Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Santa Claus Cookies




Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, surrounded by the ones you love.  Our Christmas was very fun. I love seeing the children open their gifts.  There was wrapping paper everywhere and it took forever to open every gift. I still make the kids open them one at a time.  I want to be sure to see each child open their gifts. I just love every minute of it.

I learned a few things today.....

I'm in good health thanks to my check up by Doc McStuffins.

Lalaloopsy dolls are too cute. I really want to get them all....for me not my daughter.

I need a pad lock on my shoe closet....these teenage girls borrow everything.

and there is no greater joy then being a mother.

Although Christmas is pretty much over, I still have a Santa tutorial so I'm gonna share it anyway. I've been doing a lot of repurposing of cutters lately. For Santa I used this paisley cutter from Ecrandal.





1. With flesh colored royal icing make a face shape in center of cookie.

2. Outline hat shape in red royal icing.

3. Fill hat with flood consistency royal icing. Let dry.

4. Outline and fill white area on hat.

5. Outline Santa's beard with white piping icing.

6. Fill Santa's beard in with white flood icing. Let dry









7. Add eyes with black piping icing and a #1 tip
add nose with flesh colored piping icing. Let dry

8. Add Santa's mustache and a pink dot for mouth.

9. Add white puff to top of hat

10. While icing is still wet pour white sanding sugar  on puff. Shake off excess.

11. With 15 second icing add more white icing to brim of hat.

12. While icing is still wet sprinkle with sanding sugar and shake off excess.  Let cookie dry.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Sparkly Snowman Cookies

Ok Christmas is right around the corner and if anyone is wondering....No, my wrapping still is not completely done.

I've just been so busy.....but I totally plan to be finished tonight. I'm just glad all the online orders arrived on time. This year has been free of customer service drama. There's nothing I hate more than when I order things for my kids weeks ahead of time and it doesn't arrive because of some screw up. 

Not this year.....I've got all the presents here and I can't wait to see the children's faces light up when they open them. 

Well I've got a lot of wrapping left to do so I'm going to leave you with this snowman cookie tutorial. This was a tag design I saw here and just knew I had to make a cookie version. I used a tag cutter. These are very easy to make and don't take much time at all. 

                                           
1. Outline and fill bottom portion of tag cookie with white royal icing. Let dry for several hours.


2. Add snowman face and allow to completely dry. 
**TIP** make sure all the icing is completely dry before doing the next step (glittery hat) because the glitter will stick to anything wet.

3. Outline red hat with a #2 tip and red royal icing. 

4. Fill hat with flood consistency red royal icing.

5. While icing is still wet. Pour red disco dust over it. 
**TIP** for easy clean up, hold cookie over a cupcake liner when doing this. I used the foil liners because they are a bit stiffer. 
6. After the icing is dry, shake off excess glitter.

**TIP** After icing is dry, you can use a small clean paint brush to remove any stray glitter along the edge of the hat.

7. With a #3 tip and white royal icing add a poof at top of hat. You want to use thicker icing so it doesn't run off. 

8. sprinkle with rainbow disco dust.  I use a small brush that I dip in the disco dust then 
 kinda twirl the brush over the poof so that the disco dust falls onto it.
Let cookie dry and you're finished!






Friday, December 21, 2012

Snowgirl Cookies

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas........NOT. At least not here. It's rarely wintery and cold here.

It's a bit colder this morning in New Orleans, well cold for us anyway. I believe it's about 50˚ outside. I don't think I'll be going anywhere today. I'll be staying home baking. That way the house is nice and toasty.

Cold is not my thing.....but snowmen are. I love anything with a snowman on it.

Today I decided to make a girl version of the snowman....a snowgirl. Is that what you'd call the girl version?

Ahhhhh I don't have a clue. That's what I'm going to call her. A snowgirl.

I picked up the Wilton Santa cookie cutter and after I started looking at it I saw more of a snowman then Santa.....but if Sugarbelle has taught us anything in the world of cookie decorating, it's that cutters can be repurposed!

Ready to start?

First you'll need the following:

baked santa shaped cookies
white royal icing
blue royal icing
black royal icing
orange royal icing
#2, #3 and #1 icing tips
piping bags
petal dust in pink
small clean round paint brush

1. With light blue piping consistency royal icing, outline the hat. For top portion of hat I used a #2 tip and for the bottom of hat I used a #3 tip. I wanted the bottom to be thicker for some dimension.

2. Fill hat with flood consistency icing and let dry several hours. Don't worry if the two sections run together during the drying time. Mine did and it's ok.

3. Outline and fill in the snowgirls face and poof on top of hat. Allow to dry for several hours.


4. When white icing is dry add her face. I used a #2 tip for all the details. For the eyelashes I just drug a toothpick through the wet icing to form eyelashes. For her nose I piped dots. I started big and got smaller as I got to the tip of the nose. 

5. Fix cookie mess up....
**TIP** Mistakes are made...it happens. My icing broke when piping and left a mess. Black icing does not wipe off well......so I did a little fix and added a tongue on the cookie with the mistake. 
(Shown below)

6. Cookie fixed! I just added a little blob of red icing for a tongue.  

7. After the hat was dry. I outlined the hat with piping consistency royal icing and a #2 tip.

8. With a completely dry cookie, take some petal dust in pink and make some rosy cheeks with a small fluffy round paint brush. 


Now go make some hot cocoa, put on some Christmas music and find some cookie cutters to repurpose.



Thursday, December 20, 2012

Mrs. Claus' Dress Cookies




It seems my life has gotten so busy lately.

