summer cookies

I’m always thinking one season ahead.

Decorated Clam Cookies

This past Sunday we took a leisurely drive up Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) from Laguna up to Newport Beach. For fun we even took the ferry (a few minutes float) from Balboa Island over to the peninsula and drove over to the wedge.

Even though I’m a west coast- SoCal gal, born and raised, when I think summer and the beach my heart hops a plane and heads straight to Cape Cod.

I long for New England summers. Every year. And with these clam cookies the yearning has officially begun.

These cookies are so simple to cut and decorate you only need to follow a few steps:

Use my sugar cookie recipe and royal icing recipe and tips.

Make a clam shaped template to hand cut the cookie dough.
Use thinned white royal icing to cover the cookie. Outlining is optional. I chose not to do it with this batch. I think it makes them look a little more rustic which I liked.
When the white icing has dried, brush purple luster dust on the inner edge of the cookie to give it more depth. Rub it in with your finger for a deeper color.
Use softened purple royal icing (not thinned, but softened with a little water from the original consistency) (I used Wilton purple paste color which is a true purple).
Pipe a purple outline and dashes and dots on the cookie surface using a #2 or #3 plain round tip depending on your cookie size. Done!

For presentation, I used a small tin pail filled with raw sugar. I think you can get the drift(no pun intended )of the sweet clam digging effect I was going for.