Baking In Heels

3D Ducky Pull Toy Cookie

2013-02-22T10:36:00.003-06:00

My baby boy turned 5 months old Monday!

The months are flying by and he's doing all sorts of new things.

He can roll over, he has two teeth, I have five new grey hairs, and the doctor started him on fruits and veggies. He LOVES to eat.

I can't wait until he's walking around dragging toys behind him.

Remember the old duck pull toy? Old toys are the best. They were plain and simple, just like these cookies. These cookies look cute yet there wasn't much decorating to be done. They were really easy to make.

For each duck pull toy cookie you will need:

4 small circle cookies
1 duck cookie
Royal icing (yellow, orange, white, and black)
yellow sprinkles or sanding sugar
string

Duck Pull Toy Cookie

Outline and fill small circle cookies and allow to dry. You will need four for each duck. These will be the wheels for the duck toy.

Outline and fill duck cookie with yellow royal icing. Allow to dry several hours.

Outline and fill duck bill with orange royal icing.

Add a black dot of icing with a #1 tip and black royal icing.

Add some squiggly lines for duck feathers.

While the feathers are still wet, sprinkle with some yellow sprinkles or sanding sugar.

Let dry then shake off excess sprinkles.

Add a dab of thickish royal icing. You can use yellow. I used white...it's what I had left over.

Here's where it gets all fancy. Get a piece of aluminum foil and scrunch it up. Place it along side the cookie. This will hold the end of the circle cookie upright. Place circle cookie on top of the foil and dab of icing. Do this for both wheels. Allow to dry overnight.

After the cookie has dried overnight, flip it over and add two wheels to other side. Place aluminum foil between the two wheels while it dries. Let dry about 6 hours.

Add a dab of thickish white icing on the back of cookie to hold pull string. Use a boo boo stick to push the string down into the icing. Allow to dry.

These would be great for a baby shower or a baby's first birthday party. They would even be cute decorated in pink or blue!

Hope everyone had a great week. We have lots of changes going on in our house this week. I'm still working on a schedule so I can bake, blog and take care of the family without draining myself of all available energy and brain cells.

When do y'all do your baking and blogging? Are you a late night blogger or do you get it all done over the weekend?

Valentine Oreo Balls

2013-02-13T11:28:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I'm in Walmart getting some deli meat with my Starbucks coffee sitting in my basket, shopping cart....whatever y'all wanna call it. I pick the cup up and.... SMOOSH.....it completely caves in sending hot coffee all over the front of my white shirt.

I quickly grab my sliced turkey and head to the women's clothing department. They have such great selections (not), I wanted to buy a shirt and go change in the bathroom. So I grab a Minnie Mouse shirt and head for the check out line. Wouldn't ya know the lines were very long. Last minute Valentine's day shoppers.

I know, I'll check out in the jewelry department. So I walk up and ask if I can make my purchase here. The lady says....sure, I'll be a minute I have to finish emptying this box....ummm seriously. So I wait for what seems like an eternity and finally she comes to ring me up.

Wait....it get's better.

I mention spilling coffee all over me and she asked if it was hot......Ummmm it's coffee YES IT'S HOT. I nicely tell her yes and no joke, she asked me if it hurt......

Ummmm let me see......hot coffee.....spilled down my entire shirt.....Yes it hurt....DUH.

So my quick Walmart run was not so quick and a huge disaster.

I made up for it later by drowning myself in Oreo balls. Have you ever had an Oreo ball???? They really are amazing......and a quick, non-disastrous desert.

Valentine Oreo Balls

To make these you will need the following:

1 pkg double stuffed Oreos (crushed in your food processor)
1 8oz pkg of cream cheese, room temp
1 pkg of Almond Bark
pink and silver sprinkles

Place crushed oreos and cream cheese in a mixing bowl or in your stand mixer. My Kitchen Aid bowl was dirty and I was too lazy to wash it.....hey, it happens.

Mix until well combined.

Give these beaters full of gooey goodness to your cute child or eat yourself. If this is for yourself, turn off mixer first.

Take 1 Tbsp and roll into a ball with your hands. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Place them in the fridge for an hour. If you're in a hurry you can place in the freezer for about ten minutes. When you are ready to take them out, melt the almond bark in a microwave safe bowl. I do this 30 seconds at a time, mix, then reheat until completely melted.

Take Oreo balls out of the fridge/freezer and place one into the melted bark. Pick up with a fork and tap to shake off excess.

Place in a bowl of sprinkles. Don't worry about covering the top that is showing....that will be the bottom of your Oreo ball. You need to cover with the sprinkles quickly because the almond bark hardens fast with the Oreo ball being cold. Place on parchment paper. Keep in the fridge until serving.

You can add tiny heart sprinkles as an alternative. These little heart sprinkles were sent to me in an order from Karen's Cookies.

So gooey and delicious.

Hope everyone is having a fabulous week!

Mardi Gras Bead Cookies

2013-02-11T08:07:00.000-06:00

Mardi Gras in New Orleans......

hmmmm, how can I put this...........oh let's just skip to the chase. You show the Ta Ta's you get more beads. This is one of the few places you can get away with pulling out the girls.

