Tag Archives: icing

Baby Shower Cookie Favors

From the beginning of the baby shower planning, one thing remained certain – there would be cookies!! I decided to do them as favors instead of dessert because the mommy-to-be wanted cupcakes.

I did baseballs:

And onesies! Have I mentioned how much I love my onesie cookie cutter?!

Each cookie was bagged and tagged and tied with ribbon. I didn’t get any pictures of them bagged. 😦

All those people that I mentioned left early? None of them paid any attention and no one took home cookies!! I left more than half of them with the mommy-to-be, and I actually brought some home with me. (It’s okay because I went to a Giants game the next day so we had baseball cookies to eat there!)

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

More Graduation Cookies

These cookies were my second official order! My coworker’s husband was stuck in an unemployment rut and decided to go back to school. He just graduated from a technical school with a degree in drafting. He was top of his class, and became part of the Alpha Beta Kappa honor society. Best part? His professors helped him get some awesome interviews, and he landed an awesome job right off the bat!

As a surprise, she asked me to make him some graduation cookies for the party she was throwing him this weekend. His robe was navy blue, and one of his many tassels was red, so those are the colors I went with. (The others weren’t as exciting – white, silver, something like that…) At that time I didn’t realize the party was 4th of July weekend, but it turned out perfectly!

I also incorporated the ABK, because that was something he was very proud of.

Can’t wait to do more orders!!

1 Comment

Filed under Cookies

My Signature Cookie

I have been wanting to make this cookie for awhile now. It’s the idea I came up with for my “signature cookie.” How did I come up with it? Not sure really, all I know is I was sleeping. Yes I dream about cookies… and cakes… don’t judge me.

My husband said “I don’t get it” when I explained what it was going to be. So I made up an explanation for why it works as my signature cookie. So here it is:

I make cookies… & cakes… & cupcakes.. & strawberries…. & more!

Works, right? 🙂

In my dream it was a tiffany blue cookie with a white ampersand, but when it came time to make it I went with white because it’s the easiest to make and if I am going to be making these a lot I want them to be easy! The cutter I used I bought at an antique fair. I also just bought a biscuit/cookie cutter set that has one a tad bigger I might do next time. The little ones are cute though!

I want to take a minute to give MAJOR props to Sweet Sugar Belle for her icing color chart. There is no way I could have made this perfect tiffany blue, or any of the other colors I made last week without her chart! So thanks Sugar Belle!!

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

Baby Shower #1

This summer there are 2 baby showers I am helping with (and making cookies for!) Both are very good friends of mine, both due in August (within 3 days of each other), both having boys, and both are having sports themed showers!

Shower #1 is a general sports theme. Another good friend of the mom-to-be and myself helped with the cookies, and she brought her cousin too!

*Pause.* I have to be honest up front. I don’t really do sports. I am getting better at getting into baseball for the hubby, but that’s about it. I especially don’t play sports. I won’t even start on how uncoordinated I am, it’s ridiculous. Nevertheless, I thought I knew what all the balls looked like. Good thing I did some google searches for inspiration and didn’t just wing it…

Here are the cutters I used. I had the circle, but bought the rest at cheapcookiecutters.com.

We made baseballs and baseball bats.  I was planning on making the bats brown since I was doing brown already for the footballs (one less color to make, right?) But my husband said NO, they have to be tan. Fine.

Footballs. I like that the laces are on the top rather than the center, it doesn’t look so “fakey.”

Basketballs. Here is where the inspiration came in. If I had done the “wing it” method, I would have done the basketball like this:

Not saying it looks bad, just a little boring. (Don’t mind the crookedness, I just made it in paint to show my point.) Google inspiration gave me an angled look, which is much cuter and I never would have thought of it on my own!

Soccer balls. Similar situation as the basketballs. Except I really just didn’t know what a soccer ball looked like. And after a google search I realized that most people don’t know what a soccer ball looked like. I don’t want to offend anyone specific so instead of giving photo examples, I will just explain and if you care you can do a google search for “soccer ball sugar cookies” and you can see what I am talking about. Most people make the whole ball out of hexagons (6-sides) when in reality, a soccer ball is made up of black pentagons (5-sides) and white hexagons (6-sides). The second inspiration I got from searching for soccer ball cookies is that most people put the first black part in the direct center of the cookie and expand out. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it looks kinda funny. The one photo that I found that had the correct shapes did not center the black part, but rather did it askew. I loved it!

Okay besides all the inspiration above, I wasn’t going to even do soccer balls unless my friend was coming over to help me. I mentioned I don’t do sports.. that would be ESPECIALLY soccer. My friend however, has played her whole life and so she was in charge of the soccer balls. She did a fabulous job!

And lots of onesies! I love my onesie cookie cutter so much!!

A couple more, just cuz they’re my faves:

The cookies fit in perfectly with all the other sports decorations and with the cake!

Phew! While I didn’t make that many cookies, this was quite a project because there were so many different colors and it was hard to plan how much to make of each color so that I didn’t have to make too much icing or buttercream! It worked out nicely and I now know better exactly how much icing is needed to do a certain number of cookies. I learn more every time!

