Sunflowers are a symbolic flower of fall. Which I question because most sunflowers bloom in the summer and are far gone by this time of year. Whenever I see sunflowers they make me think of my sister Crystal because she loves sunflowers. Making these cookies also made me think of her.
Oddly, I don't own a sunflower cookie cutter although I believe it's pretty common cutter to have. I have many other flower cookie cutters, but have never purchased a sunflower. So had to turn to my trusty Silhouette. I found this sunflower shape and decided to use it. I liked that it was simple, and it had a center circle. I cut the sunflower out of card stock paper. I use thicker paper so I can keep the template for feature use. Then I hand-cut the cookies following the cut out shape.
Decorating sunflowers cookies can be as simple or elaborate as you wants. I started out by piping and flooding the cookie with egg yellow icing, allowing it to dry over night. The next day, I took the circle section of the cut out and traced on the cookies with brown food coloring marker. (As shown in the photo.) Then I piped and flooded the circle with brown icing. While the brown icing was wet I used white sanding sugar because I don't have brown, to create texture. To create a more shading use a lighter brown icing with brown sanding sugar. The final details I added were, coming back and outlining the whole cookie with yellow icing. I added lines to give definition to the petals. To make the petals more elaborate you could use thicker icing with a petal tip. Finally, I used a moss green icing to pipe small dots around the brown center.
Hope these sunflowers bring some sunshine to your day!