How to Make Wavy Sand Beach Cookies

Beach sand cookies with fondant accents -- Cookie Decorating Tutorial

I'm basically the queen of irrational fears. It's a miracle I ever lived to become an adult. Sometimes I worry that the tree in my front yard will get struck by lightning and crash into my house. I've spent actual time trying to figure out exactly how tall the tree is so I can estimate the damage it would cause. You know...just to be prepared.

And every time I go to the grocery store , I'm terrified that I've left my wallet at home. Like , my heart starts racing as I put all my groceries on the counter for the cashier and I dig frantically through my bag until I find it. Interesting fact though -- I never really check BEFORE I leave for the store when I could actually do something about it. I prefer to freak out at the check stand instead.

Oh! And I also have this crazy fear that I'm going to leave a child sitting in the grocery cart in the parking lot and just drive away. I always *ALWAYS* put my children in the car and get them buckled before I put the groceries in my car. But I still have to check the rear view mirror within minutes of leaving the parking lot...just in case.

I'm clearly traumatized by grocery shopping. Maybe I should take a break from it for a while. You know , just until things sort themselves out or my children start eating cereal for every meal. Ooops. They already do that. (Note to self: Buy stock in every cereal company ever.)

You know what I'm NOT traumatized by? The beach. I love it so much I would ask it to marry me...you know , as long as that affection was reciprocated and not taken the wrong way that ended up in words like "stalker" and "restraining order." Because I would NOT want to be banned from the beach. Want to see how I made these sandy plaque cookies?

1. Bake your cookies and gather or make all sorts of shells and flowers and assorted "other" beach type things. (Watch THIS VIDEO to see how to make realistic fondant shells in a jiffy.) (Is *jiffy* a real word?)
2. With thick tan icing and a #3 tip , pipe some wavy lines across the cookie. Let the lines dry for 3-4 hours.
3. Thin down some tan icing with water until the surface melts back into itself almost immediately. (If you drop some of the icing on top of itself...the surface should smooth out in 1-2 seconds.) Use a wide paintbrush to glop it all over the cookie. Immediately cover with a mixture of brown sugar and white sugar.
4. Gently shake off the excess sugar. Using a yellow scraper stick , tap down on the icing underneath all the lines you piped earlier. Don't drag the stick through the icing and sugar. Just push it down a little.
5. Pipe a small dot of icing on the back of all your flotsam and jetsam and gently push the into the sand. Add more dots of icing directly on to the sand and add blue and white sugar pearls on top.

(Fun fact...the spoon from step 3 has my name on it. Funner fact... I earned it by eating 4 boxes of Cheerios as a child. And also by whining until my parents mailed in the box tops.)