I've been working on orders nonstop for the last couple of weeks and I'm finally done! I haven't shared any more pictures because, well, I've been busy, and also, with the exception of my fun purple order, I didn't change up the designs much from the last Christmas cookies I posted. So here they are!
This last week, for the first time I had a table at the Christmas boutique that my husband's work has every year. I worked nonstop for 4 days making and decorating lots of cookies. I had no clue how much to make, so I made about 70 medium-sized cookies and about 120 mini cookies, packaged by the dozen as well as in 4s.
I was really happy with the way the cookies turned out. I was so sure they would sell, so it was really frustrating when I sold out of the minis by the second day, but no one had touched the individual cookies, which I had spent way more time working on. It wasn't until we lowered the price 40% that we ended up selling half of them. And not one container of sugar cubes sold. :(
Last week I had another order of hockey cookies. This time the team logo was the Avalanche.
I recieved an order for some Thanksgiving cookies with the theme of "God is faithful", with a cream and white color scheme. I ended up making pumpkins, leaves, and square cookies that had the theme written on them, in muted colors. I really liked the way they turned out.
Last week I had a cookie order for a hockey coach's baby shower. I have the feeling this kid better like hockey or else!
In a couple of weeks, I'm going to have a table at a Christmas boutique that my husband's work holds every year. I'm a little nervous because I've never done anything like that before, and I'm not even sure that many people will even be interested in my cookies. After lots of brainstorming, I have decided to just offer cookies and decorated sugar cubes. I have a few orders coming up over the next couple of weeks, so I decided to make the sugar cubes now since they stay good forever.
Sorry I didn't share anything last week. I try to keep consistent with at least a post a week, but the macarons I worked on last weekend were macawrongs. It was a new recipe, and even when I tried out different baking techniques on each sheet, all of them were lopsided. Weird, right? They were so ugly that I didn't even bother making a filling for them. My toddler still enjoyed munching on them though.
Anyway, I did have an order last week for ladybug cookies for a baby shower. I made them to match the invitation.
In order to show you that not all of my creations turn out perfectly (in case any of you actually thought they did), I have kind of an embarrassing admission to make. When I first started making macarons and posting pictures of them here, I told you guys I had never actually had one before, but they looked right, tasted great, and the texture was how the book described it. Well, last week I came upon this blog post and learned that they aren't supposed to have a large air pocket between the top and the bottom of the shell. How was I to know? Of all the books and all the blogs that teach you how to make macarons, I haven't seen a single cross section of one until now. Here I was thinking I was doing it right, and apparently not so much. I'm pretty sure the reason was that I was overmixing the batter, but to be fair, the book I was using actually told me to mix it really well and then deflate the batter with a dough scraper, and the picture in it showed a thinner batter.
So yesterday I gave Ms. Humble's recipe a try and things went much better. And I got to use my blendtec to grind my almonds, and it did an amazing job. It blended the almonds much finer and much quicker than the food processor. For the filling, I decided to try a new recipe for pumpkin Italian meringue buttercream.
