3D Candy Filled R2D2 Head Cookies

I was trying to think of a cheeky, nerdy joke headline and then I realized I shouldn’t bury the lead on this one:

Can your appetite for chocolate and sugar handle this much nerdcute?

Oh but wait a second…it’s almost Christmas and I don’t want the food blogger police (which totally exist) to come thwap me with a sticky candy cane for failing to holiday-up this post. So here, I added some fondant and sugar pearls:

Me: It’s as valid as the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Corran: No, it’s sadly even more valid than the Star Wars Holiday Special. Everything is more valid than the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Peo: What’s the Star Wars Holiday Special?

Me: Proof that pain exists in an unjust world. And remember dear, there are only three movies. And triple lightsabers will cut your knuckles off.

Peo: WHAT?!

Me: Exactly.

It’s important to have meaningful conversations as a family.

Anyway.

Want to make one? Of course you do. Here’s how: start with the Base Cookie instructions back here on the 3D Candy Filled Baseball Cap Cookies post. Then roll out some white or light grey fondant thinly to cover the base cookie completely (tips for doing that are also given in the Baseball Cap Cookies post). Use water-thinned corn syrup/golden syrup to stick the fondant in place, and then use any excess any time further down when instructed to affix pieces on.

Next you’ll need some dark blue fondant. I didn’t have any on hand when Peo came up with this idea of doing R2D2 head cookies (and full credit goes to her for the idea), and without a car here in the UK it’s non-trivial to just go get some fondant. Plus I don’t have my usual array of Americolor gels and the Dr. Oetker colours I do have are very weak. So I had to mix some light blue pre-coloured fondant with some purple.

Roll out some of your blue fondant fairly thinly and cut a rectangle with the sides angled outwards. Use the end of a paintbrush to make an indentation in the middle but slightly to your left, and then flare it out (removing any excess that balls up) until you have a shape like the one below. Affix it wherever you want the front of your cookie to be.

Okay now it looks like an R2D2 Minion mallowmar. I should totally use this pan to make some Minion cookies in my copious free time. You know, all that time where I haven’t even gotten around to seeing those movies yet…

Roll out some of your blue fondant and cut a small rectangle. Affix it just below the eye piece and trim the sides so it matches the length. Then make a cut to one side as shown below. Indent the longer piece with the end of a paintbrush or a small ball tool and glue a red sugar pearl/dragee in place.

Don’t have a red sugar pearl/dragee? Use a bit of red fondant. It’s all good!

Next cut the top circular motif. If I’d had my nice Ateco graduated circle cutter set on hand, I’d have been easily able to find the right size. But since that’s in the storage unit in Austin and since my cheap set of circle cutters here in the UK didn’t go small enough, I looked around my kitchen for what would be about the right size. Voila, the rings from Robin’s bottles are about right. They don’t do a great job of cutting but I was able to mark a circle and then cut it from there.

It’s important that you stock your kitchen with all of the fanciest, most expensive tools from the most posh stores so that you can impress the sorts of friends who will only like you if your kitchen is thusly stocked. OR…use whatever you’ve got.

Then cut a smaller circle. Again, go with what you’ve got on hand. In this case the wide end of a piping tip (which I’ve learned are called piping tubes here in the UK) worked perfectly.

You did know that you can do awesome polka dot cakes like this, right? Or balloons. Or eyeballs (use one of the larger round tips like a #6 or #8, cut the colour with the tip end and then cut the white with the back end). Or rounded scales for a dragon. Or so many other things.

Save that inner circle bit to the side. Then cut the ring into six even-ish pieces. Do this by making one cut straight across so you’ve got halves. Then for the second cut, line up your knife as if you’re going to do a perpendicular cut to make quarters, but then turn your knife a bit to one side or the other so your quarters will come out wonky. Then cut those big sections in half. You’ll roughly get thirds that way, especially if you practice.

Moisten the entire top of the head and place as shown in the photo below. If your gaps are coming out too big and the last pieces are coming too close together, trim as you go. I did. I promise, nobody will scream, “YOU FIEND, HOW DARE YOU GIVE ME A DELICIOUS DROID COOKIE WITH INEXPERTLY CUT TOP SIXTH THINGIES?!” And if they did, don’t give them a cookie ever again. Problem solved!

Start by lining up a gap with the red sugar pearl, and then work your way around.

Next make another blue rectangle and put it at the side of the “face” as shown below, and then make two grey squares and put them on top. Make a little blue disc, affix it to the other side as shown, indent it, and add a tiny grey sausage sticking out.

Once you’ve got this bit on, everything else can vary from the actual R2D2 design and folks will still know what the cookie is supposed to be.

Make more blue rectangles of varying width (but all the same height) and place them in a line continuing around that side clockwise until you’re almost at the back.

Make some large and some small to add visual interest. Or because it’s faster to slap bigger ones on. Whichever motivation works for you.

For the back, make a little round disc in grey and affix it, then indent it with the end of a paintbrush or small ball tool. Make another large blue rectangle and indent the left side. Also indent the top sixth segment just above that, as shown in the photo below.

Then make an itty bitty sausage with blue and affix it into the hole in the grey disc. Put a gold dragee (or tiny yellow ball of fondant) into the back panel.

I’m sure the various sensors and such have all been argued and defined out on many a nerd bulletin board over the years. But as Peo pointed out, this R2 unit’s head is full of Smarties, not robotic parts, so do what works best for you.

Make a little grey cylinder and indent it with the paintbrush/ball tool, then add another itty bitty blue sausage to it. Affix this into the indentation on the top sixth part. You might need to push it in and down to get it to stand upright, and check it frequently as it dries in place.

Make another series of blue rectangles to wrap around this side, continuing all the way along until you meet up with the “face” you already had in place.

Next go around and fill in the gaps between the top sixth pieces and the blue rectangles with an assortment of grey strips with the sides cut on angles as shown so they nest up against each other. Cut them to fit as needed. I even added another grey circle above that back sensor thing because that looked right for that spot.

You don’t have to fill every gap. Just do what looks right to give the overall look.

Finish the “face” by adding a small disc of black into the eyepiece, giving it a gentle push so it fills in the frame. Add a white sprinkle/hundred and thousand or a super teeny tiny white ball of fondant. Push it in/affix it on securely.

I C U R2!

Add some Christmas details if that suits your needs and timing, or some hearts for Valentine’s Day, or fill it with jelly beans for Easter, or candy corn for Halloween. OMG how cute would it be to make these with little masks on them for Halloween?!

Remember: your R2 cookie doesn’t have to be perfect. Have fun making these with the kids any time of the year. Peo made one based on mine and while it’s not as neat as mine because she’s only nine years old, you can still totally tell it’s R2D2 and she had a blaster making it: