Alice in Wonderland Checkerboard Cookies

These Alice in Wonderland checkerboard cookies start with classic checkerboard layers and end with swirls of royal icing, red roses, blue bows, and hearts. They’re part cookie, part storybook magic. Let me show you how you can make them, step-by-step.

A detail of decorated vanilla chocolate chess cookie.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND CHECKERBOARD COOKIES

This project came to life by pure serendipity. I had some leftover dough from the recipe I was working on for classic checkerboard cookies, and the curiosity got the best of me. I rolled out the scraps and baked them (see the picture below).
First look, and I immediately thought of Alice in Wonderland. I was hooked, but I also questioned my nascent idea. Did I just bake my way straight down the rabbit hole? I wasn’t sure if it would work. But there is only one way to find out. And that’s by doing it!

Rolled out vanilla chocolate check cookie layer.

THINGS YOU NEED

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Plaque Cookies Cutter
Strawberry Bakery Emulsion
Gel Food Coloring – green (leaf green and a touch of black), pink, blue
Tipless Piping Bags
Scribe Tool
Leaf Piping Tip #68 (bows)
PME Piping Tip #1.5 (swirls)
Petal Tip #101 (roses)
Red Petal Dust – to shade the dry royal icign roses
Flower Nail
Parchment sheet, parchment squares

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COOKIE CUTTER

I used a medium-sized plaque cookie cutter and about the same size heart cutter.

Baking sheet with pink perforated mat and baked cookies.

ROYAL ICING COLORS AND CONSISTENCIES

I used royal icing to decorate the cookies and to make all the decorations.

Blue: thick consistency – bows
Pink: thick consistency – roses
Green: piping consistency – swirls and leaves, to make the green color I used leaf green and a minuscule amount of black gel food coloring.

A view from above, piping bag with royal icing a plaque cookies cutter and baked vanilla chocolate chess cookies.

CHECKERBOARD LAYER

Before we get to the decorating, we have to prepare the plaque and heart checkerboard cookies, and to do that, you’re going to follow my step-by-step instructions on how to prepare a checkerboard cookie log as per my instructions in the recipe for classic checkerboard cookies.
Once you have the cookie log, chill it well (step 1).
To achieve a warped, slightly distorted checkerboard pattern, we’re going to slice the checkerboard block into slices that are a little over 1/4-inch thick (steps 2-6).
This way, when we run the rolling pin across the assembled checkerboard cookie layer, with 1/4-rolling guides on each side, it’s going to allow us to push the dough down a little bit, and by doing so, we’ll distort the squares slightly, giving the cookie that signature Alice in Wonderland look. Wow, that was a mouthful. I hope it makes sense. You can also watch the video at the bottom of this post to clarify things.

Slicing vanilla chocolate chess cookies with a sharp knife.

Arrange sliced cookies onto a silicone mat or food wrap (step 1-2).
Make sure that you correctly arrange the colors, alternating between chocolate and white across the whole layer (steps 3-5).

Assembling vanilla chocolate chess cookie layer on a silicone mat.

CUT OUT COOKIES

Place a food wrap sheet on top of chess layer.
Put a 1/4-inch (6 mm) rolling guide on each side of the checkerboard pattern layer (step 1).
Carefully run the rolling pin over the sheet of chess-patterned cookie dough layer, gently pushing the dough slightly forward and back (step 2). Notice how the squares become slightly warped. It makes the perfect Wonderland checkerboard pattern!
To release the cookie layer from the bottom silicone layer, carefully flip it over, peel off the silicone mat, flip it again, and remove the food wrap layer (steps 3-5).
If the layer of cookie dough gets too soft, you can chill it for about 10 minutes and then cut out cookies
Cut out cookies and transfer them onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or a perforated mat (step 6-8).

Rolling pin over vanilla chocolate cookie dough layer.

When cutting out cookies from cookie dough with a cookie cutter, sometimes the cut-out gets stuck inside the cutter. You can gently push it out with your fingers and transfer it onto a baking sheet (steps 1-3).

Hand holding a cookie cutter with a cut out inside, pushing it out.

What can also happen is that the cutout stays in the rolled-out cookie dough layer.
If that happens, carefully lift the bottom sheet. In our case, it’s a silicone mat.
Lift the edge of the silicone mat, and use your fingers to get under the cutout’s edge. Carefully pick up the cookie and transfer it onto a prepared baking sheet (steps 1-4).
If the dough is too soft, you’re risking that the cut-outs will get misshapen. Chill the layer if needed before cutting out shapes.

Cutting out heart cookies from a sheet of vanilla and chocolate cookie dough.

BAKE COOKIES

Bake the cookies at 350°F (180°C) for about 8 to 9 minutes, until puffy in the middle or no longer shiny. Allow the cookies to cool before decorating.

Unbaked and baked cookies on a baking sheet.

ROYAL ICING ROSES

I colored royal icing using Strawberry Bakery emulsion (steps 1-4). The house smelled amazing, like a strawberry for days!