Hey, I don't judge. The good Lord knows I've showed mine enough back in the day for some silly beads. These days the girls are nothing to show...... just keeping it real. I've nursed a few babies.

Tomorrow is Mardi Gras and I thought I'd make you some Mardi Gras inspired cookies. After all....it's about the beads.

This is a kid friendly blog so I gave my girl a top. If you want a more naughty version, you could totally do the entire cookie flesh colored and give her some Ta Ta's.

Mardi Gras Bead Cookies

Cut out heart shaped cookies and simply cut off the top. Then bake.

Using flesh colored icing outline and fill cookie. Let dry completely (about 6 hours).

With grey icing outline and fill. Allow to dry several hours.

With a 1.5 PME tip add a scalloped edge. Allow to dry.

With green, purple and yellow royal icing, add bead necklaces. Start with one color and leave the spaces for the others. Let dry about 30 minutes before adding next color. I started with one necklace and after it was completely finished and dry I added another necklace.

3D Valentine Flower Cookie Pops

2013-02-07T10:18:00.000-06:00

Ever wanted to teach your husband a lesson?

Is it just me, or does it seem anytime you need help with the kids, your husband has to go to the bathroom?

And he's in there FOREVER!

Yep....my life in a nut shell. Cooking dinner....baby crying.....kids needing the potty....ya know one of those HEEEELP ME moments. The moment's you say "Honey please help me." Every single time I have one of those moments. He just happens to need a bathroom visit.

Well NO MORE!!! Yesterday I was going to teach him a little lesson.

Hubby lets me know the baby's crying....the toddler's full of spaghetti and needed to be wiped down....the works. Apparently he had FB games to attend to and was busy at that moment. Who knows?

So I say in my sweetest princess voice...."Could you get it baby. I really need to go to the bathroom.......too much coffee". You know....so he'll know I'm gonna be a while.

For the record I did NOT have to use the bathroom. I'm a girl....we don't do those two hour bathroom things....unless we're in there applying makeup, but we'll talk about that another day.

So I'm in the bathroom just sitting....and listening.

Now as a mother this is not an easy thing to do. We all know he is NOT going to do things right. The baby is going to cry a minute before he moves from his FB game or the episode of Duck Dynasty that he's seen twelve times.

Mommies, this is not easy to endure. HOWEVER, I managed to sit there admiring my make up collection and think of new shoes that I surely needed.

Everything became quiet.

Too quiet.

I sneak out and tip toe around the hall corner to see what sort of madness must be going on. Ya know, with him in charge and all.

Wanna know what I see? I see him napping on the sofa. The baby playing in his activity toy and the two girls sitting on the sofa quietly watching The Lorax.

There goes my theory of teaching him a lesson. Guess the jokes on me.....or maybe NOT.

My new afternoon thing is going to be having quiet time in the bathroom while he takes over.....Guess the Jokes on him.

Now I just have to find a way to transform my bathroom into a fancy schmancy relaxing place.....sofas and all. Hmmm I may be on to something.

Now that you're aware that my husband handled things better than me, lets make some cookies.

3D Valentine Flower Cookie Pops

Start with a circle cookie cookie pop. Just roll out your dough, cut out shape, stick in the freezer for 2-3 minutes then insert the stick. Bake according to your recipe.
Need a good cookie recipe? You can get mine here.

Outline cookie using a #2 tip and white royal icing.

Fill cookie with white flood icing.

While icing is wet, sprinkle with white nonpareils . Allow to dry.

Shake off excess nonpareils.

Outline hearts using a #2 tip

Fill hearts with red flood icing. Let cookies dry overnight.

Arrange heart cookies in a circle and add a dab of thickish white icing to each one.

Place circle cookie on top of the heart petals. Allow to dry completely.

**For added cuteness, slip a stripey straw over the white stick.

Tie a green ribbon around straw for a leaf.

This would make a perfect Valentine's Day gift for a teacher.

Hope your week is going good and you're getting lots of baking done!

Mardi Gras Mask Cookie Pops

2013-02-06T02:23:00.002-06:00

Ok I have a confession.

I know..... Confessions are supposed to be coming from the Cookbook Queen, but something just occurred to me when I designed these cookies.

I'VE NEVER MADE COOKIE POPS!!!!!

I know, weird right? Who would have guessed it.

They weren't very hard either. I thought they were going to be a huge pain but they weren't.

1.Roll out your dough and cut out mask shapes. I used this Mardi Gras mask cutter.

2.Place mask on cookie sheet and pop into freezer for 2-3 minutes. This is the key!

3.Remove cookie sheet from freezer and insert stick. I gave it a little twist as I was pushing it into the dough.

4. Bake cookies according to your recipe's directions.

5. Decorate as desired.

6. Slip stick into a stripey straw for extra cuteness.

I hope everyone is having a fabulous week and trying new things.

Simple Polka Dot Heart Cookies

2013-02-04T07:42:00.000-06:00

I did not get as much done this weekend as I would have liked to. Did you? Who ever does right?

