Dynamic Duo

So there are these two boys in Massachusetts that I love. like, they are the bee's knees. of course, this COULD have something to do with how much I adore their mom.... but even on their own, these boys are pretty awesome.

so NATURALLY, when my friend Susie said the boys were going to have a joint birthday celebration with a batman theme.... I couldn't resist. I mean, if *I* couldn't be there, at least my cookies could.. right?

Each boy got their own personalized centerpiece cookie with a birthday message. Since Liam's older, I decided he should get Batman, and his little brother sidekick could rock the Bat-signal. (wasn't about to attempt Robin)

In addition to the centerpiece cookie, I made a couple of dozen bat signal cookies to put in favor bags.

And after creating my own batman cookie cutter....a couple dozen Batman-heads....

When all was said and done, each guest got a favor bag with a Batman and Bat signal cookie, tied with a nice ribbon and personalized tag. I even made a few cookies that were dairy and egg free for one of their friends.

Here's to MY favorite Dynamic Duo, Liam and Seamus! Happy birthday, Boys!

Holy Orders

This week I was busy making a BUNCH of cross-shaped cookies for a first Communion this coming weekend in New Jersey. Coincidentally, the class of student *I* teach is ALSO making their first Communion this weekend, AND our church is having a bake sale.

It was agreed that I would make 5 dozen cookies for the New Jersey affair, but I ultimately baked 75 cookies... allowing myself a decent margin should I have any mishaps. I figured any extra I made can be donated to the church for the bake sale... with that many first-time communicants on the loose, I figured the cross-cookie might be an easy sell.

Having learned from my own mistakes, I decided I would stick with a simple (and REPEATABLE) design. I was thinking all-white... with some texturization. given the sheer QUANTITY of cookies I was taking on, I knew my hands would be able to handle only so much piping. the idea of switching back and forth between colors would have probably broken me.

The crosses came out pretty simple looking, but those looks can be deceiving. I completed the cookies in about 5 stages. First I piped the 'outline' of each cross. Second came the flooding. that provided a plain white 'background' for each cookie. I let those sit over night so I'd be working on a nice firm surface the next day. (this would also be the best practice if I were thinking about using colors on top of the white. if the white is not completely dry, you will run a VERY high probability of the colors bleeding. I should know.)

Phase three had me doing the jacquard/scroll pattern on each cookie. I finally hit my 'groove' of this step around dozen number three or four. A VERY important reminder if you do something like this yourself is to go back over these cookies within a reasonable amount of time and 'trim' up the excess scrolling. This is particularly important for stage FOUR... where I once again piped the 'outline' of each cross.

SIDE NOTES:

without the 'trimming', the outlines ended up being either raised up or crooked, period. I also feared that with the raised up edges, they would be the first area of breakage when the cookies would be shipped. the textured cookies are adorable in all the various ways they can be done.. but cracko! first to go every time.

Also? Some may argue that the final 'outline' is not necessary, but personally i feel it lends a polished and profession touch to each cookie. Blame the engineer in me, but I like seeing definitive edges.

The final step for the cookies was to (after one more night of hardening/drying time) was to brush a luster dust over each cookie to give a pearlized sheen. (Note to self-- I NEED to get a bigger design brush.. using the little one took me FOREVER!)

During my 'down time' of waiting for the royal icing to dry.. I worked on the favor tags. I found some great pearlized green card stock that I used as the springboard for my design. (also why I chose to do the luster-dust on each cookie)

I printed the pertinent info on some heavy white card stock, then used one of those fancy-shmancy scissors to cut out and glue on to the green paper. Also? found a bucket of table confetti and glued a flower to each 'tag'. The flower confetti was also pearlized... so it was a perfect match.

Before I knew it, it was assembly time. Bag, tag, tie, pack. repeat 60 times.

I will also take a moment to note that the ribbon i used was squeezabley adorable. perfect color match, and just the right width. and who can resist a polka dot? AWESOME, I say!!

Finally, all 59 cookies were bagged and tagged. (yeah... one broke cause I'm clumsy and dropped it. I was bummed at first, but then I ate it. No sense mailing a broken cookie, and I was running low on energy, anyway. )

The most unsettling thing in this whole process for me is what came next... boxing up. Usually I shrink-wrap each cookie, but I opted for favor bags this time. I have no idea if they will 'behave' differently en route...but I definitely used about $20 worth of bubble wrap.

So that's it! the cookies have been mailed, and should arrive either tomorrow or Saturday. I toyed with the idea of driving them up myself, but my husband vetoed it on grounds of not being safe with the amount of time between MY class' mass and the one in New Jersey. I definitely put enough love in each cookie, so I'm sure the guest of honor will know how much we're missing her on her special day.

Love you, Laney-Bird! I hope you enjoy your cookies!

Going, Going, Gone

A friend of ours recently moved to San Francisco. ASIDE from being ridiculously talented (I swear, ONE of these days I'll get the new and improved Stepford site up and running! (Annie came up with what will be my new logo and helped with the new layout design.)) again.. ASIDE from being super-amazing and talented.. she's just a great girl, period.

As a little send-off gift for her, I made some cookies for her going-away party.

As with any new design I do... I draw it out on paper before I attempt to pipe. if I can't draw it, there's no way I'd be able to PIPE it!

a progress shot. if you're wondering why the techno-bright colors, I was matching the ribbons I had purchased to wrap the favors with. they were white with multi-colored polka dots. Hey.. the party was a day before Easter.. there weren't too may options to choose from when I went looking for ribbons!

Finished shot of some of the cookie favors. looking back, I think I like the solid-color framed cookies the best. a little less "busy", shall I say?

