The Making of: Sugar Cookies

Hi Everyone!
So here is another episode of "The Making of" for the Valentine's Bake Sale. These are my Sugar Cookies. You can never be missing some decorated cookies for ANY occasion. First off, my Chocolate Sugar Cookies.

This is what they looked like in my sketchbook:

The little grey dot on the side? It resembles a big silver non pareill :).

I was intending for the color to come out as red, but it just kept becoming more and more deep pink. But they still came out good looking ;) I also heard they tasted very good. (See now, I am on a diet, as per my New Years Resolution, so I couldn't taste EVERYTHING. These I did not. At least I'm still on my diet ;) )

Then, I did these little beauties:

What you are looking at are my Sugar Cookies with ...guess whose recipe? I actually did Sugarbelle's Chocolate Royal Icing from her blog The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle. I am a big fan of hers, so one day as I was browsing through her blog, I stumbled upon the recipe. I thought I'd give it a try, and it came out great!! You should try it!

I initially thought I'd do these Round, like my sketch.



But if you remember the Cat Cookies I made for Halloween, I don't own a large enough round cookie cutter. So I used what I had on hand.
The little heart is sugar paste. I thought I'd play a bit with texture and taste rather than do everything with royal icing.

I also made these cookies, but not for the Bake Sale. Well, when I said I was having a Valentine's Bake Sale, I was asked to do some extras for a conference. I thought it'd be special if the cookies were different from what I had to offer for the Bake Sale.

I improvised on these, so I don't have a sketch, either. But everyone was impressed upon delivery. Simple and nice.

I have one more Sugar Cookie I made, but that one is special, so it has to go on its own post ;)
So keep an eye out for it.

The Making of: Glittered Heart Cookies

Hi Everyone!! I'm back! Well I wasn't gone, I was here. I was just getting prepared for my Valentine's Bake Sale and I also have many orders coming through so I'm busy busy busy.

As I promised, I was going to do a series of "The Making of" posts for my Valentine's goodies. Let's start with the Glittered Heart Cookies. They went on here:

This is my Strawberry Cupcake with Strawberry Frosting. I use fresh strawberries, unless I cannot find them ANYWHERE. It just tastes better this way!!
I saw this picture and I LOVED it, so I wanted to make something like it for Valentine's Day.
The thing is, I couldn't find the iiiity bity plain nonpareills in only red or only pink. So I went online, searched for them, and found them in Los Angeles. (Ironic, right? I used to live there and never looked for anything like it while I was there). So I thought to myself "I can order them...if they get here on time, I can make the cookies. If not...then well I have to find something else to do with the cookies." And they came right on time ;)

I also made a sketch of what I wanted the Cupcakes to look like. I like to keep all my ideas in my sketchbook in case they need altering. Plus, they are all in one place, so I can look at them at any time, brainstorm, and add more.

After I baked some heart shaped Sugar Cookies, I outlined them with a baby pink Royal Icing. And then filled them with the Icing, too. I didn't fill them with the sprinkles until they were partly dry. I had pink and red sugar in there, too, and if I filled the cookies with the sparkly mixture I made, the sugar would've gotten wet.

I am deffinately getting better at this than my first or second time outlining and filling cookies with Royal Icing. First of all, I made sure my icing wasn't too stiff or too wet for the outlining.
And then I used the 10 second (.....right? At least that's how many seconds I waited) rule...you know, where you run your knife through the icing and wait 10 seconds until the line is gone? That one. I used it... last time I decorated cookies, I didn't even know this rule existed.

What do you think? These were my favorite, especially pared with the Strawberry Cupcake, from my Valentine's Bake Sale.
Oh, and did I tell you? I created a Facebook Page.

The Making of: Cat Cookies

I had an image in mind when I drew the sketch for these. They came out almost as I imagined them. See, my little secret is that I've only read about cookie decorating, but I had never tried it myself before the day I made these cookies...or had even seen anyone actually do it in front of me. Just pictures in books...and blogs. So I had to opt for something easy and somewhat quick-finishing. I had tons of things to bake for the Bake Sale so I wanted to make sure I had enough time for everything else.

