Wildflower Painted Cookies with Fondant

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Have you ever wondered how you can create beautifully painted cookies? We’re giving you a fun tutorial on how to paint cookies and a delicious homemade fondant recipe!

Mariah from Everythin Golden and her crazy talented friend, Jasmine of Whipped is sharing this tutorial with us! Jasmine has married her love of food with her skills in illustration, sculpture, and metalsmithing.

Hand painted flower on a cookie covered in fondant.

Mariah says, “her work is like nothing else I’ve seen and when you meet her you’ll see why she’s one-of-a-kind! We wanted to get together and share our love for Montana, wildflowers, and art. So, we’re here to share this tutorial on painting with food!”

How to Make Marshmallow Fondant

Ingredients

16 oz mini marshmallows

Powdered sugar

Water

 Corn syrup

Vanilla, optional

Marshmallow Fondant being cut into circles

Directions

  • Sprinkle water over the mini marshmallows in a large microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for 2 minutes or until marshmallows are puffed up and soft looking.
  • Smear vegetable shortening on a wooden spoon before stirring the melted marshmallows (this is a sticky stage and you’ll save yourself some frustrating clean up later on).
  • Add your extract (feel free to add in a different flavor: lemon and almond are lovely as weland corn syrup to the bowl. If you would like to color the entire batch, you can add some food coloring. For our purposes leave it white for good painting canvas.
  • Slowly sift your powdered sugar over the melted marshmallows and stir between sifting. Stop when it becomes difficult to stir with a spoon.
Hand pressing a cookie cutter into fondant
  • If you have any powdered sugar left sift it over your work surface, and begin to knead the rest of the powdered sugar into the fondant. The fondant may still be quite hot so start slowly and be careful!
  • You are finished once all of the powdered sugar is incorporated, there are no lumps, and the texture is smooth. If you tear it and it seems very dry, you may feel it necessary to add a little bit more shortening.

For Best Fondant Results

Wrap your fondant in plastic wrap and/or a Ziplock bag and place it in the fridge overnight BEFORE using. Allowing it to rest means less tearing, bubbles, and lumps.

Rolling Out Fondant

Cut off a quarter of your fondant and knead to soften (especially if it has just come out of your fridge). Sift powdered sugar over your work surface and place a round of fondant down. Sprinkle a bit more powdered sugar on top and roll as you would a pie crust.

Roll your fondant to the desired thickness (for cookies I like to roll mine quite thin). With the cookie cutter, you used to cut your cookies, cut out the fondant (your fondant shape should be just barely smaller than your cookie thanks to the cookie spreading a bit while it baked).

Oil and frosting to make cookies

To adhere the fondant to your cookies, make a simple icing with powdered sugar and enough water to create a sugary glue.

Squeezing royal icing on a cookie

Brush it onto your cookies and place the fondant on top. Use the fatty palm of your hand (where your thumb reaches your wristo smooth the fondant over the cookie and especially around the edges.

Painting royal icing on a cookie to glue fondant for painted cookies.

Letting the fondant set for at least one hour on your cookie will yield a smooth dry surface to paint on. Placing it in the fridge will speed up this process.

Pressing fondant over a sugar cookie

I like to use powdered food coloring, which you can often find at Michaels craft store, or else a gel food coloring will work in a pinch.

Gel food coloring and edible glitter

How to Thin Food Coloring Gel

To thin your food coloring you may use a high proof alcohol such as vodka or Everclear, or an extract (vanilla, almond, and lemon are most common).

Don’t worry about alcohol content in your cookies: the reason we use alcohol is that it evaporates quickly allowing the food coloring to dry.

Painting cookies from a wildflower book.

Add a drop of gel onto a plate and using a small paintbrush (one you use for food only) paint on the fondant like you would a canvas!

We recommend using a few small tip brushes to really get fine details.

Hand painting flowers on cookies.

Tips for Making Painted Cookies

Wear plastic gloves or massage some vegetable oil into your hands before kneading to avoid a sticky mess.

There are special plastic rolling pins that are reasonably priced and make for an incredibly smooth surface.

If you do not have one of these handy tools, place wax or parchment paper over the top of your fondant and roll over the paper to preserve the surface.

You do not want to get a wood grain finish on your rolled fondant!

