Chemistry Elements Cookies

These chemistry elements cookies each represent a 1 gram bullion bar of the elements  Sulfur, Niobium, Zirconium, Samarium, Boron, Gold, Iridium, and Rhodium,

I’ve also included some affiliate links of products I used to make these which means that at no cost to you I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links.

I made these Chemistry elements cookies as a graduation gift for someone who just earned his Doctorate in Chemistry.  He collects element bullion bars from Luciteria so I thought this would be the perfect gift.  It was also a way to give him elements in cookie form that he may never get a chance to own as bouillon. 

Each cookie represents a 1 gram bullion bar of each element. The original bullion bars from Luciteria are 30x30mm for the standard troy ounce format and somewhat smaller for the 1 gram size. My cookies are based on their 1 gram size and are in a rectangular format. Thus the element cookies are approximately 2.25 inches by 4 inches.  

I chose elements based on their color and also based on how rare and expensive they were. I did elements of  Sulfur, Niobium, Zirconium, Samarium, Boron, Gold, Iridium, and Rhodium,.  Sulfur is yellow so that was an obvious choice since I wanted elements that were not just silver and gray.  Niobium creates beautiful colors when extremely thin layers of oxide are applied through the process of anodization. Therefore I made cookies to represent an anodized Niobium of blue, green, and brown.

In addition Zirconium can be anodized into a the new type that has a gold and purple zebra stripe pattern.  No two are exactly alike but all feature the same banding and color scheme.

Samarium is a dark grey color and Boron is black.  These elements gave me the colors dark gray, black, yellow and purple, green, blue, brown, gold, and 2 different shades of silver.

Here’s a picture of Niobium element cookies in the blue, green, and brown ionized forms. 

These are precious metal element cookies of Rhodium, Iridium, and Gold. I used gold and dark and light silver edible paints to give them a metallic sheen.

Here’s another picture of these chemistry element cookies that include 2 different Zirconium element cookies.

How I made the cookies

Make cookie dough and icing

I made chocolate mint cookie dough and mint flavored royal  icing. I added the mint after the icing was completely mixed up.  For the Boron I added cocoa powder to royal icing then added additional water to get the royal icing dark brown. Next I added black food coloring to get it black. I cut out and baked the cookies, After that I put yellow and gray royal icing on the cookies as a base. Yellow for gold and sulfur and gray for all the rest.  I tried yellow for Zirconium, but found that a gray base worked better. The yellow base made the colors too bright. I used a dehydrator and a fan to facilitate drying of the royal icing.

Paint the cookies

Next I painted the cookies with luster dust for the green, brown, and blue Niobium. Also I painted the Rhodium, Iridium, and Gold with metallic shades of silver and gold luster dust. I mixed the luster dust with golden grain alcohol to made liquid paint because golden grain evaporates very quickly.  I pained the Samarium with dark gray petal dust. The Sulfur and Boron did not need to be painted.  But I took an edible black marker and traced over the letters on Boron to make the words stand out more. Next I placed the cookies under a fan to dry.

Package

I used these Clearbags in order to preserve the cookies and give them a nice professional look. I taped the bag to fit the cookie.

Shipping the Cookies

Since I needed to ship the cookies, I also wrapped each cookie in bubble wrap cut to size and taped closed around the cookie.  

After that I place them in a USPS flat rate shipping box and carefully pack them standing the cookies on end and filling any air gaps with more bubble wrap or  black and gold crinkle cut paper.

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