Flower Cookies

My friend wanted to learn to make cookies and she mentioned she'd always wanted to try to make flower cookies like someone she knew. I had a lot of mini flower cutters so I thought I'd give it a shot before I tried to teach her anything.

In the end I made about a billion of these little suckers considering they were mini cookies and I couldn't stand the thought of making any more for a while. Maybe she can try these on her own and give me some pointers!

Heart cookies

This is my try on The Decorated Cookie's idea and recipe. The link to the tutorial and recipes can be found here.

I didn't have a cutter as small as she did for the inner heart so I used my heart cutouts to make mini cookies. These cookies are really simple and tasty!

Mario Cookies

I come from a long line of gamers starting with my grandpa. I remember Frogger and Burger Time on Atari followed by the game that can tie most of us back to the earliest days, Super Mario Brothers on the original NES.

I saw pictures of a Mario cake one time and always thought I'd love to make that. Instead I took on the cookies. Maybe someday I will do the cake.

In shaping the cookies I used a circle and an egg shape for the mushrooms and shaped them by hand. They were actually my first attempt at royal icing decorating and I imagine I could make them look much better if I tried them again, but I was pretty happy with the overall result at the time.

I miss sweets!

I haven't had any time to bake or work on my blog over the past couple weeks. Work along with classes has turned out to be a bit more stressful than I had anticipated. In light of that fact I'm currently suffering a horrible cold and don't dare bake anything at all until I've recovered.

I am getting a lot of good ideas. All of my dreams are full of baking.

Planning to get back to cookies next and feature some of my favorite tips, tricks, and tools.

Stay tuned...

Inside the fondant cake

The portion of this cake that was the biggest pain was the actual cake itself. Due to lack of proper planning on my part it was much more complicated than it should have been.

A tutorial on this technique can be found here.

It's actually really straight forward, just make sure you follow all of her steps fully. I ended up losing an outer ring because it crumbled to pieces. Not sure why, but it did.

I did taste the cake and the fondant isn't half bad! I still don't like the texture, but it is otherwise ok.

Fondant cake

I'm finally done with this horrible little experiment. It seems sad that it took so long to make something I don't even want to eat lol.

Not likely that I'll be making any more fondant covered cakes for a while, but I'll definitely keep playing with fondant decorations. Those are quite fun.

Fondant continued...

Fondant is made and cakes are made.

So far I've experienced nothing but disaster in doing this so I think I'll be switching back to cookies for a while.

Fondant

I'm playing with fondant today. I've never made anything with fondant so this should be interesting...

My sister only decorates in fondant and I only decorate in frosting so I think it's only fair she gives frosting a try! The recipes for the fondant came from her so she'll have to give me the go ahead before I can post them.

To be continued...

Shopping for supplies

For those of you who are new to this or who wish to add to your own existing collections, I thought I'd add a few links to sign up for coupon offers.

What you're looking for is something like "subscribe to weekly savings" with an entry blank for your email.

Both Hobby Lobby and Michaels regularly email a weekly 40% off coupon for any regularly priced item in the store.

Take a friend or two, print them a coupon, and make them buy you something as well. Before too long you'll build up a pretty nice stash of supplies at nearly half the price.

Another thing of note, You can also purchase supplies from online retailers. I love Karen's Cookies as cookies are what I enjoy creating most.

You can sign up for the newsletter on their page or "like" them on facebook. They typically have a 20% off coupon code posted on facebook. I haven't seen a coupon code for the month of september yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

Amazon is another good place to look for discount items. If you have a special offers Kindle there's a good chance you'll receive coupon codes at some point that can be used for baking supplies. Hint Hint Jenna...

Wherever you shop, the key is to shop for a deal. I've waited for a deal to buy most everything I own for baking. Luckily my Kitchen Aid mixer was on clearance at Target or I wouldn't own one...

Happy Birthday Minny Kakes!

In the beginning we got along very well...

It must have sunk in quickly that I was no longer the baby of the family...

I got over it and began showing you the ways of the world...

Mom always said we played so well together...

I couldn't find any pictures where they captured how we didn't play well together on camera...

However, I recall reactions to this picture as being, "They're so sweet to each other when they're asleep!" indicating it must not have been a secret...

Being the genius of the family I taught you to ride a bike...

Of course you had to one up me...

I may have taken credit for your hard work a time or two...

Which one of these angels were they going to believe?!

I'm still ornery and you're still a turd, but I love you now more than ever and want to wish you a Happy 29th Birthday.

I will share some insight into your 29th birthday: You are old.

When I mentioned to my coworkers that it was my little sister's birthday today they asked me how old you are and I said "29!". They're like... "that's your little sister?" YES thank you for pointing out that I too am old.

So, to always bring you joy, no matter how OLD you get, you'll always be my LITTLE sister.