Hand painted cookies with flowers

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Photos by Mariah of Everything Golden

Painted Wildflower Fondant Cookies

We wanted to get together and share our love for Montana, wildflowers, and art. So, we're here to share this tutorial on painted cookies!
5 from 1 vote
Print Pin Rate
Course: Dessert, Snack
Cuisine: American
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 2 minutes
refrigerate: 8 hours
Total Time: 32 minutes
Servings: 18 servings
Calories: 280kcal
Author: Eden

Ingredients

For the fondant

  • 16 oz mini marshmallows
  • 2 lb powdered sugar
  • 1 tbs water
  • 1 tbs corn syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla, optional

Instructions

  • Sprinkle water over the mini marshmallows in a large microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for 2 minutes or until marshmallows are puffed up and soft looking.
  • Smear vegetable shortening on a wooden spoon before stirring the melted marshmallows (this is a sticky stage and you’ll save yourself some frustrating clean up later on).
  • Add your extract (feel free to add in a different flavor: lemon and almond are lovely as weland corn syrup to the bowl. If you would like to color the entire batch, you can add some food coloring. For our purposes leave it white for good painting canvas.
  • Slowly sift your powdered sugar over the melted marshmallows and stir between sifting. Stop when it becomes difficult to stir with a spoon. If you have any powdered sugar left sift it over your work surface, and begin to knead the rest of the powdered sugar into the fondant. The fondant may still be quite hot so start slowly and be careful!
  • You are finished once all of the powdered sugar is incorporated, there are no lumps, and the texture is smooth. If you tear it and it seems very dry, you may feel it necessary to add a little bit more shortening.
  • For best results wrap your fondant in plastic wrap and/or a Ziplock bag and place it in the fridge overnight BEFORE using. Allowing it to rest means less tearing, bubbles, and lumps.
  • To roll it out: cut off a quarter of your fondant and knead to soften (especially if it has just come out of your fridge). Sift powdered sugar over your work surface and place a round of fondant down. Sprinkle a bit more powdered sugar on top and roll as you would a pie crust.
  • Roll your fondant to the desired thickness (for cookies I like to roll mine quite thin). With the cookie cutter, you used to cut your cookies, cut out the fondant (your fondant shape should be just barely smaller than your cookie thanks to the cookie spreading a bit while it baked).
  • To adhere the fondant to your cookies, make a simple icing with powdered sugar and enough water to create a sugary glue. Brush it onto your cookies and place the fondant on top. Use the fatty palm of your hand (where your thumb reaches your wristo smooth the fondant over the cookie and especially around the edges.
  • Letting the fondant set for at least one hour on your cookie will yield a smooth dry surface to paint on. Placing it in the fridge will speed up this process.
  • I like to use powdered food coloring, which you can often find at Michaels craft store, or else a gel food coloring will work in a pinch.

Notes

Here is a recipe for sugar cookies. We suggest replacing the gingerbread spice with a tsp of dried ground lavender and/or some lemon zest to compliment the vibe of the wildflowers.
Some pro tips!
I like to wear plastic gloves or massage some vegetable oil into my hands before kneading to avoid a sticky mess.
There are special plastic rolling pins that are reasonably priced and make for an incredibly smooth surface. If you do not have one of these handy tools, place wax or parchment paper over the top of your fondant and roll over the paper to preserve the surface. You do not want to get a wood grain finish on your rolled fondant!
To thin your food coloring you may use a high proof alcohol such as vodka or everclear, or an extract (vanilla, almond, and lemon are most common). Don’t worry about alcohol content in your cookies: the reason we use alcohol is because it evaporates quickly allowing the food coloring to dry.

Nutrition

Calories: 280kcal | Carbohydrates: 72g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 22mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 65g | Calcium: 1mg | Iron: 0.1mg
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10 thoughts on “Wildflower Painted Cookies with Fondant”

  1. these look amazing!

    Hope you can give me some advice!
    Ive been trying out watercoloring onto fondant, but after painting my fondant it doesn’t seem to fully dry, and has a bit of a tacky/sticky feel to it.
    how do i avoid this?! im planning to full watercolour a cake in a couple of weeks for a birthday and im worried about it not drying.

    Im just using ready made fondant icing from one of the supermarkets.

    thanks!

    Reply
    • Hi Helen – If you really want the fondant to dry you might need to make homemade. If not, try kneading the fondant with powdered sugar. That will help with the stickiness. You can also brush some over the top and dust it off and that will help remove a sticky texture too. I hope this helps!

      Reply
  2. Will the painting work on dried royal icing if done with a light touch? I am not sure what the fondant tastes like and not sure how it would impact the taste of the cookies.

    Reply

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