fired up!

i've mentioned my extensive cookie cutter collection. i lost count after 400. i have something for every holiday, nearly every animal, even some that are anatomically correct. and i have a pot leaf. hubby thought a few leaves for a friend would be a funny gift. i was already up to my elbows in cookie dough for another order, so i cut out a few. then i noticed something cool.

here are the leaves, open and pot-like:

i could have been more authentic about it, but like i said, i was busy... but when you turn them upside down, and bring in the leaves a little, then ice them in black and put cascading dots...

you get fireworks!

*warning* never set your cookies on fire.

and no, these are not "enhanced" with "special ingredients" they were just to be fun. discovering an extra use for the cutter was a bonus. maybe also flames? or a splash? far out, man...

still on the way, Brenda's big 6...

some birthday baubles

Brittany, my niece, has followed her job in jewelry retail management all the way to Atlanta, all at the ripe old age (if i'm doing the math right, you know us old people) of 21. (at 21, i was in retail, but one of those know-nothing part-timers.) for her May birthday i thought it was fitting to give her some bling.
her mom, s-i-l Libby, got me the engagement ring cookie cutter from Sur la Table last Christmas, hoping i didn't already have it--i didn't, and here was a perfect reason to use it.
the hardest part was considering how best to make the sapphire look like a cut stone. i spent a good 10 minutes sketching and erasing before i just googled it. then to translate it to cookies, i iced the stone in blue, then painted it with a vodka/blue pearl dust/blue food coloring mixture. when dry, i painted the lines with vodka/white pearl dust. [water will start to dissolve the sugary surface; vodka is alcohol and will evaporate.] the silver was dark gray icing brushed with white pearl dust.
and i picked a blue frosty stone for 3 reasons: it was Will and Kate's wedding weekend (recall Kate's engagement ring); Brittany gave me a sapphire pendant one Christmas; and Brit is one of the few gals i know that can pull off wearing frosty blue eye make-up. i've tried, but frosty blue just looks better on my cookies than on me. :)
the hardest part after decorating them was sending them to Atlanta via UPS. not because of any actual problem, but if i were Mrs. Corporate-Cookie i'd have my own refrigerated trucks; with delivery services, you just have to hope. i was standing there reading all the things you're not allowed to ship like corrosives, explosives, etc, and under "other" was dry ice. which would have helped. it was like 90 degrees in IL that day. i asked, "can they park the truck in the shade?"
i emailed Brit and said if the southern heat melts them, i'll replace them, but they arrived intact. [whew!] happy birthday Brittany, and congrats on the career! i'd tell her to stay cool, but she's got that covered...
coming soon, Brenda gives cookie thanks to 30 teachers, 6 different ways.

everything's explodin'!

first, go here: www.cookiedecorator.com and look around, especially at the gallery. i'll wait...
back? good. i'm so thrilled that i finally learned where all the cookie people are. thanks Lesley! (check out her cookies at www.facebook.com/frostedbylesley ) people are joining daily: people with blogs younger than mine; with cake and cupcake experience, but new to cookies; people whose work i've seen in books; people who work for suppliers and cake shows. it's like we're all showing up at once, realizing that interest is spreading and darnit, cookies could be the next Big Thing if we knew how to get people together and make something happen.
in the chat forums we're talking about meet-ups and conventions, maybe even a charitable event (i plugged for www.cookiesforkidscancer.org, www.dropinanddecorate.org, and www.frostingforthecause.com) one thing is certain, we all seem to have an urge to gather, not just to compare finished products, or swap business cards, but to decorate cookies. that's awesome to me. that's like people who like to paint, all wanting to gather and paint together. like an art class, or a writers' workshop-- two things i used to do all the time in school, and now i don't do at all.
so i've been thinking about this career vacuum i've been in since graduating college, and how long is too long to be deciding what you want to be when you grow up, and then i remember that my favorite musician, Wayne Coyne, worked at Long John Silvers for like, 11 years before becoming a superstar. it paid his young-aspiring-rockstar bills, took up little brain space so his creativity still flourished, and now he and his freakishly talented band, The Flaming Lips, are so popular i can no longer afford their tickets. i keep this in mind when i look back on 10 long years of desks and fax machines and spreadsheets. sometimes it takes 11 years. sometimes you don't know what kind of artist you want to be, then you find yourself baking. (shrug)
in addition to spectacular music, Wayne also paints, often with streaking branching drips that kind of explode angularly like liquid blasted with air. i puddled some watered-down food coloring on a white Easter egg cookie and gave it a few blasts with an empty airbrush and got little Coynian-drip-explosions. here's a close-up; like a Rorschach ink blot, you can kind of stare at it (his work too) and see something new. go for it. pop in "virgo self-esteem broadcast," check out Wayne's mad skills here www.flaminglips.com/store/lithographs and ponder your last ten years...



"this is the beginning..."

