Flowers from Colored Dough

A friend was having her grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony and wanted some cookies for the event. The place is called The Wildflower Boutique so they wanted some flowers. We'd talked about various things and she decided that she'd like colored dough with icing outlines. I checked out their logo and picked the colors from that. I wasn't thrilled with them, but she loved them, so I guess that's what matters! I used lots of centers I'd made over time with various leftover Royal Icing, which really speeds up the process since they are pre-made and completely dry already.  Here are the pics of the finished product and the process.

The Wildflower Boutique, Wildflower colored dough cookies

The Wildflower Boutique, My hands after mixing the purple into the cookie dough

The Wildflower Boutique, Finished cookies in their wrapping

The Wildflower Boutique, Colored Cookie Dough

The Wildflower Boutique, Owners Paige Trussell and Cheyenne Pye

 

Easter Cookies

Wow! What a week! I am EXHAUSTED! Somehow I ended up biting off way more than I should have for Easter "orders" from friends. It just didn't really seem like that many people, but then I counted the number of dozens that I needed and I was in way over my head! I have slept very little this week, grabbing an hour or two here and there. Last night when I finally crashed at 3:00 am, I'd been up for over 27 hours straight and had only had a few naps here and there in the two days leading up to it. I was supposed to meet a friend at 10:00 am, but didn't hear my 8am alarm and awoke in sheer panic at 11:41 am. I was sick, sick, sick. Thankfully, she was very forgiving and was just excited to get her cookies. I still have about 3 dozen to go before Sunday, but for now am sipping my coffee and trying to recover from the biggest part of 17 dozen this week.  Here's an overview shot of my Easter cookies for this year.

Easter Cookies, Easter Bunny Cookies, Easter Egg Cookies, Cracked Easter Egg Cookies, Easter Cross Cookies

Will update later with the challenges and specifics from this set, but for now just wanted to be able to get the pic up.

Here are pics that people who had some of them sent me of them being displayed or enjoyed:

Easter Cookies

 

Easter Cookies

Easter Cookies

 

Poker and the State of Alabama

So today is/was my precious Uncle Tom Hugh's 77th birthday. I had planned to do cars, but wasn't nuts about my cutters, so I decided to do poker/casino cookies. I met him and all of his kids and grandchildren for lunch and took these for dessert. They were a hit.

As usual I procrastinated in getting started on them last night after working all day and didn't get started even making the dough for baking them until about 9:45 pm. Then I wasted a ton of time looking for that darn spade cutter. Went back and checked a drawer of cutters I'd checked twice already and there it was after wasting so much time looking for it. I really need a better organizational system for my cutters, because I so hate digging through drawers/bins for them. But I digress. I think I finally went to bed around 1:00 am - second night in a row of very little sleep. Fortunately, I only had to mix the green and black colors because when I mixed the white, red and blue for the Alabama cookies the night before, I knew I would be using them on these as well, so I mixed a lot (I feel like I should start singing, "I like big cookies and I cannot lie!" - ha). Here are the cookies:

Poker Cookies, Casino Cookies

 Yesterday was a co-worker's last day at work. She was here in Birmingham at UAB working on her master's in Genetic Counseling, and while she liked it here, being in Alabama was very different for her since she was from Connecticut. We gave her an Alabama cookbook and a locally made candle, as well as these cookies. 

Once again the procrastinator put off starting these and opted for a nap instead around 6:30 pm. Problem was that the "nap" didn't end until around midnight. So at 12:38 am, I began making the dough to do these. I went to bed at 2:48 am - really not too bad time wise considering I made dough, cut cookies, baked cookies, cooled cookies, mixed icing colors and decorated them in that time span. I'd planned more elaborate designs, but had to give that up and do all wet-on-wet designs since I'd waited so late. These aren't my favs, but she loved them and got lots of Instagram comments about them.

I Mustache You to Have a Donut

I did these mustache cookies for my uncle who is recovering from surgery. I did the drawing ones free handed and wish I'd done them using templates instead, but they loved them, so I guess that's what matters.

Mustache Cookies

 

 

My aunt has the only LaMar's Donuts franchise in our state, so I've been wanting to do these for her for a while and finally got around to it. Super easy! Did a couple of coffee cups using the cupcake cutter and cake cutter. Still not thrilled with the overall look of them, but they definitely look better than my first attempt at coffee cup cookies . She loved them and wants me to do a bunch for her for Easter - not these, but Easter cookies.

Donut Cookies