Would anyone like a spot of tea?

At the last minute, I decided to make some Royal Wedding inspired cookies! I have wanted to do some royal icing flowers on cookies for quite some time (specifically as a gift for my mom), and I thought this was the perfect opportunity. My mom is attending a Royal Wedding viewing party at her friend's house (at 4am!), complete with gloves and fancy hats for attire! I decided on tea pots and hats, though I might have added tiaras if I had been able to find those cookie cutters! These cookies would be great for Mother's Day or a wedding shower too!

I definitely need to practice my royal icing flowers! It's been a while! I really enjoy making them though. I did each flower on a piece of wax paper on a flower nail, and let them dry in a flower former. Then when I was decorating the cookie, I placed the dry flower in the wet flood icing to adhere it to the cookie.





So tell me, are you going to get up early to watch?? I think we might be using our tivo, but I'm VERY excited to watch!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Hello!! I hope you are all enjoying the day!

Last year I did these 4 leaf clovers. The ones that were green with a white border were the very first order of cookies that I sold and shipped to someone!

Here are some new ones that I made this year for some friends . . .

Happy Valentine's Day!

First let me say that I feel awful that I didn't keep up with blogging about all of the holiday cookies I had planned. I didn't make my goal of 25 different cookies, but I DID try a handful of new and old recipes, I just didn't blog about it. I still hope to try all of those recipes and blog about it all at some point. You know, in my spare time :-)

Ok, now on to Valentine's Day!!!! Last year, I had done my first fully iced cookies for Ryan's school party (the start of all of this, LOL!) which you can see here. This year, I needed to go much more simple. I have done cookies using corn syrup to attach sugar or other decorations before (I got the idea from the book Cookie Craft), with the first ones being these train cookies. I decided to do Ryan's favorite, chocolate chip, and I even bought pre-made dough! They are very simple!

See, very easy :-) I often go with another brand, but I was swayed by the red chips!

Originally, I was hoping to get them to be heart shaped. I was going to cutout the whole cookie with a cutter right after baking, but they would have been so much smaller. Besides, WHAT would I have done with all of those cookie scraps? Hmmm. Then I decided to try cutting out a tiny heart in the middle, but I wasn't thrilled with those results.

I finally decided to paint a heart with corn syrup (using a food only brush of course) and cover with Valentine nonpareils. I do one at a time because the corn syrup starts to dry quickly. Paint, cover with decoration, shake off excess. I kept saying that it would have been quicker and easier for me to mix up some red icing and pipe the hearts on, but I had already started so I just went with it! I use a clean, dry brush to remove any stray decorations and push some of them into place. Yes, on occasion I position individual nonpareils! I use a paper plate for holding the decorations because I can roll it up and pour right back into the container. Tonight wasn't the first time I've seen it, but I'm always entertained by how well nonpareils BOUNCE! Too funny. It's a good thing I don't get worked up about having sprinkles on the floor!

Here are a few other things I tried. I also did red sugar but didn't get a great picture of it. Oh, and I did a pale pink sugar which barely showed up, and stuck to the entire top of the cookie because I didn't let it cool enough :-) The nonpareils are less likely to stick in that case.

Here is this picture again because I forgot to mention how much I adore this plate. If anyone sees them anywhere, please let me know! I originally got this at Wegman's. Of course I didn't realize that the chip on the one edge was positioned so well in this shot!


I hope you have a great Valentine's Day! I'd love to see any cookies or treats that you have made!

The start of Cookie Season!!!

at least for me :-)

When I make my decorated cookies, it can take some serious time! Unless they are just for my family to eat (which is rare), the kids aren't allowed to help, so I make them mostly by myself in the evenings. I don't often have that kind of time lately, but I realized that I can still have lots of fun making lots of cookies! I came across this magazine at the store Monday night, and I couldn't resist it! The kids love baking, so I thought this was a great way to incorporate something I don't often take the time to do with a fun activity for the kids!


