Science Cookies: Gel Electrophoresis

Yet another science cookie, this time Gel Electrophoresis!

These are for fellow blogger Mylifeinbrown, who suggested the idea and I just love how these turned out, so thank you very much. I'm still plotting ways to do gel electrophoresis with gelatin. I just need to figure out a way that both tastes good and looks respectable. Electrophoresis 'jigglers' would be hilarious so I must figure out how to do it.



These are more of Martha Stewart's sugar cookie cut outs, my go-to sugar cookie recipe (you can find the recipe here). Although, I prefer to modify my dough with a half teaspoon of almond extract to give my cookies a little more flavor.

So to make these cookies you need the follwing:

2 dozen square sugar cookies, fully cooled
roughly 2 cups royal icing
pink food coloring
blue food coloring
2 piping bags fitted with small round tips (use an Ateco #2 or #3)

Tint 1/3 of a cup of the icing pink to make the markers and the remaining 1 and 2/3 cups with royal blue and pink to create a background that will vaguely simulate what the gel looks like under ultraviolet light.

Using your purple icing, pipe a square outline on each of the cookies and allowed it to set. Given the consistency of your icing should take at least 10 minutes, probably longer. Then thin the remaining purple icing with a little bit of water and flood each of the squares. Before the purple icing has set, use the pink icing to pipe in the little lines to create the markers.

Allow the cookies to dry overnight.



Thats it!

You've got Gel Electrophoresis Cookies! Now, the markers on my cookies are completely random gibberish of course. I'd love to do these and replicate actual microbiology gels.

Salmonella cookie anyone? Yum!