Christmas Cookies

The Christmas season came and went way too quickly this year. I did find some time to make some Christmas cookies though.What a didn't get a chance to do, though, was take some quality photos of them. Both of these sets of cookies were inspired by one of my favorite cookie bloggers Sugarbelle in this post. Here are a few photos from my phone:

Cute little penguins. When I saw these I knew I had to make them for my hubby.

These may be my favorite set of cookies I've ever made. I love that each one is a little bit different.

Both sets. They totally don't go together at all but I don't think my coworkers minded. :-)

Hope you had a great Christmas and New years!

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!

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!

Beach Cookies

You know that saying, "Be careful what you ask for"? A few weeks ago, I was so anxious for spring to arrive when it was snowing in late April that I wrote a blog post about it. Well, today it was over 100 degrees here in Minnesota. 100+ degree days are very rare here and practically unheard of in early June!

I've learned my lesson, so no letter to Mother Nature this time. Instead, I'll share some beach themed cookies with you! If you can't beat 'em - join 'em!

I think these flip flop cookies are probably my favorite cookies that I've done yet. To make them, I started out with a foot cookie cutter.

Then I trimmed the cookie to the shape of a flip flop.

After that, I used the flip flop cookie as a stencil for the remaining foot cookies. It helps to have firmer, chilled dough at this point so put them in the freezer or fridge if they are getting too soft.

To decorate them, I first outlined and flooded the flip flops. Then I added a design right into the wet cookie. Finally, after waiting 30 or more minutes, I added the straps to the flip flops.

I also made beach balls.

Some flowers.

And, of course, suns! These suns were made from a sunflower cookie cutter. I first added a circle of yellow icing to the center of the cookie. Then I added the sun rays in three steps, waiting about 30 minutes between each step in order to give some depth and texture to the cookie.

I have to say, summer isn't my favorite season and this heat is miserable, but these cookies definitely help!

Stay cool!

Scrabble Wedding Cookies

This weekend I had the privilege of attending the wedding of my childhood neighbor, David, to his beautiful bride, Erin. His family moved in next door to mine when he was three and I was five. Poor David had to put up with so much growing up - he had one sister and lived next door to two girls. We played with Barbies, collected beads, and made up roller-dances in the driveway. Hopefully he wasn't too scarred from all that! I don't think so. He's going to be a brilliant chemist and is now married to a great girl!

I saw these adorable Scrabble cookies on Bridget's (from Bake@350) at few months ago and have been wanting to try making them since then! I thought this was the perfect occasion for them.

I don't have a square cookie cutter so I had to get creative. I used a ruler to mark off 1.5 inch sections and then used a pizza cutter to cut along the length of the ruler.

Once the cookies were cooked, I outlined and flooded them and added the letters.

Here's the final product:

I decided to put them in a jar.

I made this little tag for the jar because I realized it probably would be hard to tell what this random set of letters was supposed to be.

I attached it to the jar with red ribbon.

Congrats again David and Erin! I'm so happy for you two and wish you the very best!

Memorial Day BBQ Cookies

Happy Memorial Day weekend! My hubby and I are heading up to my dad's house for a barbecue this afternoon. He smoked a pork shoulder and ribs and I am very anxiously waiting to eat them later! It was supposed to be storming today here in Minnesota but we got a perfect day - partly cloudy and 70!

I wanted to share with you some cookies I made for the weekend. They are barbecue/picnic inspired.

I made hamburgers, hot dogs, watermelon, suns, strawberries, and some caterpillars. Most of these were made from using cutters I already had and then trimming or reshaping the dough. 

The strawberries were a football cut in half and trimmed.

The suns were a sunflower cutter with every other petal trimmed off.

The hamburgers were made from a smooshed small circle cutter and the hot dogs were made from a "1" cookie cutter along with two circle edges for the bun.

The caterpillars were made from a question mark.

And finally, the watermelon. They were made by cutter a circle in half. I used a small flower cutter to make the bite.

Hope you have a wonderful long weekend and get the chance to grill, get outside, and spend time with friends and family!

Food as art

Do you have projects or project ideas sitting around waiting to be completed? Grand ideas waiting for you to give them life? Maybe you’ll get to them when you’re less busy/lazy/tired or the project gets easier/more fun/more interesting. You know, whatever the excuse de jour.

If this is you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. I have a few of those projects. A few years ago, I made this sketch.

It is meant to be a large, 6-canvas art installation for my master bedroom. I had the best intentions of getting this done. Truly I did. I even bought the canvases! But then I got hung up on several things: choosing colors, having very little painting experience, not wanting to make a mess, and the large scale of the project.

What does this have to do with a baking blog? Well, last week I was looking around for inspiration for some leftover cookies I had sitting around. I was looking at scrapbook paper, at books, and basically just wandering around my house aimlessly... until I came across my sketch book. I saw it and immediately remembered my long lost sketch. I decided this was the perfect way to use up those cookies!

I had to make a few tweaks though. For one, my cookies were square, not rectangle, so I had to modify how much I could fit onto each cookie. Second, I already had icing mixed up in various shades of pink for another project so I decided to use that. I adore pink, we’re pretty much besties actually, but pink won’t be going on my walls.

Okay, with those disclaimers out of the way, here’s what I did:

First I piped on the light pink stripes. I let that sit for a while because I wanted good definition between my stripes.

When the light pink stripes were dry to the touch, I piped on my dark pink stripes.

There was a cookie casualty along the way... thankfully, I had extras:

Once I had all of my cookies fully covered, I let them dry overnight.

The next day, I just started piping on the design one “canvas” at a time.

Because the stripes were dry, it was easy to “erase” the parts I wasn’t happy with. I’m glad I let the bottom dry before trying to pipe on the design because I did a lot of “erasing.” Actually, you can still see some of my erase marks...

I liked this project. It’s fun and rewarding to bring life to your ideas – even if it’s not in the same way you’d imagined.

I am once again feeling motivated to get this project done! You know, once I find a place to make the mess, repaint the bedroom, choose painting colors based on our new master bedroom colors... Okay, who am I kidding, it’s going to be a while before this project is revisited. But at least I can feel good that my sketch was made into “art” at least once!

What are some projects you’ve been meaning to complete?