white pumpkins, black friday

i mentioned i'm employed now--not at a bakery, but they're good folk, i'll help 'em out.. (i've worked/baked for them before, have a read from winter of '09-'10) and it's temporary, so i have to keep my mad skillz sharp. or maybe they'll realize they should keep me and i'll bring them snacks. either way, i'm baking, might as well take more pictures and share. :) so that's what these are for, but i was supposed to bring them on Halloween. i got all 3 of us in the car that morning, and all our junk and forgot the plate. so the following Tuesday i wished my colleagues a happy November. it's brown, it works.
pumpkins lately have been so freaky-genetic-experiment colored and textured that i just couldn't do orange. i've seen drippy dark green, lumpy grey, and even salmon pink, but one of my favorites is the smooth ivory variety. they're like the ghosts of pumpkins. the cookies are pretty basic--piped in sections, some edible marker lines on the stem--but my nifty moment with these was realizing the perspective a little better; notice you can see the "top" of the pumpkin "behind" the stem?
then the circles were supposed to be lace, as well-sprayed and defined as the black and purple/orange/green witch dresses last month. the trick is to use a cotton lace. cotton absorbs what doesn't directly land on the cookie. with a polyester lace, like i used here, it doesn't soak into the fibers, so as soon as it's wet, it bleeds right through anyway, right out the other side onto the cookie. so i didn't get my lacy look, but then i got the brown marker out again and outlined the blobs, and it ended up looking kind of like burled wood. then i brushed the circles with bronze dust, and the pumpkins with gold, and they all looked like an elegant day in the forest.
i was going to scheme about another plate-of-the-month project when i learned that mid-December our office is holding a cookie exchange. (aw naw they di'int) oh yes, and a contest too. part of me says "oh boy, sharing and participation and cookies and fun!" and the other part is bringing a cookie tin of whoop-ass. no, i will not roundhouse kick anyone's snickerdoodles, i was kidding. but the audience will be bigger, so i gotta rock'em. stay tuned.
also on the way, cowgirl cookies, tattoo experiments, stenciled logos, high heels, wine part 2, and strange colors at the bake sale.