The past few Christmases, I have ended up making a bunch of spritz cookies and maybe some peanut butter blossoms at the very last minute. I never seem to get to the new things I want to try, and the time I do spend baking doesn't end up being all that enjoyable. For example, I have printed out the recipe for these Cinnamon Apple Butter Spritz cookies (AND bought the apple butter) for at least the past 2 years. I hope to find out this year, but I'm not sure they can live up to 2+ years of anticipation!!

SO, my goal this year is to make 25 different recipes between now and Christmas!! I am going to think outside the cookie tin, and make some things I've never tried before! So far I've picked out over 13 cookie recipes that include coffee, tea, chipotle pepper, lavender, and more! No, not all together :-)

Here is one of the new things I bought - has anyone ever baked or cooked with this? If so, I'd love to hear what you made and how you liked it!


I'm really excited! We are off to a good start - my (4 year old) son Ryan and I made cookies yesterday and today, so we have 38 days to make 23 recipes. I'll let you know if I need people to help me eat them! Check back to hear how we're doing!!

Bakerella Book winner!

Congrats to Jill D!!!! She has won the book and I contacted her last night to let her know! She has read Bakerella's blog from the beginning and I think she's pretty excited to get the book! I can't wait to see what she makes with it!

I REALLY appreciate each and every entry and I LOVED reading about all of your favorites and special memories. Thank you for sharing that! It made me very hungry and I realized that I should have required RECIPES!!!! :-) If you have any that aren't family secrets, I'd love to see them!! Thanks for the very kind posts on facebook and twitter too!

I really wanted to make some Bakerella inspired cookies, but it just didn't happen this week :-( I have some butter out softening right now, but if I make cookies right now, the icing wouldn't be dry in time if I wanted to bring them with me tomorrow. Oh well!!! I will just be so happy to go and meet her! Maybe I'll have some pics to share!

Thanks again for doing this with me!

A Giveaway!

I am very excited to be giving away a copy of Bakerella's book Cake Pops! Not only can you win your very own copy of this awesome book, but I am going to have it signed by Bakerella specifically for you! A week from today I am going to one of her book signings and I'm so excited! Maybe I need a few more exclamation points!!!!!!!! I am sure many, if not all of you know who I am talking about, but if not, please go check out her awesome blog!

Here is the disclaimer: I am not receiving anything to do this and am purchasing the book myself. I just happen to love her blog and want to share her book with one of you! I actually saw her recommendation of the book Cookie Craft on her blog which is what started my cookie making obsession. My husband might not be too anxious to thank her, though he does love to eat the cookies! :-) I also almost exclusively use her buttercream recipe for my cakes! It's SO delicious and simple!

The contest will end Wednesday, November 10th, 2010, at 10pm EST. The winner will be chosen using random.org. I will announce the winner by Wednesday at midnight, and if you win, I need you to let me know what I should have her write (by midnight on Thursday, 11/11) - so make sure I can contact you in time!

You can enter by posting a comment here. Please leave your blog or email so that I can contact you!!

You can get an entry by . . .
1) leaving a comment here telling me your favorite Christmas cookie (one entry per person please)
2) like my Facebook page (leave an additional comment here telling me you did that)
3) tweet or post on Facebook about this giveaway (leave an additional comment here telling me you did that)

UPDATE: Please make sure to post your email or some other way for me to contact you (like your blog). You also need to post a comment for each additional entry! Thank you!!

Thanks so much and good luck!!!

Are you feeling lucky?

I hope so, because I will be posting a giveaway later tonight! I'm really excited about it!!!!!!! I hope you'll check back and enter!

These are some cookies that I made in August for the mom of a good friend and neighbor. She is pretty persuasive and only needed 10, so I had a hard time saying "no!" I was especially thankful for the meatballs that she made in return! YUM!!!

She told me her mom loves slot machines and this is what I came up with . . . they were very fun to do and I had been wanting to try out my cherry cookie cutter! I did a lot of the details with food coloring markers.