Back to School season always reminds me of a funny misunderstanding I had that didn’t really get cleared up until the 3rd grade. It had to deal with maps like the one below.
You see, during my early years of elementary school, I remember having to memorize the map of United States; I don’t remember there being a requirement to understand it. For the longest time, I thought Alaska and Hawaii were next to each other and located below Texas, in real life. It was shown this way on practically every U.S. map, so I didn’t think to question it.
Sure, back then I understood Alaska was cold and Hawaii was hot, but I couldn’t explain why. I thought it was probably the same phenomenon that allowed Tomorrow Land to be next to Fantasy Land at The Magic Kingdom.
Long story short, it wasn’t until someone finally pointed out these states to me on a globe that I understood their true whereabouts. So to help prevent future confusion with new school recruits I made Back to School globe cookies.
To make these globes, I cut the dough using a 3-inch round cutter and an ice cream sundae cutter as shown below.
The top portion of any ice cream sundae cutter will work for the base for these cookies. I got theses ice cream cutters from Jo-Ann Fabrics, but they may not be available anymore. If you can’t find them, a margarita cutter would work, too.
After the cookie is baked, start by making a few guide lines with a food coloring marker to help with the icing process. With a smaller circle and a straight edge, trace a circle and its middle axis slightly off-center and to the top-right corner. It’s off-center to make room for the round support ring.
Next, I drew freehand a half ring around the lower half of the circle. If you’re wondering why I made dotted lines, I’m not sure. It just felt easier to draw evenly spaced rings if I made dots instead of a solid line.
To make the base, I piped an outline with chocolate brown icing in a series of bowl shapes. Starting from the bottom and working my way up to the blue line, I pipe 3 mounds, each smaller than the last. I topped off the base with circle shape and outlined over the outer ring lines as well.
The outline should look like this:
Next, fill the ring area, as well as every other base section with chocolate brown flood icing. While the base sections were still wet, I made an “L” shaped shine accent with light brown piping icing.
After the icing had time to set (about 15 mins.), fill the remaining base sections and add the shine accent. Also, outline and fill the globe circle with blue royal icing. Leave this to dry for a few hours or overnight.
After the base is completely dry, I piped countries of the world in various colors with piping icing. I used piping consistency icing to get that “rough” look you see on some globes. Also, I had a map of the world nearby on my iPhone that I used as a visual reference. The country shapes aren’t exact or to scale, but its close enough that I think people will get the idea.
Here are the finished globe cookies.
These globes were part of a larger Back to School cookie set I made. I’ve been on a vintage kick ever since making the vintage vacation cookies a few weeks ago. I continued the trend by making these cookies have a vintage feel to them as well.
Back to School season may mark the end of summer vacation, but it also marks the start of the Fall new season of TV shows. So there’s that to look forward to.
Have a great start to the week!
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