Decorating Cookies

Hello All!

When you work with royal icing everything has to be grease free.  You have to clean all your tips, spatulas, bowls etc.  I use vinegar to de-grease everything.  You cannot do that to anything plastic like tupperware or cloth bags.  I used to use a separate plastic bag each time.  Gets to be a little expensive.  I have learned a new trick for piping royal icing.  Karen has a great short video on how to do it: karens cookies

I was in love with it the first time I tried it!  Will never go back.

Lay a sheet of saran wrap on your counter.  Drop some icing in the middle. 

Fold the corners together the triangle way.  Roll it up.

Then do a hard roll, like a wet towel.  Just don't try to smack anyone in the butt with this  :)

Put the icing in your plastic bag that is fitted with a coupler.  Secure the open end with a rubber band.  Snip off the other end and put your desired tip on.  You are ready to pipe!

These were my Christmas cookies.  I made the outline first, then flooded the cookie right away.

 

Hope you have a great day!
Thanks for looking!

Testing, Testing, 1,2,3

Hello All!
I know it has been a while.  I have been busy planning a wedding :)  We are to be wed July 20th 2013.  Lots to do in the next 5 1/2 months! 
I will be making my own cake and cupcakes.  The cake will be a dummy cake, so I can have that done in June.  Paul wants the traditional tiered cake sitting there for looks.  I didn't think it would be so hard for me to pick a design.  I looked for about a week straight for ideas.  I think I finally came up with something. 
The one I found has some stencil work on it.  I have never stenciled on a cake before, so I thought I better start practicing!  I haven't baked since Christmas so I thought I would make my favorite chocolate cake.  It has chocolate chips mixed into the buttercream in the middle.

I had some royal icing left over from Christmas.  I mixed it a little to make sure there were no lumps.

I put the stencil on the top of the cake and used my straight edge spatula to smooth on the icing.

Peel off the stencil and I was done!  Not too shabby for the first time :)

I tried the side of the cake.  That was a little trickier.  The stencil was smaller which made it harder to handle and stay in place.

I then made some cake pops from the leftovers.  I thought I would show you the difference between dipping once vs twice in chocolate.

 

I hope you all have a great weekend!

 

Thanks for looking!

Christmas time

Hello All!

I know I am a little late with posting, but it has been a busy, hectic time!  We hosted our first Christmas here in our new home on 12-23-12 with Paul's family.  I made Tetrazzini and dessert.  I have wanted to do a dessert table for a while now, but haven't had a reason to.
I wanted to keep with a few colors, red, green and white. 

I made one of my favorite cupcakes: Red Velvet.  Don't you just love my new cake stand :)

Paul's favorite are white chocolate covered oreos.  I used leftover Royal Icing to give them a little color.

I made sugar cookies.  Stockings and presents.  I learned a new trick with icing bags for Royal Icing that I will post another time.

 

I also had red and green M&Ms

I was super happy with how it turned out! 

Hope you all have a great New Years!
Thanks for looking!

Merry Christmas!

Hello All!

Back story:  Paul and I met July 2005.  I worked with his friend Peter.  Peter introduced us.  We all three went to see the new Batman movie.  Afterwords, we went back to Paul's and hit it off. 

It has been an amazing 7 1/2 years :)  We bought a house this August.

It is Christmas eve. We have had two Christmas dinners these past two days. We were not suppose to exchange gifts till tomorrow. I am very impatient. I made Paul open his gifts tonight :) I got him a Blichmann Beer Gun and accessory kit for his new kegerator.




Anyhoo, Paul gave me my present..

Inside....

Paul was on his knee with the ring :)

I was surprised!  And I am a baker, so I must say it with cake

Hope you all have a Christmas!!

Thanks for looking!

Bake Sale

Hello All!

My girlfriend Katie and I participated in a bake sale last week.  My work puts on a craft and bake sale for all the employees every December.  I sold cupcakes last year.  I asked Katie if she would like to join me this year in selling cookies.  We picked 4 different designs to make.  We also make a Peppermint Cupcake to sell.

We made some mittens.  Katie brought some white sprinkles that really added to it!

 

We made a tree inspired by http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/  I just love her website!!

 

The presents are also from Sweet Sugarbelle

We also made snowflakes.  They were very fragile, kept breaking on us :(

Katie had an idea for the cupcake frosting.  It was a peppermint buttercream and we wanted the two colors showing.  She told me about putting one color of each in separate bags.

Then I put my big tip in one bag and put the two bags inside.  You have to get them both at the bottom so it will come out in unison.  Worked pretty well!

 

 

Hope you all have a great day!

Thanks for looking.

Cookie Decorating

Hello All!

One on my childhood memories of Christmas is when I would go over to my friend's house and decorate cookies with her family.  I thought I would do the same for my family.  I baked some sugar cookies and buttercream frosting. 

I made a few different colors of frosting

I packed up all my bags, sprinkles etc to bring over to my moms

I made special cookies for my nephew to color on. 

My mom bought him a little chef's hat to wear, isn't it adorable!

I put couplers on the bags so the kids could change out the tips.  Ashley is hard at work

My dad decorated with us :)

Anna

Abby

Tony

Jake even piped on some frosting. Why not start him young :)

Tony had some pretty cookies, he may make a great assistant.

We had a great time decorating.

Hope you all have a great holiday season!!

 Thanks for looking!

Bakerella!

Hello All!

I have been following Bakerella for quite some time now.  She is why I started making cake pops.  I LOVE her work!  She came out with a new holiday book last month.  It has some super cute ideas.  She did a book tour and came to town.  My mom and I decided to drive down to see her.  She came to Cooks of Crocus Hill in Stillwater MN.  It is about 45 minutes from us, not too far. 

I kept looking on the store's website but could never find any info on her visit.  The day before, I called to double check that she was still coming.  They stated the the class was full, but she would be signing at a certain time.  Class, what class?!  I was so upset that we were going to miss out on a Q & A with her!  We went to dinner that night and then went to check out the store.  Turns out the class had a opening in back so I could observe from there :)  We stood in back when she started, then the owner saw a few of us back there and was nice and opened it up for us to be in the back of the classroom! 

Angie did a little demonstration for us. 

She also let a girl come up and dip a pop with her. 

She answered some questions that we had.  She seems like such a great lady! 

After she was done, we did the signing.  She signed our books and had a book for all of us to sign for her :)

 

I was like a little kid in the candy store :)

I am so glad my mom and I were able to go and see her!  It is definitely the highlight for me.

Hope you all have a great day!
Thanks fore looking.