Peanut Butter Cookies- a polymer clay project

 

our doll size cookies next to the real thing

polymer clay in the color Ecru

For this project you will need:

Premo! Polymer clay in the color Ecru

Artist Soft Pastels: a golden yellow color

a rust color

a brown

A brush to apply the the pastels (I use an eyeshadow brush from the dollar store)

soft chalk pastels and brush

Dish scrubber pad- see photo

A thin tool- double ended small gauge knitting needle, toothpick, dental pick, etc (use what you have)

A ball of aluminum foil

Emory board (or small piece of sandpaper)

Un-coated white paper plate (to bake clay on)

Work surface (I use a 12” square ceramic tile from the home improvement store)

dish scrubber

Oven to bake clay in (I use my regular oven and have for over 20 years with no problems)

pointy tool

This is a super simple project perfect if you have never worked with polymer clay before or even if you have made a few things. I wanted to do a project that anyone could do without having to buy a bunch of stuff.

I will say it does help to have the real thing in front of you when you are making any doll food if at all possible or at least to have some good photos to refer to. 

 

The first step in any doll food project is to really look at the real thing. What shape is it, how big and what color? Those are the first questions I ask myself with every project no matter how many times I have made it.

For these cookies my real ones were about 3” across so for our dolls that will translate to 1” across. They are pretty thin but the feature that always sets a Peanut Butter cookie apart is the cross hatch design on the top. They tend to be a pale brown/tan color and it just so happens that Premo! Brand clay has a color that is pretty darn close called Ecru. This color is one of my basic colors that I use a lot for baked goods so it is a good one to have on hand if you are going to try to make more foods.

Texture with the dish scrubber

I start by conditioning my clay which simply means kneading it with my hands to get it warmed up and a bit softer. I then made as many balls that were about ½” in diameter as I wanted cookies. For most of my crafting I use a 12” square ceramic floor tile that I got at Home Depot for a very low cost. It is a wonderful work surface since it is easy to clean after use and portable so I can move my project if need be. After I had all the clay balls made I then used the dish scrubber to flatten to about the thickness I wanted the cookies to be in the end. Your clay should now be about 1” flattish cookie shapes with a fairly rough texture. This scrubber does a lot of the work of texturing for us. 

 

Next I use the ball of aluminum foil to add more texture and to “tone down” the texture that the scrubber left.

ready to use the foil ball

after the foil- now ready to use the emery board

Next I use the emery board to work on the texture some more. 

 

I go back and forth between the foil ball and the emery board until I am satisfied with the texture.

work with the texture tools until you are happy

starting to add the cross hatch design to the top

Now I use a tool that is thin and round to make the crosshatch marks on the top of each cookie. You can use a small gauge double pointed knitting needle like I did in the photo or whatever you have on hand. A round toothpick would be perfect, a dental tool would also work just find. 

one cookie done

 

starting to look a lot like cookies

cookies moved to the paper plate

Now we are going to move our cookies to an un-coated white paper plate. I like to use these to bake my clay on because they leave the bottoms of the items with a matte finish rather than making the bottoms shiny.

the chalks you are going to use

some dust has been scraped from the chalk

After moving the cookies we are going to give them some baked color. Start by using any tool you have handy to scrape some dust from the golden yellow, rust and brown soft chalk pastels onto your work tile.

golden yellow color added

 Start with the golden yellow dust and brush it over most of your cookie's surface (trying to avoid the lower areas of the crosshatch.

mix a bit of the rust color with some of the yellow

 Now mix a bit of the rust color dust into some of the remaining golden yellow dust and go over the edges and the very tops of the cookies but use a very light touch you just want to do some spots not cover the cookies with this color. 

rust chalk added

Next add just a touch of the brown chalk dust to some of the golden yellow and add just a few touches to a couple of the cookies. (too much brown and it will look like your dolls burnt the cookies)

chalks added to the cookies

Spend some time with the chalks adding touches until the cookies look just the way you want them to. If you feel you have added too much of the darker colors you can go over them with the golden yellow to tone it down a bit.

Now you will need bake the cookies in your oven according to the directions on the package of clay you purchased. The temps these clays bake at are fairly low and they won't take much time.

Once they are out of the oven let them cool and your dolls can enjoy their cookies.

Cookie time!!!!