Sugar Cookie Bouquet

Sometimes it's a sad fact of life that you just can't afford an expensive gift, but that doesn't mean you put any less thought into it. In those cases I like to turn to creative homemade gifts, so the recipient knows I took the time and effort to really think of them, even if my gift didn't have a hefty pricetag.

This was one of those budget-friendly but time-intensive gifts for my mother. It is a sugar cookie bouquet!

I rolled out my sugar cookie dough and cut large tulips with a cookie cutter. I baked them right on the skewers (which were foodsafe). They came out cute, if a little fragile - you couldn't exactly eat these as lollipops, they would fall off the stick. But for my first attempt and purposes, it was fine. I never use royal icing if I can help it - it looks pretty and dries hard, so it would be much easier to transport without smudging, but it doesn't taste as good, so I stick with creamier varieties. These were flat iced, and then outlines piped in fudge frosting.

I arranged them in a gift box on top of some tissue paper, and twist tied a few of the "stems" together to secure them in the box and avoid movement.

If I had to do it over again, I'd dye my stems green or find green skewers (remember food safe!), and spend more time experiementing with attatching the stems so you could deliver them standing up in a flower pot or vase.