Diamond Anniversary Cookies

Hello Everyone!

Earlier this summer I made up a batch of cookies for a 60th wedding anniversary. Their daughter wanted to surprise them with cookies at the party. She wanted it to be fairly simple in design, just two colors, and some sparkle. And of course it had to feature their signature initials “BanD”. Miss Evelyn nearly gave me a heart attack after I had finished and packed them all up. “Mom, what’s band?” “No honey, it’s B and D.” “There’s a D missing.” Ahh! Nope, I double checked and that was exactly how she wanted it spelled, I even copied the font they always used. Relief.Now back in Roman times the husband would present a silver wreath to his wife on their 25th anniversary, a gold wreath on the 50th. I guess maybe they didn’t live long enough to see the 60th, or maybe they were trying to hold out to the 75th to keep the number pattern? Either way it was Queen Victoria who had the first Diamond Jubilee in 1897. We now celebrate 60th wedding anniversaries as the Diamond Anniversary. And there’s your history lesson for the day.I wanted the cookies to be a bit more formal so I went for the smaller plaques. For the diamond cookies I actually used a pie piece cutter and shaped the top with two more cuts to form the crown. I found that the best way to keep the diamond lines in order was to start with one line across the girdle, then make symmetrical zig-zag lines for the upper facets. The lower facets were just connecting the upper facet points to the bottom culet (yes, I learned all kinds of things about diamonds!). Of course for diamonds there needs to be sparkle, so as soon as the lines were drawn I sprinkled the sanding sugar over them.To be honest, I was not thrilled with the color at first. FYI, if I haven’t said this a million times yet, a little bit of black gel food coloring goes a long way. And it darkens up overnight. Unfortunately, I colored all the icing I had set aside for the cookies and there was no way to lighten it up without making more icing. So I did what anyone in my position would do. I went to bed and woke up to a dark gray color. It was okay. It was still “meh” on the quilted plaques. The contrast between the white and gray was nice for the wording and on the diamonds so that wasn’t bad. Then I added the silver luster dust and everything just popped. It took several layers of dust to give it that silver sheen, but it was completely worth it. I think that if I went with a lighter gray base it might have been okay, but the contrast would have been less. Huzzah for happy accidents!Until next time,