Shamrockin'

Can you believe this amazing weather we've been having? 80 degrees on St. Patrick's day!!!! It doesn't get much better than that here in Chicago during March. I swear, this has been the best end of winter ever. Heck, an amazing fall, followed by an incredibly mild Seattle-style winter and now launching into the most beautiful spring I can remember has made for a great welcome back home to IL. :)

On Friday, the boys and I hopped in the car and headed out to Aunt Cathy's to spend the day with her. Caiden has been asking to go to "Aunt Caffy's Park," so we made it extra special by enjoying a yummy picnic lunch there. We spent a couple hours at the park and then headed back so the boys could take their naps. Cathy and I chit-chatted while they snoozed, and then when they got up we played some more before heading back home.

On Saturday, Amy and Jerry came up for a long overdue visit. We soaked up the beautiful weather and spent most of our time outside. The boys played exceptionally well together and had lots of fun playing in the yard and in the sandbox.
That night, B graciously stayed home while Amy and I got out for some much needed girl time and went to see local favorite Modern Day Romeos perform at Chord on Blue in St. Charles. I couldn't believe it when I realized the last time I went out for St. Pat's was way back in '07 on the famed party bus! It was also crazy to be walking outside at night in a strapless summer dress in the middle of MARCH and be completely comfortable. :) The band put on a great show, and we were in our usual spots in the front row.

We were also "treated" (ugh) to a couple overtly expressing their love lust right next to us for a good hour. Amy and I both wanted to tell them to "get a room!" I'm generally fine with some "dirty dancing" for a couple of songs, but they were getting downright graphic. *gag*

Annoying couple on the right

Anywho, the holiday weekend wouldn't be complete without some festive cookies to celebrate! The next day I got to teach Amy how to decorate with royal icing, and we both had so much fun with it! I think she is going to be a natural. :) Of course I took a couple of pictures as well.

It was such a FUN and relaxing weekend! Great company and beautiful weather are so good for the soul. :)

Hobie Gras '12 - Mardi Gras Cookies

Our good friend Rob has had a tradition that he has kept alive despite living in Seattle which is his annual Mardi Gras party aptly named "Hobie Gras." The key is that this party happens here in Chicago! We haven't been able to attend the last half dozen or so parties, but this year we finally got to go again! :)

Naturally I wanted to bring along some festive cookies, but I was drawing a blank on what to make. I started searching "Mardi Gras cookies" and came up with some awesome looking masks, but those were way too time intensive for me to attempt. Next I found some cute bikini topped cookies with candy bead necklaces. I thought those were clever, but then I started thinking about how it is you technically earn your beads at Mardi Gras. This lead me to become extra inspired, and knowing the party attendees - they would get a good laugh out of my creation.

Now fair warning - these aren't, uh, kid-friendly cookies, per se, but they do engender the real theme of some of that Mardi Gras craziness. (And this will be the closest I'd ever get to participating in said craziness. :P ) I actually hemmed and hawed over posting these, but I'm pretty proud of how they turned out and heck, this is my blog. :P So I hope you get a laugh or a giggle over these. If not, just pretend you never saw it. ;)

They did indeed go over well, and earned a hearty guffaw from the party host himself. :) And it was SO awesome seeing so many fabulous people we haven't gotten to hang out with in far too long. Rob has such a great group of friends, and I realized how much I'd missed seeing them over the years! Rob, you have to move back now so you can keep throwing fun parties! :)

Valentine's Day Cookies

May I present to you: 

Valentine's Day Cookies for Caiden's Class :)

Wrapped and ready to go

I made a total of ten for his class. Nine for the other students and one for his teacher. I made four extra for our little family to enjoy on Valentine's Day.

You can see my "penmanship" improve over these. I practiced on Brian & Caiden. The very last one I did was Ezra's.

Overall, I am pretty happy with how these turned out given it was a first time for me in several areas. Which also translates to: I learned quite a few new things on this batch. Good thing they are for a class of 3 year olds or else I would have felt a lot more stressed out and self conscious! LOL!

So here is a list of what I learned/experienced:

• I need to get less sloppy about my borders. It's pretty obvious when I use two different colors. 
• I should have left more of the edge of the cookie for show. This also would have allowed me to make a more defined heart shape.
• AmeriColor black is NICE! And it does darken up as it dries. I should have taken a picture of the icing before it set, but it was a dark grey/silver when I started. I was very pleased with the end result, and I didn't have to dump in half the bottle. I also don't taste the nasty bitter like I do with Wilton.
• AmeriColor red is also NICE! Having the color in squeeze bottles is so much better to work with. I did need to use a fair amount, but like the black it also darkened up as it dried.
• I really need to practice my penmanship. I don't have the best handwriting as it is, and I feel like it really showed on the cookies. But it is also my first shot at writing with an icing bag, so I know it will get better with practice. (I'm also thankful that you can "erase" mistakes with a little water and a paper towel!)
• Writing with a #1 tip makes for some fragile letters. I had to repair two cookies after transferring them to their bags.
• For some reason, a lot of my cookies came out of the oven uneven - lots of air pockets. I have no idea what caused this. Normally it isn't such a big deal since the icing usually does a good job of leveling it all out. But it does present a bit of a challenge when you need to write on them!

