way to help you achieve a "perfect" consistency for royal icing.  Once you've achieved the perfect consistency, a little practice at a steady hand and consistent pressure is just about all you need to achieve these pretty cookies.          

 You start by outlining the cookie

 Then you just start flooding it in, using your tip to push the icing around a bit to help fill it in

Add some sprinkles if you like, and enjoy.  Royal icing takes about 10-15 minute to set, so you have to work a bit quickly, but you still have plenty of time to get the job done at a nice steady pace.

To achieve the pinwheel effect like Martha's cookies, simply place a dot of royal icing in the center of your cookie, and then 3 concentric circles surrounding it. 

Your icing needs to stay wet so immediately place your toothpick in the center of the dot and drag a STRAIGHT line from the center all the way out to the outer edge. 

 The straight line is the part that was left out in the magazine.  I was imagining I had to draw wiggly lines to get the curved effect, but nope, a straight line is all you need.

Here's what a cookie looks like in the beginning of the process

 Drag your toothpick from the center all the way out

 Easy right?

To get the other side of the wavy pinwheel effect, you start at the outer edge and then drag your toothpick towards the center like so:

 So you're first dragging from the center out, and then from the out into the center

And you just repeat drag out, drag in, all the way around the cookie

And you end up with a pretty spectacular looking cookie!  For the red and blue combo, you start with a blue dot and then alternate red and blue circles.  Taylor's cookie below has a wavy effect if you can tell.  For that effect, as I was dragging out and in, I slightly curved the line to the right.

So even though I may not enjoy these cookies very much, everyone else seems to love them so I'll keep making them.  :)  I'm thinking these would be so pretty in hot pinks and oranges for a girl's birthday party don't you think?