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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Sweet Memories and Sweet Potato Pie

Today, I should be celebrating my dear mother's birthday.  Instead, I'm enjoying her favorite pie and having sweet memories of her.

Cancer took her from us suddenly three years ago.  We were unaware that she had cancer and it happened to fast to even worry.  By the time we found out, it was spread too far for treatment. We had two short weeks to spend with her.  I flew down from Germany and visited her daily in the hospital until she died.  

I don't want to focus on the last days with her but, the wonderful years I had with her.  There are so many wonderful memories of my mother.  She was a single mother of two girls, but she never let that stop her from being a great mom.

I remember singing and laughing together.

I remember the many vacations.

I remember always getting lost on those vacations. Momma called it "exploring". She never wanted to admit we were lost. 

I remember the teenage drama.  I gave a lot of that.

I remember her buying my first pair of heels when I was around thirteen years old. (I've always loved heels)

I remember her comforting me when my heart got broken for the first time.

I remember her being at my side when I gave birth to my first baby.

I remember our trip to Paris. That was unforgettable! 

I remember her being in the kitchen always baking.  

Momma loved to bake.  One thing that was a big tradition around the holidays was sweet potato pie.  That was something we always had for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It's a favorite in our family. 

My grandmother gave mom the recipe. Mom gave it to me and today I'm going to share the recipe with you. 

Sweet Potato Pie

One homemade pie crust baked (or you could use a store bought one)

2 sticks of butter

5 lbs sweet potatoes, boiled and pealed

1 1/2 cups of sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 egg yolk

3 Tbsp evaporated milk

1. Boil sweet potatoes until soft.  Allow potatoes to cool. Skin will peal right off. 

2. Bake your pie crust according to your directions.

3. Mix all ingredients together with a mixer.  It will resemble mashed potatoes....no lumps.

4. Put filling into pie crust. 

5. Bake at 350 until brown (about 10-15 min)

Now go bake a sweet potato pie and enjoy it with those you love the most.

Sharon McCown

1949-2009

~Happy Birthday Momma.  We will always miss you and we will never forget the many wonderful memories we have with you.~

Spa Day Cookies

The Thanksgiving vacation is over and the kids are back to school this morning. They had so much fun being off of school. 

Late nights.

Slumber parties.

......and lots of "Spa" nights.  They would stay up late with their four year old sister and have make overs. They did hair and nails but, the part they liked the most was the blue-green face mask. They may have went through an entire tube of it.  

They had a great time and my table, carpet and hardwood floors survived all nail polish spills! That's a big plus around here. 

As always I made cookies.  If a cookie can be made for an occasion, I make them.  Everybody loves to eat cookies at a sleepover right?

Today I'm going to show you how I made the girl. It was pretty easy. The main thing is to wait in between sections so you have dimension. I used a jelly bean cutter I got in a Wilton set last Easter. You can purchase the set here from Karen's Cookies.

1. First bake and cool jellybean cookies                                                

2. With a FOOD SAFE marker draw the face, neck and towel on cookie as a guide.

3. Outline towel and fill top and bottom sections of towel, leaving the center unfilled. Allow to dry about an hour.

4. Fill in center of towel with flood consistency icing.
5. Outline face and neck. Fill in face with flood icing, leaving the neck unfilled. Allow to dry about 2 hours.

6. Drop two black non perils onto face for eyes.

7. Fill in neck section with flood icing add a mouth with pink icing, a little thinner than piping consistency icing. Allow icing to dry a few hours.

8. Apply blue greenish icing a little thicker than flood consistency onto the face, avoiding the eyes and mouth. Let dry.

There you have it!  Cookies for your girls when they have their spa day at home.

Hungry Hungry Hippo Cookies

I wake up this morning to post my blog. You know, the one I was up late last night writing. Yeah, that one. The one that only had a single period saved.

NOOOOOOOO!

It's a bloggers nightmare.  So here I am sitting at my computer, starting all over again. For the record, my memory isn't as good as it was ten years ago. So, for me, this is going to take twice as long to remember what I was talking with you about.

Christmas...that's right it was about Christmas presents.

Can you believe that tomorrow is Thanksgiving?  It seems like things move along way too fast. I feel like it was just Easter....now it's time to shop for Christmas presents.

If you have kids and they're anything like mine, they ask for a million different things.  Most of which I try to have show up under the tree.

Well Little Mrs. Bieber (that's my four year old who thinks she is going to marry Justin) is constantly adding to her list.  The list is extremely long.  Normally no biggie.  She hasn't hit me up for a pony yet, which I would totally find a way to fit into the garage. (Please don't tell her that)

She ask for things I can make happen.  Her normal list includes a Barbie or two,  My Little Pony, etc.
Well as she was telling me her NEVER ENDING list, she came to the last item.

A HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPO GAME! I said WHAT? I pretended it would go away and be removed from her mind.  I know she's probably thinking what's the big deal with that game that mommy's having heart palpitations.

So I look at her and I did what I never do, I told her No.  She looked up with her big brown eyes and asked why, just like all children do.  The truth......I've gotta tell her the truth. The game is too darn noisy.  Everyone's trying to get the marbles (choking hazard) so fast that it makes a bunch of noise and marbles go EVERYWHERE.

She looks at me and replies "Cool!"

For the record, she still isn't getting the game BUT,  I did make her some Hungry Hungry Hippo cookies. That's what a nice mom does. They were a total hit and she's given up on the game. Mostly because she loves her momma and doesn't want me having a mental breakdown from noisy games or a broken hip from slipping on a marble.

Cookies always make her smile.

Lets get to how I made the cookies. I didn't have a cutter to make the hippos, so I had to improvise. Sweet Sugarbelle made some giraffe cookies a while back and I thought it would work perfect for hippos. I used a oval and a carrot like she did for one of her giraffes but, I stretched out the carrot a bit wider and trimmed off the scalloped top of my carrot for the hippo.

Below is a step by step on how to make the hippo cookies.

1. Locate your oval and carrot cookie cutter. Stretch out the carrot cutter a bit wider.

2. Cut the carrot and oval cookies out of your dough, then piece together.

3. Outline your cookies

4. Fill in top section of hippo and allow to dry for about an hour

5. Fill in the ears and the bottom section. Allow them to dry for 3-4 hours.

6. Add eyes, eyebrows, and nostrils. Let dry.

**You can add some white circle cookies for marbles like I did. These you won't trip on and break a hip.

 

Scarecrow Cookies

I'm so glad it's Friday!

Today is the last day of school for the kids until their Thanksgiving break.

I'm ready for Thanksgiving.  There's going to be fried turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce (that only my hubby eats), green bean bundles.......the list goes on and on. We certainly have a feast.

Wanna know what I'm more interested in? Take a guess?

You got it.....the Dessert. It's the best part of the entire meal. That's why it's last. You always save the best for last.  My favorite dessert is grandma's chocolate pie. You can find the grandma's chocolate pie recipe here.  I'll be making two or three pies. That way I'll be sure there's enough....for me, just in case I want to enjoy more than one pie piece.

We'll also have cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

Scarecrow cookies are great for Thanksgiving.  Don't you agree?

I used my snowman cookie cutter from Coppergifts. They have fantastic cutters. I just took a circle cutter and trimmed off the top of frosty's hat before baking. I wanted the scarecrow to have more of a rounded hat.

To make these scarecrow cookies just follow the instructions below. I used a #2 tip for all of the outlining with the exception of the detail on the button eyes and the straw coming out of the hat. For those I used a #1 tip.

Are y'all ready for the big Thanksgiving feast? Is your favorite thing to eat dessert too?

Sleeping Baby Face Cookies

Let's talk about babies. 

I just can't get enough of my little man. He is so stinking cute.  I swear by the time he is a year old he is going to be so sick of kisses from me.  I think I kiss him like a million times a day.  Really, it's that much.

It doesn't help that I'm his favorite person in the whole wide world.

Really, he told me himself this morning. He said mom, you're my favorite. It was totally in baby language, but I understand cooing perfectly clear.  My husband will try to argue this with me because he thinks he's the baby's favorite person but, he's wrong. 

He's wrong A LOT!

Since I'm his favorite person I have to hold him all the time. This is why my photographs are still dark. I haven't unpacked my cookie room stuff yet. Therefore my lights are still packed.  It's a good reason to not be done....right? 

Hold adorable baby or unpack cookie room? Hmmm that's a tough one.

Maybe I could have my husband unpack because he's NOT the favorite parent so he has more time to do things. Sounds good.

So now that you know why my pictures are looking less than acceptable, we can move on and decorate cookies. 

Cute, sleeping baby face cookies. These are pretty simple to make.  You can do the hats in any color you'd like. I went with blue and green because I'm all into boy stuff right now. 

1. With a #2 tip outline hat with blue royal icing.

2. fill and let dry

3. Add details to hat with a #1 tip and green royal icing. 

With a #2 tip outline bottom half of cookie with flesh colored royal icing for the baby's face.

 4. fill in baby's face with flesh royal icing and let dry

 5. Outline baby's hat, add facial details and add a circle for pacifier. Let dry.

 6. Add small dot of icing on top of pacifier. Let cookie dry.

Now that we are finish decorating cookies, I can go back to holding the baby. Can't you see what a distraction he is?