Vacation time!

I’m anxious today. So totally excited because tomorrow we are leaving on vacation!

We are going on a road trip to Avon, Colorado. I love trips that are full of new adventures and this one will surely be one of those. It is my first real road trip which I am both excited and nervous about. We do travel quite a bit but never in the car. It is also my first trip to Colorado so there will be TONS to explore! My dad and step mom are going to join us there as well but they are flying in. It’s the first trip I’ve taken with my dad since I was in sixth grade and the first with my step mom.

{so excited!}

Because of this upcoming trip I haven’t had much time to bake recently. I did make time for a TRIPLE batch of my Cinnamon Chip Scones though. I was going to make a double batch but there was just enough buttermilk and chips left for a third. So, I gave some to some coworkers and will probably freeze some (they freeze really well).

 My hubby loves these. A lot. So, I thought they’d be perfect for breakfast and snacks on the trip.  I {heart} saving money!

Though, last time I left him alone for the weekend he had no trouble consuming them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, AND snacks! Apparently you can live on them for an entire weekend – who knew? :-)

I also had a little time to bake up some cookie dough I had on hand to use up some royal icing. I didn’t, however, have time to decorate them.

Looking at those blank cookie canvases is making me crazy, they are {screaming out} for some decoration. But sometimes in life you have to have priorities and somehow I think bringing clothes on this trip with us might just be more important than beautiful cookies. I think the others at the resort would agree.

I do have several projects lined up for the couple weeks after we return so I’m looking forward to that!

In the meantime, happy baking!

Homemade Sprinkles

Have you ever wondered what to do with leftover ROYAL ICING after finishing a batch of cookies? I don't remember where I saw this first but it's brilliant.

You can use the icing to make SPRINKLES! 

It's super easy but, admittedly, a little tedious. Of course if you have the patience to decorate cookies, this isn't too far off from that. 

All you have to do is get a piece of wax paper and pipe dots of icing onto it. 

You can pipe LARGE DOTS or small dots. 

Multi-colored dots or all one color.

These sprinkles were made with mostly tip #1 and one color was tip #2.

Once they dried, I just wrinkled the wax paper over a bowl and the sprinkles just fell off. 

You can use them on cakes, cupcakes, or ice cream. Because they are royal icing, they can be stored in an air tight container for a long time.

Ice cream sundae anyone?

Ice Cream Cone Cookies

It's hot, hot, hot (and humid) today in Minnesota. I got a bunch of new cookie cutters this weekend and I'm dying to try them out but it's just too hot.

It's definitely an ice cream kind of day. In that light, I'll share these with you.

Ice cream cookies! I got these adorable cutters a few weeks ago and I just got a chance to use them.

They are so fun for summer and they make the cutest cookies.

Hope you're staying cool today!

Flip Flop Cookies: Remix!

We recently had some of my husband’s family in town and I wanted to make some cookies for them. The flip flop cookies I made a few weeks ago were my favorite cookies to-date and I thought our family would like them – especially the kids. Instead of making the exact same cookies, I decided to... embellish them a little.

This was actually really easy. First I made some royal icing flowers on wax paper. To make these, I

- piped a center for the flower, waited 10 minutes

- piped three non-touching flower petals, waited 10 minutes

- piped the remaining three flower petals

- set them aside to dry for a few hours

Next I outlined and filled the cookies and let them dry for about a half hour.

After all of the cookies were done up to that point, I removed the royal icing flowers from the wax paper.

Then I piped the strap onto the flip flop...

After that I just plopped the flower right onto the wet strap.

They were almost too cute to eat but we managed! ;-)

4th of July Cookies

Happy 4th of July! It's almost time to get ready for fireworks but I thought I'd sneak this post in while it's still the 4th!

For this holiday, I thought I'd try some flag cookies since I haven't made them before. Here's a brief recap of how I made them:

I was a little lazy with the stars, I just used dots of white icing. I put them on while the blue icing was still wet but since they were both a little thick, it didn't turn out completely flush.

Happy 4th of July - hope you had a great long weekend!

Wilton Flowers & Cake Design - Week 4

For the final Wilton Flowers & Cake Design class we basically just spent the time assembling our final cakes. I prepped all of my flowers in advance so it only took about 20 minutes to put it all together.

I wasn't exactly sure what to do with everything but here's what I came up with.

Wilton Flowers & Cake Design: 4th of July Style...

The next, and last, course would be Gum Paste & Fondant but I think I'll be waiting at least a month before taking that.