- How to Make Bioshock Infinite Cookie Icing - May 5, 2015
- How to Make Bioshock Themed Cookies – Custom Cookie Cutter - May 4, 2015
Have you ever looked at the Bioshock Infinite vigors and thought, mmm, tasty? Well, we did and baked up a batch of fresh cookies. In this tutorial you will learn how to make your own custom cookie cutters, followed by a tutorial on how to make the dough and icing. Perfect for any event, from a brain storming session with the Lutece twins to high tea with Lady Comstock, these cookies are sure to impress.
Equipment
- A length of food safe aluminium strip.
- Dishwashing liquid
- Pliers
- Scissors, your least favourite pair as cutting the aluminium strip may blunt them
- String
- A printed picture of the design you would like to create. For this tutorial I’ve used the Undertow, Bucking Bronco and Possession Vigors from Biochock Infinite.
Note: I bought a make your own cookie cutter kit on Amazon. If sourcing your own aluminium ensure that it is food safe, with no chemical coating.
Method
Planning the Shape
When you’re planning the shape that the cookie cutter will be you need to consider a number of things:
Do you want a flat cookie or do you want one that has imprinted lines on it? Is the design simple enough to hold its shape in cookie form? How many colours will you need for the icing?
Also think about how complex you want the design of the cookie cutter to be. As you can see on the picture of the Undertow octopus above, the design has a lot of complexity and see-through parts around the tentacles, but it is only two colours. The Possesion vigor desing has less complexity overall, but needs three colours, and the lines on the blade are very fine. Before you start, think about how closely you want the final cookie to match the original design
Complexity and details
Once you have an idea of the complexity of the design, print or draw it at the same scale as the finished cookie. I printed my pictures out at roughly 8cm square, this gave my design enough room for the smaller details without running the risk of pieces breaking off.
On the image below you can see that I’ve outlined the cutting lines in red marker. For Undertow, I also wanted to make some cut out pieces inside the shape of the cookie, so this is what the three small red triangle shapes are in the middle. The purple lines are imprint lines that will also be made out of aluminum strips, but only make a small indent on the surface of the cookie instead of cutting through. The Imprint lines are added to make icing easier.
When you plan the cutting and imprint lines for your design, the only rule is to make sure that you have a continuous cutting edge around the perimeter of your design or you wont be able to cut out a biscuit from the dough.
Making the Outline
For my design, I used a 1 1/2 cm strip for the outer cutting pieces and 1 cm strips for the imprint sections. Exact measurements aren’t really necessary as long as the imprint pieces are slightly shorter than the cutting pieces.
Measuring
To work out the total length of aluminium strip you will need, lay a piece of string or bend a pipe cleaner around the perimeter of your design. Measure this with a ruler or tape-measure and then add an extra inch at one end. You will need the ends to overlap so they can be joined easily.
Measure the perimeter of your design using a piece of string
Once you’ve cut your metal strip to length, start bending your metal, following the lines of your design. If possible start on a straight section as this will make fastening the ends easier. Be careful to keep checking that your cutter sits as flat as possible. This will ensure a clean cut through biscuit dough.
Creating the Shapes
Shaping can be done by hand alone but it can get tricky if your design is detailed. You can also use pliers for sharp angle bends, and pencils make a good tool for curves. Once your outline shape is finished, wash the metal with dishwashing detergent before joining and allow to dry.
Securing the Ends
I secured the joins with the 3M metal bonding tape that was provided with the kit, and squeezed the join firmly together with pliers before pinning with a bulldog clip. The bonding tape needs a few moments to set.
Note: If you’re not using a kit, you could consider using rivets to join your design, just make sure that you position them above the “dough zone” so you don’t get indents in your cookies.
Making the Imprints
To make the imprint sections, shape the individual pieces from the narrower metal strip.
Secure into the interior of the cutting line, making sure to align the top of the edges so they sit flush. You can do this by turning the exterior shape upside down, using the tabletop as a guide. Remember that flipping the cutter will also flip the image so the imprint shape that you are attaching will also need to be flipped to match.
To make the three triangle shaped cut-outs in the middle I added some shapes made with the full width metal to the interior of my cookie cutter and attached them to my imprint pieces.
For added stability, I also added thin strips of metal that bend up and over from the exterior of the cookie cutter into the interior of the cut outs.
If you are finding that this gets too fiddly or don’t want to add cut out pieces to your final cookie, small areas of un-iced biscuit work just as well.
I added additional cut out pieces into the interior of my cookie cutter
Once you’ve measured, bent, clamped and bonded all the aluminium pieces together you will have a finished cookie-cutter shape ready for cooking.
Below you can see the Possession and Bucking Bronco vigor cookie-cutters that I made alongside the Undertow vigor using the same methods. You can see how complex you can make the outline of a cookie-cutter in the Bucking Bronco picture.
In Part Two of this tutorial I will take you through the recipe I used to make the biscuits and teach you my icing techniques to make some amazing, colourful and delicious Bioshock Infinite vigor biscuits.
Sadly they won’t give you any vigor powers.