*PS* Are my picture taking skills getting any better? 🙂

2 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Sunshine Cookies!

Here in Sacramento it has been yucky weather for the last couple weeks… lots of clouds, lots of rain, and wind mixed in there too. It’s JUNE! Sacramento isn’t supposed to be like this! I  had some leftover dough after doing the graduation cookies last week so I decided to make some sunshine cookies to try to make the clouds disappear and bring on our usual sunny springtime!

I used my spiderweb cookie cutter from my halloween set. And I didn’t feel like making buttercream for just 19 cookies, so I did the outlining in a thicker version of my regular icing (similar to the way the pros do it with royal icing). I used golden yellow and some orange to make them bright and cheery, then ran a toothpick through them for the “firework” look. I did each one different to make a plate of FUN unique sunshine!

Since I did each cookie different, each felt like a work of art. After I finished each one, I would make my husband come look at how beautiful it was. He was trying to play his video games and I don’t think he appreciated the interuptions every 2 minutes…

Here are a couple close-ups:

This one was my favorite…

I forgot to take a picture of the cookies on the bright red platter so I took one on my phone and it turned out TERRIBLE, so you don’t get to see it. Just imagine it looking amazing. 🙂

*The cookies worked! The sun was out all day and it got close to 80 degrees!!*

1 Comment

Filed under Cookies

Graduation Cookies!

My little brother graduated from college and I made him cookies for his graduation party. He was on the crew team and it has become a big part of his life, so I also wanted to incorporate that into the cookies. Here are the new cutters I bought for his cookies (from cheapcookiecutters.com):

The only boat they had was a canoe and he does NOT row canoes. He gets so offended if you mistakenly call it a canoe or a row boat lol. So I didn’t get a boat.

I was worried about losing the tassel of the cap, but they were easier than I thought they would be.

The oars on the other hand, were a pain in the you -know-what. They are about 4 inches long but only about 1/2 inch wide at the paddle part. the mid section is SO skinny that I had to carefully straighten them all out before I baked them. I broke lots just trying to get them off the pan. Here is what survived:

When it came time for decorating, a few more oars got broken. Good thing I made a ton of those little s**ts.

School colors are dark green and yellow/gold. (I had a hard time getting the green to get dark enough.) The oars were so small I decided not to even outline them, and it worked out okay. I just kept the icing a little farther from the edges and didn’t do too much so it wouldn’t run down.

Here are the final products:

That crew one was my favorite. Too bad it was one of the last ones I did, I would have done more like it!

I did a few funny ones for my brother… he often sat in the seat in the boat called the “stroke seat.” They are kind of like the leaders of pace. I made one that said “Stroke it!” I thought it was hilarious, until I showed my brother the picture and he informed me that I had a misspelling:

The 2- is the symbol for a 2 man race in which each guy has only 1 oar. It’s the boat my brother finished the season racing. (It’s very difficult because if one guy is pulling harder than the other, the boat turns. They have to be precisely together, and the boat is only as fast as the weaker man.) I know my brother was proud of this title, so I did a few cookies with the 2-.

The “row row row your boat” was my husband’s idea. My brother didn’t laugh.

The only platters/trays I had that were big enough for this many cookies were red, and of course not everything goes with red, so I headed to the store to get a new platter or 2 that were more color neutral. I found this serving tray at Target with handles on the sides, and it’s perfect. A couple inches tall so it could actually hold even more cookies if needed!

I officially have a second order placed! A coworker’s husband just graduated so I will be making cookies for their party. Different colors, so it will be fun!

But first, I have a baby shower to make cookies for next week!

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

Baby Cookies!

I went to a baby shower today and I wanted to make just a couple cookies to give to the parents-to-be. Plus I wanted to try out my new ONESIE cookie cutter!! I was so excited about this one. Here is the cutter:

The baby’s name will be Jude Indigo Rule, and the parents are doing everything in green and brown (rather than the traditional blue).

    

    

I had SUCH a hard time getting my brown to darken. It just looked like tan/orangish. I finally added a little black and it got much better. My buttercream turned out a lot darker than the icing though because I always forget that buttercream darkens after a few hours. Oh well they still looked so cute! There was only 4 so I came up with 4 unique saying to put on them.

The first one is “Hey! Jude” cuz well, I had to do it…

The second is “Rock ‘n Rule”…

The third I did the initials…

And the last one is “iRule”… I just thought it was a cute saying, but I found out after I gave it to the mom-to-be that that is exactly how the dad-to-be introduced himself to her when they met. “Hi, my name is Russ, and I Rule.” Haha…

I put all 4 little individual wrapped cookies in a little gift bag. I had planned on tying them to the top of the gift I was bringing, but my treat bags were shorter than I thought.

It worked out better anyways cuz other gifts ended up stacked on top of it and they would have gotten broken. And plus it started raining and we had to grab all the gifts and run them to a car. Cookies need protecting! lol.

