Con Cookies

Ok so I eluded to making some "Con" cookies... and now I will explain. For those that didn't know the San Diego Comic Con aka SDCC aka The Con was last week. It's a weekend plus some days celebration of all things comic-y, pop culture-ish and the like. I happen to have married a man, who works in comics thus engulfing me into the world head first. Half our wedding party were all "in comics" and every year since I've known him he has attended SDCC. I've gone almost every year too, either for a day, the weekend and one year for the whole week (ps not doing that again) but this year I've decided to stay home. I have a 4 year olds birthday party to attend on the weekend and well I just can't miss that... I've been to every party of this munchkins so it's now tradition plus it's his week to get away, have fun and buy me stuff that I dutifully put onto a list.

But back to the baking... Last year I baked some cookies for the crew and they were a big hit so this year I thought I'd bake some more and try my hand at logo cookies.

I baked plain oatmeal raisin, oatmeal cranberry nut and decorated sugar with a royal icing transfer of the Aspen Comic logo.

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!!

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.

Paper Stencil

The success of my first cookie paper stencil is due to the most awesome of blog posts by Sweet Sugar Belle on making a paper cookie stencil. I'm a big admirer of SSB and I've learned alot from her site. More stenciling to come tomorrow.

Fist Pumping to No End

So.... I have a secret well to my friends it's no secret but I am HUGE Jersey Shore fan. I love it! It's entertaining to no end and if you threw the word sitcom in front of it no one would be complaining. So with that I took my cookie decorating skills up a notch and tried my hand at making a paper stencil.

I found two nifty fist pump pics online and then took an exacto knife to them. If I had more time I would've outlined and filled in white on my sugar cookie and then took a stencil to it but I quite excited to try this so I just went for it. I lightly went over the stencil with a food writer then went back over it with some leftover royal icing I had in the fridge. Not too bad if I do say so myself.

New Year... MORE Crafts

Get ready... because 2012 is the year of the crafts, for me anyway. My craft area maybe small but its full of stuff I can use to make some awesome things.

My 2012 Cookie.

 

 2011 ended with alot more crafts and baked yumminess then I thought. I decided baking for days would be better than scouring the malls for gifts so I made cookies for all my family.

Snowmen and Xmas Trees

Cookie pops

Glitter shoes for my Grandma

Advent pillows. I made 3.

French Macarons on the 1st Try

I am a huge macaron fan but I've been afraid to take the big step and try my hand at making these delicious wondefuls.

I am an avid baker but macarons, or rather the recipes I've seen have always seemed to make the process seem extremely daunting but I was willing to give it a try. I used Martha Stewart's Parisian Macaron recipe and I am delighted with the results.

I made a few tweaks, such as taking out the salt and replacing with cream of tartar. Also, I made the filling with almond extract and added almond meal (I like almonds). And I added some crushed almonds to the outside on some.... Yes I love almonds

When I was done I placed them all in my deviled egg carrier for easy transport.

YUM!!

Spring Cookies

It's never all about sewing. A girls' got to eat right. Besides the barrage of sewing/crafty blogs I read I'm also kinda obsessed with cookie decorating sites. What someone can do with royal icing is beyond me. bake at 350 has a easy-to-follow royal icing recipe that I used to make these cookies. It went okay. I may try it again come summer to make these treats: Pretty Pastel Popsicle Cookies tutorial courtesy of Sweet Sugar Belle . 

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