Hope your party plans call for champagne, hats, streamers, and fun! We decided to make everything needed for a New Year’s Eve party!
We are looking forward to photo prop fun with the sunglasses, bow ties, and hats.
We are sure that these won’t last long tonight! Hope your New Year’s Eve is full of sweet memories. Wishing everyone health and happiness and lots of cookies in 2013!
Countless cookie ideas came to us when we were asked to bake some treats for a farewell party for a friend who’s sister was moving to Hawaii – our minds went wild with possibilities – giant sea turtles, pineapples, surfboards, palm trees – all of course bright and colorful, just like the islands … and that lovely flower that litters the landscape, the plentiful hibiscus.
Once we decided on our theme, we realized we didn’t have a cutter for the hibiscus, not that it mattered, we ended up bending a clover cutter into the shape we needed like many bakers do. Check out Glorious Treats Blog for this and other amazing cookie tutorials! Our friend asked for bright colors, we chose hot pink and yellow, dusting the stamen with yellow chunky sugar. We also made some “Aloha” message cookies to go with them. Aloha Michelle!
Happy 2nd Birthday to our little cousin!
Her parents wanted a Hello Kitty theme with all the bells and whistles. They went all out on the dessert table…complete with sushi Rice Crispy treats made by her dad, an awesome cake made by her mom, and some of our custom cookies! We made message cookies that said “Happy Birthday” and “Audrey’s Two.” We also made number “2” cookies and some sprinkled hearts. The dessert table look impressive and tasted just as great!
Here’s another look at the cookies….
For the last several months, my girls have been fortunate enough to be part of a stellar group of youth singers and dancers, choreographed and trained by the lovely director and producers of the Coast Kids Theatre Group in Roger & Hammerstein’s, “Cinderella”! Cast predominantly as mice, the girls had so much fun learning their parts and participating as the whole production came together like clockwork.
So, as time marched on towards the opening weekend, we were first excited to donate a couple dozen glass slipper cookies to the very special matinee performance, which included, “Tea with Cinderella”, oh what fun! While delivering the cookies, so many of the talented players asked with wide, hopeful eyes, “Are those for us?” … A question that only lead to a greater one? Could we pull it off? Add another 100 cookies to our already busy, busy docket?
The answer was a yes (mostly because Elaine, baked all of the cookies in one day while I had an extra volunteer thing at the kids’ school (not to mention tech night rehearsals, if only there was an oven at the Star Theatre)) … But all jokes aside, and in the spirit of those fastidious mice, by the time the icing and chunky sugar had dried on the very last glass slipper cookie, we truly felt an awful lot like Cinderella’s dear friends – “Work, work, work, she’ll never get her dress done on time,” – but luckily we did, and the payoff was worth it, both casts of the production really enjoyed their special glass slipper cookie treats, individually wrapped to boot, and that’s a wrap! – April
When my friend Tammie approached us about making cookies for a fashion show at her dance store, KC Dance Gear (along with an invitation for my girls to model), we were delighted to come up with some fun ideas for her special event! We started with a message cookies outlining the treats with her logo colors – we absolutely fell in love with the “Fashion Star” stars – so appropriate here, especially when paired with our little red chunky sugared stars. Click through to her lovely store here: http://www.kcdancegear.com/ Congratulations, Tammie on a successful show! – Elaine
It’s that time of year at Carrillo Elementary …Teacher Appreciation Week! So what are you doing for your kids teachers? Of course, we are baking cookies. We thought about the traditional apples, rulers, crayons, but then, how could we resist the opportunity to do something little more personal and unique (as well as a good excuse to use some new cookie cutters)!
So, for my daughter’s first grade teacher – who loves sports and used to be a PE teacher – we went with a sports theme, the special message inscribed: “YOU’RE A HOME RUN” paired with some baseball gloves, balls, and bats. Mrs. Sherwood loved them!
My older daughter’s third grade class just finished a unit on the solar system, so we we took the everyday, universal, “thank you” to a whole new level … our overall message: “Thank you for helping us reach for the stars!” The message cookie says, “Thank You Ms. Shultz”. We made a moon, shooting star, and some mini sugared star cookies!
Our school also has a Mandarin language program for third graders…so here are some cute “Mandarin Orange” slices for our special teacher!! How cute?!
Hope you find something fun to give to your teachers this week. Thanks to all the teachers out there who give so much to our children.
When asked to make some cookies for a baby shower, we immediately thought we’d like to try cute little baby faces. Later, we realized we wanted to do something special to shake it up and decided to invest in a baby rattle cutter, check out the total package below. The onsies are always adorable. We were on a sanding sugar kick this week, so the rattles and onsies are all sugared up!
Here is a picture of the three different cookies on the platter! Which baby face do you like the best? I had binkie babies…so those are my favorite.
We made party favors with three cookies in a bag.
When asked to bake something for a bridal shower, our minds went to our experiences of choosing that perfect wedding gown, similarly, with our mini wedding gown replicas, the bride-to-be might have a hard time choosing just one special treat.
Here’s a little tutorial on how we do it!
1. Bake a great sugar cookie! Mix up some royal icing that is loose enough to pipe and flood! We are finding that I like using a loose piping because we like not seeing the piped edge. Royal icing is definitely an art….it is never the same…even though we think we are doing the same thing we always do.
2. Outline the cookie and let the icing set for a few minutes. We like to use a #2 tip.
2. Fill the cookie with the icing. Then use a toothpick to fill in the all the holes and pop any air bubbles.
3. Let them dry for at least 5-8 hours. We usually let them dry overnight before I move on to decorating the details. We love a white cookie…so crisp and clean!
4. For the detailed piping, I use a stiffer royal icing in white. We like to use the #1 tip for the details. If you are using sanding sugar, be sure to do only those sections before you pipe other details. The sugar will stick to any wet icing! We couldn’t decide on one design, so all the dresses were different. This our favorite part of making cookies:)
Especially with these shimmery, glittery shamrock cookies we were asked to bake for our friend’s school fundraiser. Good Luck, Staci!
Purim is Wednesday, March 7, 2012…..we know that you are supposed to eat Hamantashen, but we like sugar cookies better!
We made King Ahasuerus and Queen Ester cookies to get in the spirit! Our kids will be delivering these as miscloah minot gifts (A phrase taken from the Megillah that commands the Jewish community to give small packages of food or gifts to friends on the day of Purim). For our non-Jewish friends….Purim is a festive holiday where we dress up in costume and celebrate the triumph of good versus evil and Queen Ester’s bravery. For more information check out this link about Purim. Get your groggers ready and hopefully we will see some friends at the Megillah reading on Wednesday night at Temple Solel!