My time has been consumed with the Christmas shopping....the wrapping....the children's school parties ....the Christmas dinner.

THE CHRISTMAS DINNER!!!!!!

Then it hits me......I haven't planned Christmas dinner or bought the food for it! Seriously I don't know where I put my superwoman cape at but it's gone! I have become "that mom". The one who forgets everything. The one leaving the house in her pj's to get her kid to school just in the nick of time.

I mean where are the cute clothes and heels?  I think I need to gather myself and get it together.....fast.

I certainly can't go to a christmas party in my pj's, or can I? Noooo people talk and they would certainly be talking about me.

I've been decorating a lot of Christmas cookies this year. One of my favorites is Mrs. Claus' dress.  She has to be well dressed. I imagine she has quite the heel collection. After all, she needs to always look her best.

Wanna see how I made them?


1. Roll out cookie dough and cut out dress shape. I used this cutter from Copper Gifts. Then using a heart cutter cut out the top part of the dress.

2. Trim off scalloped edge of dress. I used a large party hat cutter since it was curved at the edge. Piece the heart and bottom portion of dress together and bake.

3. After cookie has cooled, pipe a belt on the dress with a #2 tip and black piping icing. Allow to dry completely to prevent bleeding. If you need a good icing recipe you can find mine here.

4. Pipe red royal icing using a #2 tip. I used Tulip Red for this.  You can find the Tulip Red icing color here at Karen's Cookies.

5. Fill in top and bottom dress portions with 15 second icing in tulip red. Allow cookie to dry overnight.

6. After cookie is completely dry pipe white fur on dress top. I used a #2 tip and thicker icing. Probably around 20 second icing. I did this to prevent the icing from running and I also didn't want it to be completely smooth.  I also did not pipe a line but did more up and down motions when piping. I wanted it to have a rough edge.
Next, using a clean paint brush, paint a belt buckle with silver luster dust. You can find luster dust here.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Santa Boot Cookies




The days are just flying by. Can you believe Christmas is only a week away? 

A WEEK!

I'm not prepared at all this year.  Normally I'm on top of my game, but this year it's just not happening. 

All of the presents are NOT wrapped.

The four that are wrapped do not have bows on them yet....and it's a crime to have a present without a bow. My mother-in-law would die! 

She's the queen of pretty bows on packages. The woman knows her bows.

I've really gotta get my stuff together. Having a new baby is not what it was years ago. Somehow I think I aged a bit and lost energy. 

My get up and go, got up and went. 

I'm still trying to organize my time better so I can have more time for baking.....and cookie decorating. 

Today I made Santa's boots. Simple, just two colors.....black and gold. 

Easy! and lately easy is what I need. 



1. Roll out cookie dough and cut using a boot cutter. Cut a straight edge across the top. If you need a good cookie recipe you can find mine here.

2. Bake and let cool.





3. Outline and fill top of boot with 15 second black icing.



4. While icing is still wet pour sanding sugar on top. Allow icing to dry several hours then shake off excess.
5. Outline boot with black piping icing. Then fill with 15 second black icing. Allow cookies to dry completely. (about 4-5 hours)


6. Add gold buckle to bottom of shoe with gold piping icing.


7. While icing is still wet, sprinkle with gold disco dust. Allow to dry and then shake off excess disco dust.








8. With black piping icing and a #2 tip outline boot and add lace detail. Allow to dry.


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Cute Dalmatian Cookies


Slade's 2 months old!!!! Well he's 2 1/2 months now, but I'm slow getting things up on the blog because HELLLLOO I can't get anything done with a new baby.

He's such a good baby....BUT, if I start cookie decorating or blogging the cries start.

Pay attention to me mommy.

Then I look at him and get a huge smile. How can I refuse those cute toothless grins of his.

No worries though, I've had a talk with him and we came to an agreement.  Ok, well maybe I gave in and just decided to let him get his way.  Something tells me there's gonna be a lot of that.

Can't blame a girl though. He's the center of my universe.

I really can't believe how big he's getting. He's certainly a little butter ball. He's already 13 lbs. I don't know why he's such a chunky monkey.  All five of my other babies were around 8 lbs at three months. Slade on the other hand is just growing along.  He's the last baby, so I wanted things to move a bit slower.

Guess he has other plans.

I decided to make cookies for his two month mark. Too bad he can't eat them right? I'll be sure to make him some when he has teeth and can chew a cookie....not that he wouldn't try now.

I hope everyone is having a great week and doing lots of baking!


Monday, December 3, 2012

Christmas Snowflake Cookies






When I think of Christmas, I think of snowflakes.  I'm not totally sure why, because I live in Louisiana where it rarely gets cold, much less snows.

I'm totally fine with warmer weather. I am not a girl who likes cold weather at all. We lived in Germany for a few years and it snowed all winter. When it snowed I stayed in my pajamas all day and didn't leave the house. I'm surprised I even survived. 

I need warm weather and cute shoes. 

When you go out in the snow the bottom of your jeans get wet, it's just gross to me. Don't get me wrong it's beautiful to look at but, that's about it. 

So I'll just make pretty snowflake cookies and enjoy the warmer climate. 




1. Outline cookie with a #2 tip and turquoise royal icing

2. Fill cookie with flood consistency icing. Let dry overnight.

3. With a food safe marker take a small circle cutter and outline a circle in the center of the cookie.

4. Next, using white outline consistency icing and a #1 tip, start piping lines from edge of circle to the tip of snowflake.

5. Add short lines in between the other lines

6. Then add dots around center circle and on tips of lines. Allow to dry for several hours.








Shareaholic