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

 

Golf Cookies

Who's your caddy? ha!  Did these to celebrate a friend's son making the golf team and his first match. Her photography of them is much better than mine was, so I'm only showing you her pic.

Golf Cookies, "Fore! Cookies"

 Earlier the same week I did a rehashing of the spa face cookies for a spa party for a fellow attorney's daughter's 10th birthday.

Spa cookies

With the dough I had left over from the spa cookies, I decided to try working with colored dough. It makes for a little more work on the front end of the process, but overall is much faster because you only have to wait for outlines to dry and no flooding the entire surface. Wouldn't do it all of the time, but it is definitely an option I will use in the future.

Cookies Made with Colored Dough

My husband's boss had his retirement party on Thursday of this week. Typically the catering department at the college does the retirement parties, but they were off this week because many of the school's departments were closed for the week during spring break. It was very important to my husband that his boss have as nice a retirement party as anyone else gets when catering does it, so I stepped in since my husband's department is comprised of all men. I did a number of things for the party, but did about 50 two inch squares with the school's logo on them. Everyone was so excited about those cookies and was baffled as to how I did them. Of course, I did the logos as Royal Icing transfers and was pretty pleased with them overall, but I did learn that air flow is VERY important in the drying process of the flooding with transfers on top of them. I typically work on plastic trays and stack the trays in alternating fashion for drying because I am sorely lacking in space. I found that the ones that were covered by a section of the tray above it did not dry as well as those that had open air space above them and got some bleeding of the black outline onto the yellow. Fortunately, I was able to salvage them by piping yellow in about a 25 second consistency back on top of the blackened yellow portions. My husband was fine with the ones that had bleeding on them, but I so was not. I thought it made them look dirty and who wants to eat dirty cookies! I also cheated and bought some oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies from Costco as filler, as well as doing a veggie tray, fruit tray, cheese & crackers and nuts. They'd ordered a cake as well, which I put on a separate table. I did lemonade from a clear dispenser with lemon slices floating inside to make it pretty. I also put whole lemons in the clear section at the bottom of the dispenser. We also did coffee. I didn't know many people there, so I was easily able to eavesdrop on comments about the spread for the party and was quite pleased with what I overheard - everyone was pleased and most said the look and the taste were much better than when the catering department does the parties. :)

Birmingham- Southern College Cookie, Royal Icing Transfer

Just Horsing Around

So I did these horse cookies today for a friend's daughter's 15th birthday. She's a horse girl and does tons of shows, so this is the set I put together for her. I used this Sugarbelle tutorial for the horses and this one of hers for the bandanas. Of course, I waited until the last minute to do them, so the first icing layer on the bandanas wasn't quite dry enough for me to try marking on with the food color maker, so the yellow ones ended up with lots of cracks and squished places in them - the orange ones had a couple as well. But from a distance, they look fine! 

Horse Cookies, Bandana Cookies, Cowboy Boots Cookies and Cowboy Hats Cookies

Hello Kitty Cookies (and a few more things)

Guess I need to get back in the habit of making posts here again. I got kind of burned out on doing cookies over Christmas and didn't do any at all in January, but once Valentine's day began approaching, the bug bit me again. Here's what I have been up to since Christmas, from now backwards.

Hello Kitty Cookies

I was terrified about tackling the Hello Kitty bodies. Not sure why exactly, but I was. I used the Sugarbelle trick for marking the eyes and nose, and even used it on the center of the bow for both the face ones and the body ones, except I used a needle instead of a push pin. On one of the bodies, I tried marking the body with random spots to give me a feel for it and it came out okay, so after that I just jumped in and did them free hand. The broke these up into a number of steps, which worked well, as the parts had a little drying time before I finished all of them and was ready to begin the next step. I started with the center of the bow, then moved on to the rest of the bow. You may find my next step odd, because it was truly a stab in the dark, but I next did the dress. Actually, I think I ended up combining the steps of the remainder of the bow and the dress into one step after I got a few under my belt. I then outlined the kitty face, ears and around the insides of the bow; then I filled the face and paws. At that point, I went to bed, because I needed a lot of drying before moving on to facial features. When I awoke, I marked the faces using the template I made with parchment paper by tracing the cardboard picture that was attached to the cutters when I bought them. I tried one set of whiskers with the black icing I was using for the eyes, but it was far too runny and I was too lazy to mix up a thicker second bottle of icing, so I just did the whiskers with a black food color marker, which I think looks great.