I think that about covers it for my notes. I hope his classmates and teacher enjoy them. I had fun making them! :)

Hooked on Decorating

So I mentioned in my last post that I was going to post more of my personal baking/cookie endeavors here. I also mentioned that most likely the next creation would be cookies for Caiden's class. Well, since I only needed about a dozen cookies for that, I had some extra dough to play around with. I've been dying to try some new techniques I learned about, so what better opportunity to play with them than now?! :)

I used one of my biscuit cutters to make some simple round cut outs. I also made 1 1/2 batches of the royal icing so I wouldn't have to worry about running out of colors for the Valentine cookies. I am ridiculously excited about how easy these were to make and how much fun it was trying out the various new patterns! These are all "flat" designs. No raised piping done with these. :)

I did swirls, polka dots, my initial, and the last one I'm not quite sure how to describe. :) By far, my absolute favorite is the red cookie with the white swirl and black border in the photo below. I absolutely love how it turned out!

I am so glad I had the chance to practice this new technique! It takes the cookie designs to a whole new level! :)

Cookie Creations

I decided I need to feature some of my cookie creations here. I generally post photos to FB, but there is no reason to not do some entries on them as well. :) Plus this way, I can share their "back stories."

To say that I have become obsessed with royal icing would be an understatement. :) I used to hate decorating cut out cookies. I hated mixing all the separate colors and then slathering the icing across the cookie. It always seemed to me that the cookie would lose most of it's shape and if there were more than one color on the cookie it became a mess. I just didn't have the patience to do a half-decent job of it.

Well, then something magical happened. I was surfing a blog I linked to from one of the couponing blogs I followed. I started reading some of her earlier entries and stumbled across a link off of her blog to yet another blog - Annie's Eats. She has a fantastic tutorial on how to decorate with royal icing. I had ALWAYS wondered how in the world people make their decorated sugar cookies look so amazing! I figured it was complicated and quite beyond my reach. Imagine my surprise when I discovered just how easy it really was! It was like unlocking a mystery in the baking world for me.

I decided my first attempt would be making cookies for Ezra's birthday party. I actually did a trial run a week or so before just to see how it would go. I'm glad I had some practice to work out some kinks and get some experience learning how to work with the icing. When it came time to make the "real" batch, it went really well! I was excited to debut them, and everyone really enjoyed them! Especially the birthday boy. :)

Of course, I had to share this technique with my baking partner in crime Summer. A few weeks after Ezra's birthday, I made a trip up to MN to meet her new daughter. We decided it would also be fun to do some baking together and what better thing to try but cookies with royal icing! Summer had already reviewed the tutorial, and I shared with her what I had learned. We had a blast decorating fall themed leaves and acorns!

I was super excited for Halloween! What a fun series of cookies to decorate! Among the pumpkins, scary cats and ghosts, I threw in a couple fun ones. A Charlie Brown ghost and a cookie made to resemble Crisco. :)

I took an unintentional break from decorating cookies until two December events: Caiden's Christmas program and a Christmas cookie exchange in December. The parents were asked to bring a plate of cookies for the social gathering in the classrooms after the program. I've been dying to try out the snowflakes, since I'd seen so many photos of beautifully decorated ones. I was shocked at how quickly these cookies were gobbled up by the kiddos! :)

For the Christmas cookie exchange, I knew immediately that I'd make some sugar cookies with the royal icing. I had to get creative with the process this time around because I was working on a limited schedule. I had to make 6 dozen cookies, but I was in rehearsal for my play several evenings a week. So I started early and worked on them a little bit each day.

First I did all the baking.

Then I piped and flooded.

  

Next I added the garland.

Then the stars.

Finally the ornaments went on.

I am pleased to say they were a hit! :)

Next up were cookies for an impromptu Super Bowl party. Believe it or not, I actually had a football cookie cutter laying around. I bought it around Caiden's birthday last year intending to use it to make cookies of the Toy Story aliens for his party. I never did get around to that, but it sure came in handy for this party!

My next project will be this weekend. I am making cookies for Caiden's class for their Valentine's Day party. I will be making heart shaped cookies with the kids' names on them which were inspired by this blogger. Summer found her, and we are both pretty hooked on her site! Oh if only I had the time and inspiration to bake like she does!

I really enjoy making and decorating these cookies. I wonder if this could ever actually be a paying gig. Karla keeps bringing up the idea of opening a bakery together. :) I actually told B when I was in the midst of the Christmas cookies that I found the decorating process relaxing! This has really turned into a fun hobby for me, and I look forward to many more baking and decorating opportunities!