Saturday, December 31, 2011

Winter Wonderland Sugar Cookies

Hi!  Long time, no blog!  I hope you all had a great Christmas.  I can't believe it's already New Year's Eve!  This was my first Christmas that I decorated sugar cookies.  While I'm still not an expert, I am happy with the results.  Practice makes perfect, right?

I decided to stay with a pink/white/blue theme for the cookies because I feel like it's wintry and it's a nice departure from the typical red/white/green combination.  In keeping with the wintry theme, I decorated snowflakes, snowmen and mittens.  I decorated stockings and trees as well because I think they're pretty standard when it comes to Christmas.  The sanding sugar really makes them pop and adds to the winter feel!  Like I said, I'm not an expert at decorating sugar cookies, but I think these came out cute and I was happy to share with my friends and family!

I'm off to do some baking for New Year's dinner.  Have a safe and happy 2012!!!





Sunday, December 11, 2011

Firetruck Cupcakes

A friend of mine asked me to bake cupcakes for her son's third birthday party and the theme was firetrucks.  I googled some images and found some adorable fondant firetrucks that I decided to use as inspiration.  I was a bit nervous to use the fondant since I'd only used it once before and didn't have the best results.


As my luck would have it, the two stores where I purchase my baking supplies were out of the pre-colored fondant.  I figured it couldn't be too hard to color it myself so I picked up some white and with the help of my sister, we created the three colors (in addition to the white) needed for the firetruck.  The process wasn't too hard, but it was a bit time consuming.  It took a couple of hours to cut out the different shapes for the truck.

I decided to bake a dozen chocolate and a dozen vanilla cupcakes.  I used my basic buttercream recipe.  I thought it would be fun to swirl yellow and red together to look like flames.  Unfortunately, I ran out of the red and yellow frosting so I used plain white for the last six cupcakes.  I sprinkled some red sanding sugar on them and I think they looked great!


For only the second time working with fondant, I think the firetrucks came out kinda cute.  Because I am lazy, I also decided to make stars with the number three on them.  Overall, I was pleased with how they looked and I think the birthday boy was happy too - He had one chocolate and one vanilla cupcake!

Saturday, December 3, 2011

50th Anniversary Cookies

My brother in law's parents recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.  My sister and her husband, Mark threw a big bash for them and they asked if I would bake wedding cake cookies to give out as favors.  I was more than happy to but a bit nervous since I'd never really made (decorated sugar) cookies for anyone other than friends and family.


I didn't want to feel too overwhelmed, so I decided on baking them all in one night.  Then I outlined and flooded them another night while adding the decorations over a couple of nights.  I primarily stuck with white on white but I did add gold to a few since they were for a 50th wedding anniversary.  I was pleased with how they turned out but I know I still have a way to go with my decorating!


Happy 50th Anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. Norman!