A small green mixing bowl with strawberry flavored royal icing.

To make the roses, you need a petal piping tip # 101. Attach a small piece of parchment to a flower nail.
Hold the piping bag perpendicular to the flower nail and anchor a small piece of icing in the middle of the flower nail (step 1-2).
Immediately after, lower the piping bag to about a 45° angle and almost perpendicular to the flower nail and pipe the first pedal. This is going to be the rose bud, the middle part of the rose. The narrow end of the petal should face up, and the wide end should be facing the flower nail (steps 3-5).

Hand holding flower nail a small rose bud pipe atop.

After you pipe the rose bud, you can start adding more petals around the rose bud.
Hold the piping bag at a 45° angle with the narrow end facing up and the wide end facing down. Pipe the first petal around about 1/3 of the rose bud. (steps 1-2).
Start the second petal, slightly overlapping the previous petal at about 2/3 to 1/2 of the previous petal (3-4).
Repeat with the last 3rd petal (steps 5-6).
Use a small palette knife or a two-in-one tool to clean up the bottom of the rose (step 7).
Carefully remove the parchment square with the freshly piped rose and set it on a tray, and let it dry overnight for 8-12 hours (step 8).
As you pipe the petals, turn the flower nail slowly in the opposite direction you’re piping.

DRY PETAL DUST

To achieve a more realistic look, use edible red petal dust.
With a food-only paint brush, dust the middle of the dry roses with red dust (steps 1-4).
Remove excess with an air dust blower (step 5).
Peel off the parchment and store or use the roses for your project.
Struggling with complex roses? Make simple ribbon roses instead.
More about different royal icing transfers.

Brush dusting dry royal icing roses with red petal dust.

ROYAL ICING BOWS

To prepare royal icing bowls, you need to use thick consistency icing. You can find a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to make easy royal icing bows on my blog.

Freshly piped blue royal icing bow on parchment sheet.

Removing blue royal icing bows from parchment using a decorating tool.

SWIRLS

To create the swirls, use a piping consistency green royal icing and a piping bag fitted with a PME 1.5 piping tip.
Pipe the swirl pattern in two opposite corners of the plaque cookie (steps 1-8).

LEAVES

To make the leaves use piping consistency icing. I used a tipless piping bag that I cut at an angle, with the seam on the longer end of the angled cut (step 1).
Pipe the leaves with the seam facing up (step 2-3).

Piping bag with green icing, opening cut on an angle.

When piping the leaves, start by piping a small dot of icing, squeeze the piping bag slowly, and then move it towards you or away from the stem/swirl.
Gently push the tip of the piping bag into the icing, creating the signature leaf vein in the middle (step 5-7)
Repeat until you’re happy with the design (step 8).

Piping leaves onto the royal icing swirls.

You can decorate a heart cookie with a slightly simplified swirl design, adding swirls randomly around the edge, and then adding the leaves

Piping swirls and leaves onto vanilla chocolate heart cookie.

A close up of cookie decorated with swirls and leaves.

EMBELLISH COOKEIS WITH ROSES, BOWS, HEARTS

Now we can add royal icing decorations.
Pipe a large dot of icing in the opposite corners. Gently push the roses onto the dot of icing to glue them to a cookie. ( step 1-4).

Attaching rose on a plaque cookie decorated with swirls and leaves.

If you have some pre-made royal icing hearts or some heart sprinkles, you can use them to decorate the cookies, too (steps 1-6).

Attaching red royal icing hearts onto a cookie.

Let’s not forget about those pretty blue bows.

Attaching blue royal icing bow on a cookie.

The roses I’m using on the hearts are slightly different from the ones I used on a plaque cookie.
These roses are called the ribbon roses.

Tweezer holding a royal icing rose, attaching it onto a cookie.

PAINT WITH EDIBLE GOLD LUSTER DUST PAINT

And lastly, we’re going to give these cookies some glamor with gold Luster Dust.
Into a small paint palette tray, add dry gold luster dust and a few drops of Everclear or clear Vodka. Mix it well.

A small pain palette tray with gold luster dust paint.

Make sure to let the piped swirls and leaves dry for 3 hours before painting them.
Use food-only, liner paintbrush, and paint parts of the leaves and swirls randomly.

Painting gold details onto dry green royal icing leaves and swirls.

The best part is that the classic checkerboard pattern peeks through the icing, giving each cookie that wonderfully “curious” Wonderland look.

Decorated vanilla chocolate chess cookies with royal icing swirls and rose.

VIDEO TUTORIAL STEP-BY-STEP

PACKAGING

To keep your cookies fresh and beautiful, I like to slip them into clear poly bags and seal them with a heat sealer. It locks in the flavor and keeps them crisp for days. If you’re planning to give them as a gift, tuck the bagged cookies into a pretty, shallow bakery box.

Cookies packaged in clear poly bags and nested in a bakery box.

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