Pretty Pink Princess Cookies

I have had a busy weekend.  I've had a barrage of last minute orders over the last couple of weeks.  It's funny how I can go a month without getting any cookie orders and then get 4 orders within a couple of weeks.  One of the orders I had this weekend was for princess themed cookies for a little girl's birthday party.  I was asked to make tiaras along with some swords mixed in so that the little boys at the party wouldn't be too inundated with pink girliness.

I brushed wet silver luster dust on the swords, and I added larger sanding sugar crystals on the sword hilt to look like little gems.

Budgeting Webinar Cookies

These cookies were a bit of a last minute order from a former co-worker of mine before I changed careers (to being a mom, that is).  They are supposed to look like signposts with the name of the project they've been working on.

The writing on the cookies scared the heck out of me, so I made the cookie as large as I could to make it easier.  It was the smallest lettering I've ever done and I didn't think it was going to turn out so well, but magically I got the exact right icing consistency and it went pretty smoothly.  And of course I used the kopykake.  Best investment ever!

Boring Almond Cookies and A New Toy

I don't have any fancy cookies to share today, just some regular, ordinary cookies.  A good friend of mine called me the other day and siad that she knows someone who wants a ton of almond flavored cookies around Christmas.  It's not a definite order at all, but I saw a recipe for some almond shortbread cookies in one of my cookbooks (Pastry Queen Parties) and I thought I'd see if they were any good.

They were tasty, but I think I prefer my regular sugar cookies with the addition of almond extract.

A couple of weeks ago I also got a new toy for my kitchen.  I've very slowly been working on replacing my less than stellar kitchen appliances with ones that actually work well, and I finally broke down and bought my dream blender, the Blendtec.  I've been wanting it forever, but it's pretty expensive.  So a few weeks ago, since the value of gold is so high right now, I traded in some old gold jewelry that I never wear and got more than enough to pay for the blender.  So after that I didn't feel quite so bad about spending that kind of money on it. 

This thing is amazing.  We've seriously used it at least once a day.  My husband and I used to always get smoothies from Jamba Juice but we stopped because they were getting so expensive.  I found a bunch of Jamba Juice recipes on Top Secret Recipes and we've literally made a smoothie every single day.  And the kid loves watching it go.  He was born with a moderate hearing loss, so I think he gets a kick out of how loud it is.  I can't wait to see how finely I can grind almonds with this thing the next time I make macarons!

Mayo, I mean, OMAO Cookies

One of the ladies at my husband's work ordered some rather unusual cookies last week.  They've been working on a project with the abbreviations OMAO, and because it sounds like "oh, mayo", she ordered mayonnaise jar cookies to share with everyone at the last meeting. 

I searched through all of my cookie cutters because I've never seen a jar cookie cutter and I knew I'd have to get a bit creative.  So I invoked my inner Sugarbelle* and this was the best I could do.  I ended up using a large candy corn cookie cutter, cut off the top, then used the top of a cauldron cookie cutter to get the lip of the jar and squished them together.  I kept the decorating pretty simple because it was a bit of a last minute order on a week where we already had weekend plans. 

Oh, and after these cookies and the eMBA cookies I made back in June, I've officially decided to add an additional charge for lettering.  I hate to nickel and dime people, but it takes a lot of time to pipe the lettering on, especially if it's a specific font, or for a logo.

*For the non-cookiers who may be reading this, Sugarbelle is an extremely talented cookie decorator who gets very creative with her use of cookie cutters and often uses several cookie cutters to get a custom shape.

Halloween Cookies, Round 1: Little Monsters

I know it's a bit early for Halloween, but I found a bunch of really cute Halloween cookie cutters at my local cake shop and I thought I'd give them a try.  Last Halloween, I was just barely starting to decorate cookies and I made pretty basic cookies, so it still kind of feels like the first time I'm really tackling Halloween cookies.

This week I tried out the little monster cookie cutters I bought.  Oh, and I also tried out LilaLoa's chocolate cookie recipe, which is really delicious.

And for the spiders, I had to go with whimsical, colorful spiders because...well, I really hate spiders so much that even spider cookies really gross me out.  In my son's preschool, the music therapist makes fun of me because I refused to touch the (overly realistic) rubber spider, muchless put it on my head for that awful song "There's a Spider on the Floor".  In case you don't have a preschooler, here's a youtube video I found of it.  Seriously, what sicko came up with that song? 



Pretty Pink Macarons with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Well, I don't have any more cookie orders coming up, so now I get to make whatever I want.  This weekend, I thought I would return to my precious macarons.  I decided to try making pretty pink ones this time.  I've never added food dye to them, afraid that it would somehow mess with them, but I've heard the gel pastes are ok, and I have so many of those on hand for the cookies that I thought I'd give it a try. 

I knew I was going to do Swiss meringue buttercream again, but I couldn't decide what variation I should do.  In the end I was deciding between chocolate and lemon flavored (using lemon emulsion), and I asked my husband which he preferred.  He said he'd like chocolate more, so even though I was thinking lemon sounded yummy, he really hates it when I do that thing where I ask him his opinion on something and end up doing what I want anyway, so I went with chocolate for the sake of our marriage.

And they're good, but the chocolate isn't strong enough.  I guess that's why chocolate macarons usually use ganache instead of frosting.  But it was still Swiss meringue buttercream, so it's still delicious. 

And of course, with a bunch of egg yolks laying around, I had to make some more Salted Caramel Ice Cream. 

Welcome Cookies (Again)

This weekend I had another order for a welcome basket for another new tenant in an office building.   So I did half keys and half the company's logo.

I used the kopykake for both designs.  I used a stencil the last time I did keys, but as organized as I thought I was, I could not for the life of me find the stencil I had made for the last order.  So I found a different design and improvised, using my kopykake as a guide for consistency.  I also added dry gold luster dust for a sparkly look on the keys, but it's hard to tell in the picture.

The company that ordered this basket has a logo that uses the same colors, so I made up one cookie with their logo as a thank you.

Hawaiian Luau-Themed Cookies

Here are the cookies I made for Lorelai's Hawaiian luau-themed birthday party.  All of these cookie designs were a first for me, but I was very happy with the way they turned out.