**This is going to be a cookie summer! Coming up: graduation cookies for 2 different parties and 2 more baby showers!

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

First Cookie Order

My coworker’s daughter has worked for years, in one way or another, for the republican party. It’s a huge part of her life, and she is about to leave to start a 6 month internship in DC. For her last day of work, her mom wanted to surprise her with a couple dozen custom sugar cookies made by *me!*

We ordered these cookie cutters from cheapcookiecutters.com:

        

I was originally going to just do the washington capital cookies plain white with white nonpariels or something… my husband said that would look dumb, so he helped me figure out which details to include and which to leave out. It was a lot of piping, but I was really happy with how they turned out. The elephants were lots of fun, I had to just google for ideas. I have star sprinkles so I just picked out all the white ones!

Here is the final product:

These may have earned me a HUGE project this summer, we will see!

Leave a comment

Filed under Cookies

Lemon Pudding Cake & Chocolate Strawberries

For Mother’s Day I wanted to make something amazing to take to my mother-in-law’s. I know they favor lemony desserts and so I offered to bring this cake that I already had on my “need to make this one of these days” list.

My aunt makes an amazing lemon cake that I have always liked. It starts from a box, and I know if has some pudding mix in it.. and then she pokes holes in the top and mixes powdered sugar and lemon juice and pours it over the top of the cake… I decided I wanted to try and make something similar, but maybe “fancier” looking, since hers doesn’t actually have frosting or anything on it.

I found this recipe while perusing different lemon recipes and I thought it sounded amazing… plus it is accompanied by a light frosting so I could “fancy” it up. I pretty much just followed the recipe with only a few minor changes. A few of the comments recommended using lemon cake rather than yellow, so I went with that. (I am of the opinion that it’s difficult to get desserts too lemony.) For the icing I used lemon juice rather than extract, cuz well, I don’t have extract.. and I used 2x as much. Also, I don’t have a 10×15 inch pan. (Seriously?! Who has a pan that big?) so I did half at a time using an 8×8 pan, and just slopped some of the icing in between.

I think the “beat for 4 minutes on high” part made the the batter uber smooth and the cake itself looked like velvet coming out of the oven. Also the comments said to  definitely keep the cake in the fridge – the cool whipped icing is key for the refresh-ness of this cake!

Here is the final picture:

I left it pretty plain looking… and of course, here is the cut picture:

Served with fresh cut up strawberries of course. It paired perfectly! This cake was YUMmy! Super smooth and light and moist. I wished there was more of the icing. It is definitely better cold right out of the fridge. I think the strawberries were an essential part, I don’t think I would make it again unless I had the fresh strawberries for it.

For “fresh” strawberry definition, see this post!

Since we are lucky enough to have both families in town, we spend brunch/lunch with my in-laws and dinner with my family. I told my family I was bringing strawberries. I don’t know what they were expecting, but I brought these:

My grandma loved the strawberries (yes they are fresh!) so much I am making her some for her bunco group later this week. (The cups near the center are filled with chocolate drizzled walnuts.)

After brunch with the in-laws I had HALF of the lemon cake left over. So before heading to my family dinner, I stopped home and used the leftover frosting and frosted the cut side. It looked good as new, you couldn’t even tell that it was reused!

**Coming up next… I am making my own birthday cupcakes!

Leave a comment

Filed under Cakes, Misc

Easter Treats!

After doing a lot of online searches for cookie ideas, I decided to try a new approach with my cookies. In the past I have covered the cookies with butter knives in my icing (similar to Royal Icing, but it was actually my grandmother’s recipe – and way yummier!) and then doing buttercream outlining and details (I picked this up from my aunt). I read a bunch of bloggers how-to’s on sugar cookie decorating with Royal Icing, and decided to try the “flooding” technique with my icing. It worked pretty well and the cookies look great. Unfortunately I did it one color at a time because of the thicker-outlining/thin-it-out-for-flooding part. This led to uneven amounts of cookies in different colors, and no use of sprinkles (I usually do about 1/3 – 1/2 solid colored with sprinkles. Next time I will think it out again to decide which way to go.

I did still do my buttercream for the details because I didn’t want to deal with thickening icing again and the buttercream is SOO easy and hardens just as nicely.

There ended up being about 70ish cookies: I did the names on eggs/butterflies for coworkers. One tray of cookies is going with my mother in law for Easter, and the rest are coming with me to my family’s Easter. (Since I took over making them – my gma used to do it – my family is obsessed with them and looks forward to every holiday.)

So here they are.. I really need to work on my cookie picture taking skills!

So I also chocolate dipped some peeps! I was inspired by this post and since one of my coworkers is OBSESSED with peeps I thought it would be fun to try. Here are the finished peeps waiting to dry:

And to end with a story…

I was baking my cookies and realized I didn’t have enough so I went to the store to buy more cookie dough stuff… While I was waiting for the dough to chill I started out on my icing. The finished ones went on a tray in my back bedroom to be out of my way. I shut the door so that the pets can’t get in there. So then I started in on my baking (music  blasting as always) and finished up right before my husband got home. As he walked around the corner he noticed the back room door was open… my puppy got the door open, knocked down the tray of cookies and was nearly done eating them all! Final count at the end was a loss of 22 cookies! Needless to say I was beyond pissed. And the puppy was on a sugar high till 2am that night!

Take 2 steps forward and 1 step back! 

Leave a comment

Filed under Candy, Cookies