So as everyone knows, at first, you bake the cookies :). I used my basic Sugar Cookie recipe.
And if you are thinking: those round cookies, don't all look perfects ROUND. Well....I didn't have a big enough round cookie cutter, so I used a drinking glass....shhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Since I was going to bake a big batch, I also thought to myself...why not make other designs with the Sugar Cookies?? I already had a design in mind: Polka Dots. While I was planning for the Bake Sale, I also had to think of decorations that weren't going to cost me too much. That's how I came up with the Flower Cookies, too! Not only were they going to cost me less than real ones, I got to sell them and cover other expenses as well. These last two designs I decided I was going to put on sticks: Lollipop Cookies.

Ok, the cookies are baked and cooled. As you can see, they are also stored in air tight containers since it was going to take a couple of days to decorate. I needed them to be fresh for the Bake Sale. But either way, as a good rule of thumb, I always keep my cookies in air tight containers :)

One thing I didn't make, was the Royal Icing. Since I was selling these, I needed the pasteurized egg whites and I didn't know where to get them (still don't just yet). So I bought a Royal Icing in which you add just the water and the color. I needed 3 colors: Orange, Black and White. I also needed more than one consistency. So before I started to panic, I started with the first thing I would need: the thick orange.

I did the outlines on all the cookies, including the flowers and the dots. Then I thinned the consistency and flooded the cookies (with the toothpick and all!)

Following the same steps, I did the black and white on the flowers and the dots.

Of course I let each color dry before I continued with the next one. If you see one round orange cookie with black around it...that was an expiramentation. I added the black sugar while the icing was still wet to see what it would look like.. I didn't think it matched my sketch, so I didn't continue with it.

Now for the black cats...see, the problem was that I didn't have a stencil. So I made one...a paper one... which wasn't the best idea. I used spray to do the cats, and after 3 cats, I had to wait for the paper to dry. I got a few cookies smudged all over, too. Most of them came out nice, though :).

But this wasn't the end of it.. I had promised my audience black sparkles!!! So i had to add them on the cookies! So I rolled them in jam, and then in black sugar, and got what I was going for. What do you think, close enough?

I made sooooo many of these cookies. They were the last to go due to the quantity.

Here's my Halloween Dots Cookies (as I named them):

Even though I first thought of putting my Flower Cookies in a vase, then I thought people would be more likely to buy them if they were on the table in a platter, like the rest of the goodies :).

Spooktacular Bake Sale

SOLD OUT!!!! The best thing I have to say about my bake sale! Everything was almost gone since early on, so I figured that I'd have some cookies left over but nope! Everything was gone!
So let me start from the beginning:

If you've been reading my blog, or follow my group on Facebook, then you know that I had a little contest going on. Every couple of days I posted a small story about something related to Halloween, and then drew some sketches that had to do with that story. Those sketches were of a cake, a cupcake, a cookie or whatnot, related to Halloween. People voted for their favorites, and I was going to bake the top 10. I was also going to have many surprises....but that never happened.

See, my mother ended up in the hospital on Friday night (the big night I was supposed to stay up and bake, so I can decorate on Saturday) so I never had the chance to bake all the top 10, or all the surprises I had in mind. But I will still share them with you :)

I must admit, that from everything votes, MY favorite, was the Witch Cupcake (I had drawn 2, one abstract because there were no eyes, and one with eyes. The abstract one was voted, and that was the one I wanted to bake either way ;p). I have a tendancy to put my everything in thing I like better than others.. (not such a good thing I guess), so I baked Nutella Cupcakes for this, since I loooooce Nutella.
I also have to let you know that I was rushing to get everything done, I was sleepless from the night at the hospital....AND I FORGOT THE NUTELLA! Nutella Cupcakes without the nutella! Haha well I made up for it. Since the Cupcake ended up being a chocolate cupcake (I was going to make holes in it and then add a nutella surprise center), I ended up making a Nutella Frosting... GREEN! It was...OMG! My fiance was running after me to get the frosting bag after I was done!