Hello Kitty Face Cookies

Valentine Cookies

Champagne cookies, Valentine Cookies

I am not sure what the heck was going on with the champagne - both the bottles and the glasses. I messed up mixing the color and added bronze and it ended up darkish orange-ish. So to compensate, I added a ton of white food coloring, which is super watery, along with some shades of yellow gel icing. I think I must have had way too much coloring in that little bit of icing because it just didn't want to dry and was a little odd in consistency as it did finally dry (used the oven on warm 170 degrees for an hour), even though it was made from the same batch of icing of all of the other cookies shown with it. Lesson learned about using too much coloring to make up for mistakes. Just start over.

Valentine Cookie Bouquet

Eye glasses cookies

Eye glasses decorated cookies

Christmas decorated cookies

There were so very many Christmas cookies that I wanted to do, but just simply ran out of time to do. I had about a gazillion cutters laid out to use over the month, but just never got to many of them. Here are the ones I did get to. The cookie wreath and the reindeer were last second throw-togethers with leftover icing. Actually, the wreath uses both glaze and royal icing because I didn't have enough of either left over to do them any one way and the glaze is much easier to mix up, but I am just not thrilled with the finish of those and my sloppy work on them. But the person I gave them to didn't seem at all bothered - don't think she even noticed, as she raved and raved over them.

Christmas Tree decorated cookies

Holly leaf Christmas cookie wreath

Reindeer Christmas decorated cookie

Salon Cookies for the grand opening of Beach House Salon in Boaz, AL

My friend Kelly in the last year decided to start over and she went to cosmetology school and opened her own salon in a year's time. She's done a fantastic job putting it all together and it really is like stepping into your place at the beach when you go in. I knew I wanted to do cookies for her grand opening and had told her so months ago. I couldn't decide then whether I'd do beach themed cookies or salon themed, but when she finally told me the date a week ago, I knew it would have to be salon themed because I only have a couple of beachy cutters.  Here's a pic of the lobby area at her salon, decked out with the Christmas tree.

Beach House Salon, Boaz, Alabama

I had seen these fantastic spa face cookies by Sugared Hearts Bakery some months ago and had absolutely fallen in love with them. Kelly thought they were perfect, so I set out staring at the pic to deconstruct just how she did them. Wow, there really is a lot of work to these, but the payoff is fantastic. You will notice that none of my faces look the same and I'd like to say that's because I wanted to give them all personality, but in reality it is because I lack the precision to make them uniform, but either way, they were still adorable.  I also did some nail polish ones, hair dryers, eye shadow kits and product bottles.  Notice that one product bottle is labeled, "Hair Gunk." I just couldn't resist and it was met with a lot of laughter.

Spa Cookies, Salon Cookies

Spa Cookies, Salon Cookies

Spa Cookies, Salon Cookies

Spa Cookies, Salon Cookies

War Eagle, Roll Tide and Happy Birthday Cookies

Living in Alabama, there is no escaping college football. This year was a particularly exciting Iron Bowl and I did cookies for a couple of Iron Bowl parties friends were having.

War Eagle cookies, Roll Tide cookies, Tiger Paw cookies

Auburn University cookies, University of Alabama Cookies, Paw Print Cookies

I also decided to try out the quick dry method for royal icing. My life may have been forever changed! Ha! I put the cookies in front of a fan on high for 30 minutes and then in the oven at 170 degrees (warm) for 30 minutes and they were dry enough to arrange/stack on a tray. I don't think I would do it all of the time, but for a last minute miracle, which I often need, since I wait to the last possible second to do these, well, pretty much anything else, too, it is a life saver.

Then my brother's birthday was later the same week and since Auburn pulled off the seemingly impossible and beat Alabama, and my brother is a huge Auburn fan, I did his birthday cookies in Auburn colors. Once again, I found myself waiting until the last minute to do them, so I used glaze on these, so that's why they are so shiny.

Happy Birthday cookies, Cupcake Cookies, Birthday Candle Cookies

I also did some Mr. Hankey and family cookies for him, but I won't show those here!

Baby Shower Onesies Cookies, et al

Onesie Cookies for Baby Shower

Onesie Cookies for Baby Shower

I did these onesies for a baby shower my friend was giving for a friend of hers earlier today. The colors for little baby Liam's nursery are green, brown and yellow, so I tried to match those colors.

Cupcake Cookies

Cupcake Cookies

 My mom's birthday was the 3rd of this month. In addition to having a day at my friend's salon with her, I made these chocolate cookies. I kind of waited to the last minute to do these, so I used glaze on these instead of Royal icing. 

Halloween Cookies

Halloween Cookies

I just love Halloween and just wanted to do some Halloween cookies, although I had no one in mind to receive them. Had fun with them and just surprised a few people with some.  The rectangle ones were a fantastic pay-off for a small amount of work.  I stink at pumpkin faces, though.  LOVE how Frank turned out!  That idea for the square ones came from Lila Loa, along with great tutorials for them.