Once I completed all the round cookie favors, I set off on creating a larger, central display cookie. for that cookie, I wanted to pipe the Golden Gate Bridge to remind the party-goers where our guest of honor was headed.

Although I was happy with how the bridge piping turned out....



I'm kinda mad at my wording efforts. I'll throw you for a loop and do my "LESSONS LEARNED" segment a little early. The "Goodbye and Good Luck" piping was a little uneven. and in my opinion there was too much 'dead space' on the large cookie. It doesn't look so bad when the round cookies were flanking it...



but I certainly feel like I could have done 'more' with the large cookie. At the very least a bigger center design?

Nonetheless, I think the guest of honor enjoyed her special cookies, and it was a pleasure to see her one more time before she left. She will be missed here in the neighborhood, and San Francisco is lucky to be getting her.

Good Luck, Ann! Love you much!

Truckloads of Fun

So this week I took on a project for a little man that's very near and dear to my heart. My very good friend's little boy (and quite possibly my future son in law) is having his 4th birthday party this weekend.

The theme?

Monster Trucks.

Short on time and even shorter on 'monster truck' cookie cutters... I opted for a plain circle in which I could pipe monster trucks on.


little did I know what I was getting in to.

Undeterred, I did some research, printed out a few clip art images, did a few practice sketches in pencil, then dove in.



Some of the first ones weren't exactly the best, but eventually I caught my groove and came up with an acceptable design.


Final count was two dozen, and the birthday boy should receive them tomorrow.... with plenty of time to spare for his party on Saturday.


Final pictures.... here's to a "monster" good party....

Lessons learned? I still need to figure out my shrink-wrap methods. the backs of the cookies looked lump and bumpy, which is PROBABLY because I used too much shrink wrap.

also? if I ever get to a point where I'm charging people for cookies, I have to be mindful of the design and amount of effort each takes. This particular project was done out of love, so it could have been 100x more intricate and I wouldn't give it a second thought... but in terms of something that could be a paying job... I'll need to consider the amount of skill and time certain designs require. I'd be curious to compare my 'speed' to get cookies such as these done now, and let's say.. in another year from now.

Plum Pear Apple

some days, I've got it. other times?? not so much.

Last week, I really wanted to send out some packages that had been kicking around for a while. random love, thank you gifts, belated birthday presents, congrats presents, baby gifts.. you name an occasion, and I pretty much was needing to send something for it.


of all the packages I sent last week, one happened to be a congratulationary gift. Is that a word? if not... you heard it here first!

Anyho... a fellow blogger I enjoy reading recently launched her own company selling super-hero capes for children. Have you seen it yet? It's Pear Plum Apple Designs... and she really does make the most adorable hand-made capes.


As a little way to congratulate her company's inauguration, I decided to send her a little of what *I* like to do.. kind of like a long distance hi-five. I whipped up a batch of sugar cookies, and created one with her logo on it.




and since I had the icing and cookies made already, I made a few extra... one with her name on it, and a few little ones for her little boy, Mason.



LESSONS LEARNED: Although this was a fun 'gift' to make... I made a VERY big mistake. Erin's logo background is white. when doing a white background.. it it EXTREMELY imperative to let the icing dry completely before piping dark colors on top. Thankfully, I took pictures of the cookie the night I did it, because after sitting overnight, the plum, pear and apple dyes bled into the white background. ... as seen by the picture below.



another thing to be noted with white backgrounds... it is better to use a THICKER layer of the icing. Due to the size of the cookie, I baked a little longer to ensure it was cooked thoroughly. This caused some browning on the top of the cookie, which can easily bee seen through the icing because 1 - it's white, and 2 - I did not apply a thick enough coating.

one last (obvious) reminder... the thicker the icing.. the longer the dry time!!! so be patient!

St. Patty's Day

Well... I doubt St Patrick had cookies on his mind when he was in Ireland teaching about the Catholic Faith... but I sure have cookies on MY mind this St. Patrick's Day.

Now that Rhena is older and really wants to HELP with everything.. and Danny is mobile (read has free reign of the downstairs so I'm a walking stress bucket) it's a bit harder just to decide I want to make cookies and get to baking.

step one--- get those cookies BAKED!

This particular batch has taken a total of three days to complete. one day I made the dough, the next Rhena and I rolled, cut and baked... yesterday I did the base icings, and just today I finished the details. oh. I guess that's FOUR days.

bases done... time for the finishing touches!

no matter. the best part of sugar cookies is that they keep extremely well; especially when stored in the tupperware.

for practicality, I tried to keep it simple. only 2 different shapes/cutters, and only 4 colors of icing.

The finished bunch. 21 in all. lucky number?

plated up for a nice final picture. Happy St Patrick's Day!

Lessons learned: I need to watch how much water I add back in to the icing to thin it out for flooding. I noticed that when the larger shamrocks dried, there was some inconsistencies in the color over the cookie. This is most noticeable in the dark colors. This batch was just for fun, and I'd like to think my friends will eat them just the same... but it's definitely something I need to be a little more careful about going forward.

Lemon Cookies

I practiced using flavoring in the icing, as well as decorative techniques in this batch. The cookies themselves were a bit hard... a result of too much flour, I think. you can see 'layers' in the cookie from a side view.

I tried to do a more appealing plating/different camera angles for this batch as well... as seen from the complimenting colors and props. I feel the fancier background makes the cookies look that much more 'lemony'.

attempted to create the pulpy -slash- textured look. Used a paintbrush for that effect.

overall.. I would re-attempt these again. think with more experience and a better cookie base, these could be very nice as summer gifts.