Yesterday the USA celebrated Memorial Day and like many, I managed to get the day off from work as we were closed. My husband however was working, as was my son. My two daughters were both gone for the day. Me? I decided to tackle the personalized cookies I am making for my oldest daughter's High School Graduation Reception being held this weekend. Always one to be frugal, I refused to spend upwards of $400 or more to order 150 - 200 pre-made, personalized cookies. I knew in my head what I wanted. I just had to find an affordable way to do it. Searching for affordable food-quality frosting images online I found the average cost for a sheet of 20 - 2" images, already cut into circles would run about $20-40. Even if I only ordered 140-160 cookie images it would be almost $300. Finally I tracked down an edible image printer that sold sheets of images uncut for about $6 per sheet.
On Friday I sat and carefully cut out 140 small circle images. Yesterday I whipped up a batch (ok, 4 batches) of one of my favorite non-spreading cookie dough recipes and baked about 175 cookies.
Using a simple but delicious glaze I dipped the tops and applied one of the edible images while it was still wet.
I found I could glaze about 8 cookies and quickly attach images before the glaze started to set up. Dipping about 6-8 at a time helped it go quickly.
In the end I had 140 personalized cookies. Since I had about 40 cookies left over I wished I had ordered a couple more sheets of images!!
If I had ordered these cookies made for me they averaged about $2.00 - $3.00 per cookie on the internet. By making them myself my only real investment was just over $50 for the images and the cost of a little flour, sugar and butter.