great pumpkins

boss Candice has a younger sister Sandra who requested pumpkin cookies for her kiddos’ Halloween parties at school.  i have about 14 different pumpkin shapes, but these 2 are my new favorites.

i’ve become unsatisfied with just flat orange pumpkins, and even flat orange with lines suggesting the vertical segments, so when i ice pumpkins i fill in every other segment, and when they’re dry, i go back and fill in the rest, and you get those nice wedges.  my other neat trick was adding black to my leftover orange to get brown for the stems, then adding the leftover brown to the green making a mossy hue for the leaves.  nothing wasted.  green edible ink markers finished off the details, and each got a little favor bag.  

 thank you Sandra, and happy Halloween to all!  coming next week, Michael’s 5th birthday, and not long after, i’m thinking about mustaches.  yeah.

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.

"gobble gobble"

got a call from Lois from church, wondering if i had some time to make a few cookies for a the yearly bake sale. i always have time for cookies, plus i had an incomplete set of 2nd hand, brown, hand-glazed plates that i didn't need. 4 big plates, 2 small plates, and 3 mugs, all unfit for the microwave, and ultimately doomed to be dropped over the years. i'm a clutz. i buy my plates at the dollar store. anyway, i picked corn, leaves, apples, and mini pumpkins, leaves and acorns. then i arranged them all nicely in/on their mug/plate, wrapped with cellophane, and put the 12 or so extras in favor bags. i'm told they sold out. (yay!)
in the meantime, they caught Dian's eye, and she ordered more corn and leaves for thanksgiving. this time i added a few purple kernels. i love how any color works--this shape is definitly in my top 10 favorites. thanks Dian!

('hey katie, your pictures are starting to look a little fuzzy.' yeah, as it gets darker and colder, i'm working with poorer light, plus i just recently got new contacts, and it turns out i really needed them! moving on...)


then mom remembered the turkeys i made for Eldra last year and wanted 2 dozen made the same way. i wrecked about 6 before i remembered how i did the tail last time. these little guys drove with mom and dad to thanksgiving at my brother's in indiana.

and then for fun, i made these for Andrew and Grace. one lost a head en route. :( but i'm sure he was delicious.

happy november!

here's what i was up to in november--a traditional collection for eldra's monthly dozen, and a buncha corn for the folks at work. at first i thought the turkey was too intimidating, but it was nothing compared to those individual corn kernels. but i like challenges :)