Fireside Chat

What a fun theme to explore in the world of cookies, so many choices – the moon, the stars, midnight skies, tents, s’mores galore, camp fires – why not a little bit of everything!

Here is the start of the camping cookies…

Here’s the finished product….the sky and grass just makes it pop and come together.

 

Say, “Cheese!”

Happy Birthday to my cousin Shelly! I couldn’t think of a better birthday present than celebrating Shelly’s love of photography (check out her work/blog at waldmanphotography.com).

What kind of cookies should we make for a photographer? What comes to your mind first when you think of taking pictures? “Say Cheese”, of course.  We honored that tradition with some camera and cheese cookies! We’re so proud of how the cameras came out.

We made message cookies honoring the age old saying.

We made some real cheese too!

The next set of message cookies says, “Click, Snap, Smile.”

Now for our favorite…the camera.

Since this was for a birthday, we threw in some “Happy Birthday” too! Here is the set. Say, “Cheese!”

Happy Birthday Shelly…Hope you get to do a lot of cheesy things!

 

Wine Divas!

A group of ladies were hitting the road for a wine tasting getaway! How fun to escape from the kids and enjoy the beautiful vineyards. We think these cookies came out so great you might even mistake them for the real thing…ha ha ha!

First you need the wine…so here are two wine bottles to get the party started…oh…and don’t forget the cheese.

Next, grab the glasses and fill them up…

How about some grapes…wouldn’t it be nice if there was actually someone to feed them to you?

Grab your swim suit to enjoy all of this pool side…

Here is the party tray! No whining that you didn’t get any.

 

FYI….here is how we made the grapes…we started with a bunny rabbit cutter and cut off the ears (ouch). Then attach one ear for a stem. The photos below will show the many many layers of icing. We used three different colors of purple to get the variation in color! We waited for each layer to dry before moving on to the next layer (approx 2-4 hours). The green stem was added at the VERY end after everything is dry.

Horse lovers’ baby shower…

“Lucky Baby” themed baby shower for a great couple who choose to be surprised on the gender! I love this set of cookies…..it included baby faces, horseshoes, onsies and message cookies.  Don’t you love the star on the onsies?

Here are the horseshoes. I always outline first with black piping.  I was really happy with the green color! I add the black dots while the icing is still wet so the “sink in” and are not raised on top.

The baby faces are my favorite.

The message ties it all together…

All together….

 

“Hey, where’s Perry?”

That’s how we responded when we were asked to bake some special cookies for a Phineas & Ferb themed birthday party.  After a quick refresh on the specifics of the dynamic duo’s semi-aquatic friend, Perry the Platypus, we got to work! See some shots from our hours of fun below!

Here’s looking at you – eyes with black piping.

 Then moving on to Perry’s handsome bill – also piping consistency. We used a true orange color for the outline of the beak and a more goldenrod yellow for the flooding fill in the beak.

Time to fill in the whites of the eyes…we used a white flooding consistency.

Time for the finishing teal color. We used a flooding consistency. First, we outline the square cookie, then flood, and use a toothpick to fill in the details! Now, he just needs to dry!

Finished product…

College Bound…

It’s high school graduation time and you know your getting older when your friends have kids graduating from high school! We wanted to celebrate high school graduation with cookies that recognized their accomplishments and most importantly…getting into a good college.  We made message cookies, graduation caps, confetti, stars, and even some logos paying tribute to their future alma maters.  Here’s a peak at the fun!

First, for a Carlsbad High grad going to UCLA to play water polo! We love the UCLA colors. First time we made water polo balls.


Next up….the Wildcats.  This message was “Now You’re A Wildcat.” Wishing Carly good luck at the University of Arizona.

Of course, we had to make some cookies for her mom too!

Another grad on the east coast is headed to Endicott College in MA.  These were some fun logo cookies. I thought this was a pretty awesome looking platter! The sea gull mascot was fun to do. The message for these cookies was “Watch Out Endicott”.

Wishing all the high school graduates the best of luck in college! Congrats on getting into some great schools.

End of Year Teacher Gifts…Flower Bouquets

We made these adorable flower pots for our kids teachers! I love the bright colors.  Enjoy the “You Help Me Bloom” Theme!

The flower cookies were put onto lollipop sticks.  I cut the cookie shape out of the dough and then press the stick into the back side and put a little extra dough over the top. Then bake them with the sticks!

To decorate them, first do the sugared middle..or else the sugar will stick to the other parts! Make a small circle with white frosting (I used a loose piping consistency). Then dip into the sugar crystals. I used orange here.

After you dip the cookie in the sugar, then you pipe the flower pedals and fill them in with the royal icing. I used a think flooding consistency so I could outline and fill at the same time. Warning…be careful because it will spread a little and you don’t want it to drip over the edges of the flower. If you are not confident, then pipe first and then fill the pedals!

Here are some of the finished pops….I couldn’t decide which colors to use to I made some white and outlined in pink which I thought looked great!

After they dried overnight…I made two bouquets and wrapped the rest in bags with toole. I wrap each cookie in a cellophane bag with a ribbon and then pushed each pop into a container with foam! Here are the finished arrangements! I love the way the message cookie brings the theme together.