The critic's choice

My sweet, free-spirited little man is my biggest fan, and also my official taste tester. And trust me he is not shy about his likes and dislikes. No feelings will be spared in the wake of the 2 year old opinion! He chose the dinosaur cookie for our project this week! Gladly I took to my drawing board to create a "cool" cookie as was requested! This week was packed full of "sure I can help" and "that sounds fun"; so right to work early Monday morning! I am going with the same dough and icing this week, but rolling out the cookies a little thinner than last week. With the addition of a smaller cookie cutter I have produced a total of 23 faceless dinosaurs. Now to give them life! I used a black icing to pipe out the outline and most of the details.; then also finished some of the details with black at the end too. I filled in with green and yellow. I also used a little tan color for the feet and eyes. Taking a cue from last week I made the fill icing a little thinner. That gave me the opportunity to finish the decorating all in the same day. Which worked best since I happily watched another little girl Monday & Tuesday for a few hours both days this week, This one was about 2 yrs. old and I had to watch the kids like a hawk. Ok, seriously, I am sure, NO more babies right now! Yeash! Isacc and I are just now learning how to share! Plus we took a two-day trip to my parents and then into the city. What was supposed to be a fun family day (and by that I mean Isacc and I playing while my husband was working!), turned into an adults only trip. When my opinionated little monster gave a 45 min. vocal expression of how he should go somewhere w/ his Ama and not his parents; my mother bravely took him with and I got to enjoy a day of lunch meetings and peaceful shopping! Then to celebrate in our temporary freedom, my husband and I treated ourselves to one of my favs for super, Mercat on Michigan Ave. Now you know what that place could use, a fancy cookie w/ their logo on it! Seriously, doesn't everyone need that! And with that a new "business" idea begins brewing in my good intentioned, entrepreneurial brain! If only I could find the funding, time, and creative control over all of these fabulous plans.

Humm,,, for now, maybe I'll just stick with my cookie "job'!

Once apon a time...

Well, here it goes. I began my 1st week with all guns blazing. I started w/ ideas that reached way into the clouds, yet was quickly grounded as the reality of the process began. I decided on trying my hand at snowflakes. I thought they were simple enough to cut; I could just focus on the pipeing detail and have fun w/ some other decorative ideas. I used my regular rolled sugar cookie dough that I have been using forever. It works well but I will soon be trying out some other recipes too! I made one batch and set it in the fridge to firm up! I was telling myself that I may be able to take on two designs a week if it was going to be this simple! After all, my fabulous self-entertaining two year old is plenty amused w/ pots, pans, spoons and toy dinosaurs. Then my "I can do it all" personality persuaded me to take care of a tiny 6 week old baby girl for a few days! As much of a joy as it was, and an assurance that we ARE NOT ready for more babies in this house, it caused my poor cookie dough to sit in that same bowl in the fridge for 3 days! An aha moment that solidified my decision to do ONE cookie a week not ten! 

I decided to roll the dough out thick, much thicker than I usually do to look like the ever popular "fancy cookies on a stick" that I see selling for $8 a pop! I yielded 12 large star shaped concoctions. Really only 12? Guess I better not screw anything up huh! Needless to say, after a nosy husband and some poor handing; (Of course I should eat those "broken" ones! Cant waist em!) I ended w/ 6 final snowflakes.  And 3, maybe 4 that I actually was proud to show off.  I iced these snowflakes w/ my usual corn syrup icing. I piped an outline on each one 1st, let that dry a few hours, then thinned the mixture a pinch and "filled" in the full cookie. That took 1 day to dry. And trust me it does if you make it thick like I did. Those fancy fingerprints I added to one of the snowflakes never did go away! I used the same icing as the outline to pipe in some of the detail. Then after that dried on the white ones, I used a silver dust mixed w/ lemon juice to paint the white cookies silver. That was fun and I loved the outlook of it.  And a weeks time of total work was enjoyed in a few short hours after that! Yum! 

Lets see, it is Friday night and cookie # 2 is just around the corner! Stay tuned...!