sesame street fiasco fiesta madness

My nephews' 1st birthday is fast approaching and I am SO excited!! Their party is on Cinco de Mayo and is themed as a Sesame Street Fun Fiesta. I, of course, elected to make cookies for the event. It was easy to narrow down the characters as I was informed that Elmo and Big Bird were my nephews' favorites. This wasn't my easiest cookie baking experience but it was certainly a lesson in patience and taught me a thing or two about candy melts and managing your time wisely. I had extensively planned this baking out and broken it into 3 distinct segments: dough making, cooking baking and cookie decorating. I separated this out by days and opted to give each segment 2 days. For a large amount of baking this really worked for me, it continues to make the process fun and less time consuming.

Dough making only took one one night to complete. I made 4 large batches of dough which would yield me almost 150+ cookies. Yowza! I refrigerated the dough but you could also freeze it as well. Cookie baking was completed on one Saturday afternoon/evening and cookie decorating took... about 5 loooong days and let me tell you why.

Candy melts are a tricky bunch. I consulted both the web and my co-worker (a fellow baker) on the process because after baking so many cookies I realized the outlining/flooding would take longer than I wanted to spend. I thought covering with candy melts and then using royal icing for the details would be a better use of my time. My only issue would be that my cookie shapes had scalloped edges and I worried the thickness of candy melts wouldn't show the detail as much. Actually, I initially worried the royal icing wouldn't show the detail as I wanted to cover the entire cookie which is another reason why I chose candy melts. Well, my co-worker (and the web) suggested 'thinning' the candy melts with a little vegetable oil. This was both a great and horrible idea. Yes, it thinned the candy melts to a perfect consistency and covered the entire cookie just as I wanted BUT... oh yes the big BUT... if you use too much oil you risk your candy melts not being able to harden properly and thus retaining a tacky/greasy surface. Even worse under the right temperature the candy melts will just melt off the cookie. And by right temperature I'm referring to body temp as my hubby took one in his hand and it immediately melted onto his fingertips.

Talk about disappointment... I was beyond sad. I had covered every single cookie with thinned candy melts that were indeed "too thin" and there wasn't anything I could do about it EXCEPT start again. Yes, I went back into the kitchen and prepared more dough (not as much as before) and baked and then decorated with candy melts that were not thinned at all. This time I opted for plain round cookies as those dang scalloped edge still scared me.

After everything was said and done I took my perfect planned out process and turned it into 2 days of pure "let's get this done" madness. I will say that managing out my time actually helped as I ended up with plenty of time to re-do everything.

Oh and those 150+ cookies that weren't right are still around. I call them my discards and my husband has been nibbling on them for days. I've also taken a few bags to work and saved a few more bags for friends who love my cookies no matter what.

Spring but no break from cookies

I never need an excuse to bake and in my effort to keep up my newbie decorating skills I sprang into action for some Easter cookies. Sorry such a bad joke but I live for bad jokes.

After an offhand suggestion from my hubby I decided to make cookies for my mom-in-law's Sunday school class. He suggested it and I thought "yeah I should do that..." plus it would also be an experiment in how decorated cookies travel. She's in Louisiana.

Cookies turned out good if I do say so myself. I need to adjust my icing consistency just a tad. I tend to flood with outline thickness which isn't wrong but it's a workout after a few cookies.

Chicks. Flowers. And Lazy Bunnies. I decided them last minute so they have no ears the poor things.

valentime's day

I attended college in Boston and one of my favorite memories is that of my friend Meesh, who is Beantown through and through, and provided more than a few laughs at her wicked awesome accent. Most notably her wishing everyone a very happy valentime's day...

I went all shades of pink this year. The pink-hued hearts turned out better than expected but the thought of icing them all the night before worried me so I went hugs and kisses instead.

Oh and I made some naughty ones too just to amuse myself and my coworkers.

Happy Post Valentime's!!

glitter makes its all ok

Base: OPI galapa ghost
Glitter: hard candy date night
Tip: Avon nail metallic chrome

pirouettes-a-plenty

Christmas 2011 was a busy baking season for me. So much so that I actually had to downsize my baking list because I was mixing, baking or frosting each day for almost a week, which isn't bad, but can become tiresome for the baker and perhaps the baker's hubby who was ousted from the kitchen for far longer than I was planning.

One of the cookies that I was nixed from my list was a recipe for pirouettes that I found in Ladies Home Journal a few months back. The original recipe called for white frosting and shredded coconut to be sprinkled on top but I am no coconut fan so I opted for green frosting (hey Xmas!) and white sprinkles. I even threw in some Xmas sprinkles for good measure.

This recipe almost got the best of me but I wasn't going to give up that easy. I had enough ingredients to make 2 more batches so after the first was so-so I went for a double batch and got it better. The hardest part? Rolling hot cookies into a cylinder before it gets stiff. So I came up with a plan.... I let the cookies get stiff then popped one into the toaster oven to soften and then rolled. Tedious? Yes. But it worked for me and they came out looking very cute and Christmas-y.... for late January.

wine and cowboys please

My best friend has twin boys who I adore. Both myself and my husband are only children so I will never have a real opportunity to be an auntie so I have made her boys my nephews and thankfully she doesn't argue.

I'm a pretty good Tia (Spanish for aunt) so when the boys were invited to a cowboy themed birthday party and my BF wanted to make outfits she called on me. Partly because she has no clue how to sew and... ok that was the main reason. She "helped" while I fashioned a mock pattern and by helping she amused the boys, poured me a glass of red and bought me dinner.

A few hours later two vests and two pairs of chaps were complete.

It was a project that was definitely easier done than said...

I'm a Disco Queen

Recipe:

2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Disco Ball

1 coat Avon pink chrome via the scotch tape tip how-to on the Chloe's Nails blog

1 coat Nutra Nail top coat

1 coat Sally Hansen dry kwik