I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Have any of you seen the new Pixar movie, Inside Out? I can’t stop telling everyone how much I loved it. Seriously, it was an absolute joy. And so was the main character – Joy. Her bubbly positive attitude, wild blue hair and fun-loving smile were intoxicating. I just wanted to reach out and hug her from my theater seat. I laughed. I cried. And then I laughed a whole lot more, because it was a genuinely funny movie.
I was so overcome with emotions (pun intended), that I was inspired to craft a cute little Joy cookie with some store bought sugar cookies and a few candies. It took some grocery aisle searching to find the right ingredient for Joy’s blue spiky hair, but I found that Twizzlers Pull & Peel licorice worked perfectly.
For the first time ever, it’s perfectly OK to eat our emotions!
Here's a list of ingredients and easy step-by-step instructions.
Ingredients and supplies:
Store-bought sugar cookies
Blue licorice
White candy melt wafers
Blue Airhead candy
Peanut butter chips
Black gel icing
Black sugar sheet (edible paper found at most craft or
baking stores)
Small plastic squeeze bottle
1. Gather your ingredients and supplies. It’s helpful to have everything
unwrapped and pre-cut for easy assembly. Heat 10 – 15 white candy melt wafers
in the microwave for 30-second intervals. Stir and repeat until smooth. Pour
candy melt into a small squeeze bottle.
2. Cut the blue licorice into assorted sizes of spiky hair
pieces. Attach them to the sides, front and top of the cookies with tiny dabs
of candy melt, adjusting as needed to make them look like Joy’s hairstyle.
3. To make the nose, gently scrape the curl off the tops of
the peanut butter chips to form a smooth, rounded oval. Attach the noses to the
cookie faces with tiny dabs of candy melt. Then, make the whites of the eyes by
squeezing tiny ovals of candy melt onto the cookie face.
4. Tear off tiny bits of blue Airhead candy and form ovals
for the blue part of the eyes. Attach these to the white oval with more candy
melt.
5. Add black pupils to the eyes with just a small squeeze of
gel icing. (Optional: you can also add a tiny white highlight dot to the bottom
of the eyes, using an edible sugar pearl/ball.)
6. Using a small round cutter, create Joy’s mouth by cutting half-moon
shapes from the black sugar sheet. Cut the tops of the mouths with a slightly
larger cutter to give her a nice smile. Attach the mouths with tiny dabs of
candy melt.