 I knew these would turnout great ever since I made the hats. See, in Cyprus we don't have Hersheys kisses, so my friend sent me some from California. And I wanted to use them for a special occasion. Glued them on the top of an Oreo cookie, and then put some orange Royal Icing to make it look even more witchy.
These were the first ones to go. As soon as I said "Nutella," people went nuts! I had also posted a picture of the hats on Facebook, so that people could see what they were to expect. I wanted them to know I could pull trough on my promise of the bake sale, AND the flavor. I mean, think: Oreo cookies, Hersheys kisses, Nutella cupcakes, and my love! What else does it take for delicious??

Now that I'm done with my favorite, let me tell you a bit about the first batch of cookies I made. I thought it was ok to make Sugar Cookies 3 days in advance because they last longer than cupcakes in an air tight container, and because they take forever to decorate since the Royal Icing needs to dry between colors.

So I baked the Cat Cookies. This was on Thursday (before the hospital incident), so I went ahead and made many, plus some other shapes to decorate for Halloween.

I stenciled the cats on, without a real stencil! I couldn't find that many Halloween things out here, so I ended up making a paper stencil. I had to wait after I sprayed 2-3 cookies so I didn't smudge everything all over. One of my coworkers, when I had showed them the pictures, said some of the cats looked like camels :) I could totally see it too! I made my fiance pay for those cookies that didn't look pretty enough to sell. He was going to eat them anyway, so why not help me with my first Bake Sale? :)

Halloween Dots Cookies

Keep in mind that this was the very first time EVER I had a cookie decorating experience! I had never decorated cookies before, I had never used Royal Icing before...I had never made more than 1 consistency of Royal Icing before.. never added colors...never had to wait for a cookie for almost 3 days to see the final result! I think that for the first time, I did pretty good! Practice makes perfect, so I expect that next time my cookies will look prettier and prettier and prettier :)

Flower Cookies

The Dots cookies and the Flower cookies I added on sticks to make them look like lollipops. Everyone loved the idea, and most hadn't seen it done before. The thing is that I didn't plan out the designs on these, because they were a last minute thought.

The number 1 voted creation, was the Mummy Cupcake. I used a Devil's Food cupcake base, since the name makes it more spooky, and then decorated on top. These took a veeery long time to decorate, they looked cute, and even though people voted for these, they preferred the Witch Cupcakes and THEN the Mummy ones. Of course, I also think that everyone loooooves frosting! And this was something missing from these, due to the design.

Another big hit, was the Spider Cookies. These were Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Frosting. I baked this on Friday (before the incident) and then I was going to decorate at night, which was when I had to rush to the hospital. So I did the decoration the next day, and since I was running out of time, instead of doing a Royal Icing, I just added a little water in some confectioner's sugar. It wasn't something I wanted to do (because I personally think it doesn't taste all that great), but the whole point was to get the design down.

This particular design, I found on Bakerella. I used my own recipe from scratch (since I want to have a good design with a GREAT taste) and then I improvised on some other things. For example we don't have Trix out here, so I used m&m's.

Not quite the same, but very similar :)

I also baked a Spiderwebs Cake. This was an Apple Spice Cake, with a Brown Sugar Frosting. This was the first time I used this frosting, and it was a big hit. I had to cook it first, let it cool, and then turn it into a frosting. Whoever tried the cake, LOVED the frosting. I even had 2 people tell me they want to try it with the Carrot Cake I make.

My goddaughter brought me a Jack Skellington statue thing for the day, since I had said I was also going to surprise everyone with Skellington Cupcakes. I never got the chance :( I still decorated him though.

I used one of those cheap orange tablecloths, added a black piece of fabric on top and a white tablecloth underneath all. I had some small decorations for Halloween at home that I used, and I also found some free name tags on line that I printed, and I traced the names of the goods by hand, to make them look more Halloweenish.

It was a great success! Everything was gone, I covered my expenses and made some extra money to buy more supplies, and on top of all, I had fun and everyone enjoyed the idea and baked yummy goodies. I also sold my Pomegranate Jam that I made. I had positive comments from everyone, and they are expecting at least another one before Christmas. Let's see if I can do it :)