Have your cookie and eat it too!

I got to enjoy the excitement of a "hard core" bakery this week. And by enjoy I mean spending long into the night hours of frustration standing in 90 degree heat and having to throw a whole batch a dough away because it basically just melted when I was rolling it out! Yep that was pure enjoyment! On the upside, after a few screaming sessions, (and a shot :), I made more dough and it baked off just fine. I went to bed late but woke up with a new sense of determination as I returned to the bakery the next morning to decorate the cookies. Only snag in this idea, a 21/2 yr old "helper" that I had to bring along. So son, if you are reading this years from now I want you to know that I am extremely proud of you and how good you were that day! You "iced" your own few cookies and "put them in the oven for a bake!" And you played with your Spiderman under the table for most of the time. However, I would have gotten things done allot faster if I didn't have to stop every few minutes to get you a drink, a snack, take you to the potty, or just to "look Mommy!" Nonetheless I seamed to be able to put out a decent product despite all the previous drama. What were you doing out of your dainty, air-conditioned home kitchen you may ask? I was making wedding cake cookies for a wedding open house at my husbands restaurant. They booked a handful of deals so I think it was successful! Hooray! I had the cookies match in theme and colors to the table designs of the open house.  I used my regular cookie dough and icing. I have tried lots of different variations, but I think that most people prefer the original stuff! And by most people I mean my lovely husband! I was pleased with the taste and result of the cookies. However, every time I make something, I always think about how I could have done it different and/or better. There is not an exception here. I would like to do a bit of a change in color scheme and a thicker icing. And ideally with a peaceful, temperature controlled, child monitored space!

The last Graduation!

Well,  it's official! The last of the 8 children in my family has graduated and we are all so proud of the littlest adult now in our family! I am not gonna lie, I cried like a baby and then I cheered as loud as possible too! And then joked with my parents that they would be "old" the next time they had one of these to go to since the oldest grandchild is only just now 6! At least they will have earned a seat in the front with the other grandparents instead if the far back like where we sat in this graduation! The last row! At least we had awesome cookies to come home and eat! I made graduation hats and matched them to the napkins used for the party. I made 80 cookies! And a quick shout-out to my sister who helped me pipe in the year at the end too! Thanks Katie!And Congrats Little Jonny Jon Jon! I am so Proud of you!

ILL - INI

I was very excited to do these cookies this week. I used a new dough and a new icing. Plus they were three layers high. This was a challenge that I was thrilled to take on! I used a more of a pastry dough than a sugar cookie dough and it was very light and stayed well for a handful of days too! I used for the icing a sort-of buttercream icing. It was a little weird to work with at first and took some time to dry so I could continue the next step. But when finished all together, I really loved the taste of it. I would have done a bit more refining on the decor of the cookie, but this was more about the ingredients this time around! I chose U of I because my lovely sister and her husband work for the sports office at the school. I thought she would like them and think that was fun. And also, if you live in this college town, you are obsessively bombarded with all things orange and blue! It's craziness! So I guess I should jump the band wagon and "Go Illini!"  

Girls just wanna have SHOES!

I seriously love shoes! I always want to buy them and then I always end up only wearing them once or twice! Its a fantastic habit to have when you need a shoe in every color! I thought that a high-heal shoe cookie would be a great cookie for Mother's Day. Of course just like a mother, I was running crazy the morning of and didn't get to finish any detailing to the yummy shoes, so I took only white shoes to my Grandma's house. But I saved a few back so I could beautify them and finally I have! In future shoe cookie endeavors, I want to try making them look like animal print heals using the right icing colors accordingly and piping it out loosely and then pulling a toothpick through them. Similar to the way I made the purple and black butterflies and a few of the baby bottles, but with thinner overall lines of color. Wouldn't that be fun! Oh dear, love of shoes must transfer over to love of cookie shaped shoes! I have a million ideas of ways you could decorate these shoes and then have one of them in every color too!

It's my party...& I'll eat cookies if i want to!

It's official, she's a real adult! Aunt Nicole has made it 21 years in this crazy world! Congrats! It was a fun celebration for my brother's girlfriend's birthday and we are all planing on a fun night on the town this weekend too! Two of my five brothers (and yes, no need to adjust your screen I did say five!) and their girlfriend's; one of which was the birthday girl, joined my husband and I for dinner this week and I brought some cookies along! Guess I really have turned into the cookie lady if I'm caring them around with me huh! LOL! I made little cakes for her and tried a new style of piping to make the "cake" look like it was really frosted. I made the icing very thick so that it would harden quickly and then piped it through the tip.  I will certainly use this cookie cutter again for future birthday's, more realistically for a baby's 1st birthday or something like that! And I will for sure be spending a little more time and a bunch more attention to detail in the decorating another time around! These I'm afraid look a little like we had already started celebrating! Se la vie! They tasted great! I used my Grandma's sugar cookie recipe that has sour cream in it and they were fantastic! Hard enough to decorate but soft enough to keep eating them all night! Happy Birthday my dear sweet Cole!

In full bloom!

