Valentine's Day Cookies

It's Valentine's Day, so I made you cookies. Actually for real, I sent three special people a package of cookies. I thought it might be a nice surprise. By the way, I am terrible at keeping surprises, so this is a big deal. I already ruined it for one of them because I told them to check their mail today (stupid college mail rooms ruining good things).

I started planning these cookies about a month ago. I made the cookies and froze them. Then this week I decorated them and shipped them off.

I thought I was being super original making chevron hearts, but a quick googling says I am not alone....

So, I kept going. I made the chevron ones, the scalloped ones and the honeycomb ones. I love the way they all turned out. They are a great cookie for a beginner because you only need to mix 2 colors and pipe some lines.

Then add my favorite border, super easy dots! They immediately clean up even the ugliest cookie.

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Grandma's Birthday Cookies

This January my Grandma celebrated her birthday. I don't get to see her too often since she moved in with my uncle but it is always a great time visiting her.

For her birthday, she asked me to make her a batch of cookies. She has a huge sweet tooth, so I also surprised her with a cake. But that is for another post.

Here are the cookies. I learned the pretty swirly technique from a class I took with SweetAmbs. It is one of my new favorite patterns. It makes any cookie instantly pretty and classy. Also, I love that it just flows, no real thinking required.  I also love doing a dot border. It is really easy (aka perfect for beginners), it cleans up a wonky circle, and it really finishes the cookie.

Finally, these babies got dusted with pearl dust and the writing got painted with it. I love the white pearl dust. It gives the perfect shine.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Super Bowl Cookies & Tutorial

It's game day, and as usual, I'm a little late to the blogging party. This would have been useful for inspiration, oh, I don't know, a week or two ago. But here we are. The day of. So just enjoy the eye candy. Oh. And sorry if you are a Ravens fan. Both of these orders were for 49ers fans. 

I started the first order bummed that I don't have an oval cookie cutter for the 49ers logo. So, for the footballs and the first round of 49ers logos, I used my largest circle cutter. I pressed down once and then again about an inch from my original cut to get the football shape. It should look like a venn diagram, the center being the football.

After cutting and baking all of these cookies, I remembered I did have an oval cutter: the speech bubble! It just needed a little slice off the bottom to get rid of the point and it was perfect. Doh. I was actually excited to get a second chance making these so I could use that cutter. 

Excuse the terrible picture, but I wanted to show you the difference between the shapes and how much better round two went. 

One of my favorite new techniques is doing a royal icing transfer. Lettering is not my strong suit, so copying this logo would have been a nightmare. But as long as you can trace lines, you can make a transfer.

To do this you need:
An image the size you will want it on your cookie
Wax paper
Tape
A cookie sheet
Royal Icing ready to go in a piping bag

So tape down your image onto a cookie sheet. Here is what I used so I could get a bunch at a time:

Then tape a piece of wax paper over the whole thing. 

Next, for this logo specifically, trace over the black outlines using a stiff black icing. I would suggest letting that dry for about 30 minutes to an hour just to prevent bleeding. Next fill in the inside of the logo with white medium consistency icing. 

Let this dry overnight or for at least 8 hours. It needs to be really solid. 

Finally, carefully and slowly peel off the wax paper from the transfer.

You can just drop these right onto wet icing. 
 

And here are some lovely instagram photos of round 2, where I also simplified the footballs just a little bit:

Happy Super Bowl/Beyonce Bowl/Puppy Bowl, everyone! Leave me comments with what you are eating on this triple threat holiday.