Wayne's planes

F-I-L Wayne has a birthday mid-April, but whether it's his day or not, if the weather is nice, Wayne can probably be found in the back yard, pushing a grandkid on the swing. while torpedoing through the air, the kids like to look up and squint and point out planes, and birds, and whatever zooms into view.
i have an airplane cookie cutter with a top/bottom perspective that really only lets me decorate the plane to look like the boring underside of the craft, skew it all funny for a side view, or use the outline to suggest an element of the design-- in this case, "looking up." so i made plane-shaped sections of sky with birds and branches and telephone poles and little airplanes, all in silhouette, like when you squint at a blue sky.
the silhouettes were painted on with black food coloring; the brush can only make so fine a line though--i'm considering switching to a food-writing pen. the clouds were layers of white and gray icing dots and white sugar. off in the corner there's a piped icing jet contrail, or as Andrew says, "look! a skywriter!"
happy birthday Grandpa Wayne!
coming soon, silver and sapphire, purses and shoes, music, baby chicks, lambs, moons and stars, maybe dinosaurs, definitely army men, contraband and pyrotechnics, 'my little phonies,' and a few cookies go over the rainbow. (whew!)

poisson d'avril! il trompe l'œil! [my cherry amore!]

my favorite little guy Rowan was almost born on Grandma Bobbi's birthday. i was to be induced the 31st, Monday morning. we were nodding off by daybreak on Tuesday. he just wasn't budging... but finally my little April fool was born. now he's three and knows all the words to "happy birthday" and sings it to Grandma ("have a bird day") then the next day everyone calls him to sing it, then on Sunday we go to lunch and sing it all together... the kiddo just sings and eats cake all weekend. he's in heaven.
Bobbi will say her grandkids are sweet enough, but as a diabetic, she's missing out on that guilty pleasure (that we should indulge in responsibly!) of having a mouthful of frosting. but despite not partaking, she always admires and encourages my cookie aspirations, so i've been on the lookout for a sugarfree recipe i can live with, but then i'm left with the dilemma of decorating them. they don't make sugar-free powdered sugar. splenda will dissolve into the egg whites, not build up peaks.
i had to resign myself to a reduced sugar project for now. i did this with my regular recipes, i just used a little frosting for the borders and branches, and added fondant cut-outs that can be removed before eating.
i'd guess it's at least a third less carbs per cookie, though i doubt that's significant enough, but she loved the look nonetheless. the cherry blossoms were cut with a tiny fondant cutter, then rolled a bit with one of my clay-modeling tools, then dotted with a pearl dragee and dusted with pearl dust.


then i pondered how to commemorate the kiddo's half of the weekend, and what went with cherry blossoms, and i realized i had acquired a cherry cookie cutter that had yet to be used. cherries it was.
happy birthday, favorite mother-in-law Bobbi and favorite little man Rowan! coming soon, Wayne planes and Brittany bling...

play... ball.

hubby's sister Heather's birthday was in February. i really did make cookies for her. she's a big Cubs fan, so i made hats and bats. i finished them at night, and left them on a cookie sheet on the counter, with a sheet of wax paper over, so the icing would dry and i could pack them in the morning. and at the crack of that dawn, my kiddo got up, climbed out of the crib, went downstairs, and helped himself to the hats. wait, it gets better.
later Heather gave one of the bats to her son, and i asked if i could grab a picture of the remaining bats and when my back was turned and the bag was open, that little monkey of a kid of mine grabbed another cookie. we didn't have a good afternoon.
eventually i found myself with the time and cookie dough, so Heather got a cookie do-over.
this is the first time i ever had a reason to do the baseball hat shape, and i think i'll try it a different way next time. (and i'll leave you hanging there for dramatic effect.)






the baseballs are only about the size of a dime. the stitching was done with red food coloring and a tiny paintbrush. the wood grain, however, was made by not fully mixing the brown into the icing. then you just pipe with the grain.

many thanks to Heather for not letting my kid go against her grain. happy birthday!

coming soon, cheery cherries, a study of the sky, and we'll see if a diamonds hold up to Atlanta heat.

90 years young!

Sharon, who ordered the tiny elephants last fall, wanted to commemorate her dad Henry's 90th birthday; her last honoree was just 1--my cookies are for kids of all ages.

i asked what visuals she was thinking, maybe fireworks or shooting stars, she said. i got to thinking about 1921, and the early 20's remind me of things like seersucker suits, and patriotic bunting, and real silver coins. i wanted something equally blue/metal/banner-waving, with Sharon's ideas of stars and federal-holiday-sparkle....

and i made these. one medium star and 2 mini stars were baked with a 9 and a 0 (one of my favorite tricks--the dough spreads as it bakes and glues itself to it's neighboring parts.) pearl dust was brushed on just-dried icing. i dropped them off at the hospital where Sharon is a nurse and when the ladies at the front desk overheard that i was there to drop off customized cookies, we had a little show-and-tell. one asked if i sell them, and i always have to do the 'yes, but... not licensed or anything... customers so far are just friends and family... just a crazy lady who bakes, etc.,' to which she replied, "who cares? these are beautiful!" so much of my feedback is encouraging with a tone of urgency. i'm looking into my job options; if my own store is out of reach, maybe i'll help another shop rise to stardom. (jazz hands!)

speaking of jobs, hats off to Sharon and her fellow nurses. :)

get it? hats off? (ahem.)

drop by again soon, birthdays are keeping me busy, Easter has me stumped....