My family is bursting with all things "babies" right now! MY wonderful brother is blessed with a healthy baby boy, Justin! He is just the cutest thing! And coming soon this fall will be my cousins little bundle! I was excited to make some fun baby cookies for my cousin's girlfriend's baby shower! This was also eventful because it was my first attempt at a gluten free dough! My cousin's girlfriend has celiacs disease and so I substituted alternative ingredients to my basic recipe. A word to my no-gluten eating peps; don't add to much xanthum gum to your mix! Those suckers will turn out to be some sort of strange, deformed looking glob of health food tasting cookie like substance! Not so good when you are giving them to a pregnant lady huh! So I made more dough with less bonding agent and then kept the dough very chilled up until rolling, cutting, and baking it off! Much better result and once they were iced you couldn't even tell they were different from the others! They even tasted half good too! :) Unlike myself that cant stand secrets and wants to always know as much detail about everything, my cousin has decided to wait on finding out the baby's sex and so the cookies were done, of-course, in yellow and green. So if anyone can't have gluten and you like sugar cookies and you want them to look radical, look me up, I'm your gal! 

Cute as a bug!

I was so excited to have my first real gig! Basically I made 2 dozen cookies for a friend's baby shower! It was a ladybug themed event! Do you know in this poor little Champaign, Il there are no ladybug shaped cookie cutters! What is this world coming to? (I miss the city!) So I ordered on-line and 3 ridiculous weeks later they arrived! I had many grandiose ideas for the ladybug cookies, but in the essence of a time crunch I went the simpler route! With typical bug colors these ended up so cute! I used my basic recipe for both dough and icing! And I hope it ended with a happy group of shower goers! 

Spring is here!

My heart beats faster when I wake up to warm beautiful sunny weather! Springtime is my favorite time of year! I feel new and peaceful and happy! I have been a bit behind this week on cookie blogging because of the sun!  Everyday I have been outside! I cant wait for the warm weather to plateau out and become summer! We have been busy bees these past few weeks too! A handful of days at the park, regularly scheduled family feasts, and many more days car shopping! In the world of new car shopping; I didn't know that such stress existed! Prior to moving back to a small a town we were a 1 car family and had the wonderful economical conveniences of the "L" or a cab. And when I say wonderful, I mean the trained patience we learned for using the CTA and large sense of financial fear from the ever dreaded parking ticket! Plus, we had all things with-in walking distance and rarely drove anyways. Since moving back we have still been a 1 car family for the past 6 months or so, and are more then ready to graduate to the next step! Oh the places we will go! We also acquired a permanent foster child this past week. Bernard the fish, previously mentioned, has found his new home here with us and is my son's new sole responsibility! Bernard's other "siblings" at his original residence were trying to "play" with him. And by that I mean the cats were a little too curious! He has already become a vital part of our home! This week I went for the butterfly cookie. I am pleased with the results of my three different designs and color combinations. I stuck with the cream cheese sugar cookie dough and am just so happy with it! I think it will become my new staple! I need to figure out how to add texture to my cookies in some form. I have used the sugar crystals and things similar to that. I tried these tiny little purple beads this week. I struggled getting them to stick and to be applied in a uniform fashion.  I am thinking it will be a future goal and you may see more of all that jazz in future posts. For now and until next week, enjoy!

One Cookie! Two Cookie! Red Cookie! Blue Cookie!

Wow! 106 years old! That's how old the great and talented Dr. Seuss would have been had he lived till today! My son and I are great fans of much of his work. One of our favorite books is "I am not going to get up today!" And all of you grew up loving Dr. Seuss just as much, I am sure! I searched high and low for any form of Dr. Seuss shaped cookie cutters. I looked for The Cat in the Hat, The Grinch, Horton, and so on, but even on-line I was struggling to come up with something close to what I wanted! So I tried a little icing free-hand this week! If I find the type of cutters I wanted I will definitely be doing this again! So an ode to the eccentric man in cookies? A delicious idea! I have found, what I am starting to believe is the NEW cookie dough of my dreams! And yes, I do dream alot about cookies! This sugar cookie dough has an unrecorded amount of cream cheese blended into it! This is the best dough to date to work with and it is staying soft through out the week after they have been baked off and decorated! Many times, once the cookies have been iced they lose much of their gooey goodness and become a little too sweet. The icing dries them out and after a few days they taste like straight sugar. With this dough I think I could keep cookies about 5 days and still be unembarrassed to offer one to someone! On that note, my official apologies to all friends and relatives that have received a plate of week old, beautifully decorated cookies that taste like dollar store rock candy! Yeash! Until now, I was only giving 1-2 day old cookies to anyone that I still wanted to impress! But with this fabulous dough; Let all who want good cookies, get good cookies! It is my own form of a Marie Antoinette moment!

A school of...cookies!

I am so excited this week! I changed my white-chocolate cookie dough a little from the original recipe and I am much happier with the outcome! I think it is still in need of some tweaking, but this week they were bordering on delicious! I also changed it up a little with the icing, and aside from the ensuing carpal-tunnel, I think it was a good result. I made fish cookies as an ode to my brother and his girlfriend's newest pet, Bernard. The jury is still on the compatibility with his three other siblings (all cats!) I used my regular icing to outline and fill the first layer on the cookies. Then I switched to a royal icing for the detailing. I also made a two toned look by using individually bagged colors in the same piping bag; and piped them out together! That, I thought was so fun! My son especially loved the cookies this week because he felt one step closer to getting his own pet fish. There is a cute pet store nearby that we walk to often and he always says "Hi" to each of HIS fish. He is a lover of all things animals, especially the extinct ones! We are redoing his room in to a dinosaur paradise! This week we even got him a big boy bed! He is so excited! I am so overwhelmed! Is my baby really big enough for a real bed! And after a handful of sleepless nights with my husband, myself, our wiener dog, 2 large stuffed animals, 3 plastic dinosaurs each with their own blanket, and then occasionally my son, squished into a full sized bed, he is finally "big enough" to sleep on his own! If we ever have to do that again, I will just bribe the kid with cookies!