I had plans of doing lots of photo editing on Saturday, but that didn't happen.

I did have good reason though. See, we have a transformer in our front yard. You know those big boxes that are for electrical stuff. Well my neighbor ran her car into it. Bam NO POWER!

No power=No computer.

Seriously! I have no idea how she managed that.....it's 10 feet into my yard. So I didn't get my pictures edited that I wanted to.

I did however manage to take a nap with the baby, enjoy peace and quiet with the tv off (that was a blessing), and get a foot rub from the hubby. So, it wasn't so bad without power.

Ok....let's talk cookies. These cookies are very simple. So simple that anyone can make them. Really they're that easy. Wanna learn how?

First outline heart with white royal icing and a #2 tip.

Fill cookie with white flood icing. While icing is still wet, drop black sprinkles onto cookie. I used some flat ones from a Halloween set of sprinkles. You can get them here.

If you have pre-made royal icing hearts you can add one while icing is wet. If not, wait until cookie is dry and pipe one on with a #2 tip and red royal icing.

That's it. Easy as can be.

For other easy heart cookies check out:

Glorious Treats: Simple Heart Valentine Cookies

Sweet Sugarbelle: Simple Dotty Valentine Cookies

Bake at 350: Valentine cookies with va-va-va-vanilla

I hope y'all have a fabulous Monday.

3D Football Cookies

2013-02-01T07:01:00.001-06:00

It's finally Friday!

What are your weekend plans? Any Superbowl parties going on? We aren't doing too much this weekend. We may or may not watch the game on Sunday.

Honestly I don't even know what teams are playing this year. There's only two things that I know....

This year's Superbowl is here in New Orleans....and you really need to make these cookies. I think 3D cookies are really cute. These are pretty easy and would be perfect for the big game.....

....or a boys birthday party

....or football practice

.....heck they'd be good for anything. Cute cookies go with everything....right?

Ok let's get to the cookie tutorial. Here's what you do:

3D Football Cookies

Roll out your dough and cut out mini football shapes. I used the tiny cutter that came with my copper Mardi Gras Mask cutter. Bake and allow to cool. Decorate the footballs. You can see my tutorial on decorating the footballs here.

Place a dab of thickish royal icing in center of cookie. Add football cookie and place a balled up piece of foil in front and back of cookie. This is a very sophisticated method....haaa.

With a #2 tip and green royal icing outline cookie.

Flood cookie with green royal icing. Let dry several hours.

Add yard lines with white royal icing and a PME 1.5 tip. Let dry.

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend surrounded by loved ones.

"You're a Hoot" Valentines Cookies

2013-01-30T07:08:00.000-06:00

Whooooo will be my Valentine?

Yeah, I know. Silly aren't I? Don't you just love silly valentine's sayings? They make me giggle.

It's the simple things in life that make me happy.

Ok that's a lie....SHOES make me happy....and handbags.....and jewelry......and clothes.....

Ya know what, forget what I said about simple things making me happy. I lied.

Great, now I'm a liar and everyone knows. Please still be my friend. I'm lots of fun.....and I make cookies!

So WHOOOO wants to make Owl cookies with me? Sorry couldn't help myself.

Ok really......let's decorate cookies.

Roll out your cookie dough and cut out some circles. Using a leaf cutter make some indentions for the owl's wings. If you are good at doing things free handed then you can skip making the indentions. Bake cookies according to your recipe and allow to cool.

After your cookies are baked and cooled. Use a #2 tip and red piping icing to outline wings.

Fill in wings and let dry about an hour.

Using a #2 tip and pink piping icing add rows of scallops for feathers and outline owl's body.

Fill in feathers first. Alternate sections and give about 20 min to dry in between.

Then fill in the rest of the body. You could skip this step and just fill the entire body in pink without the scalloped feathers.

Let cookie dry.

Using a #12 tip and thicker than flood consistency icing, add two big eyes. Then use a #2 tip to add a black dot to the eyes.

Outline wings in red and scallops in pink.

With a #2 tip add an orange beak and feet.

Let cookie dry completely.

There you have it....a cute owl for whooooever you want to be your valentine.

For other cute Owl Cookies:
The Adventures Of Sweet Sugerbelle: "Owl" Always Love You Cookies
The Bearfoot Baker: Owl Cookies

Hope everyone's having a fabulous week!

Love Bird Cookies

2013-01-28T10:09:00.002-06:00

Ok, aren't these the cutest cookies? I may be a bit biased. After all I did make them.

But, they are cute. You know they are.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. My weekend was pretty fabulous. We took our four year old daughter to her first parade. You would think that she would have been to one already, but nope. She was born in Germany. This is the first year we've been in town to go.

She did pretty good. She screamed and waved for beads like a true New Orleans girl......but she quit on us way to early. Lucky for us, our friends brought their camper and had it parked for tired children and small babies.

My hubby was all too happy to lay back in a chair and do kid watch. He's not from New Orleans....he's a Texas boy.

He'll never like parades like I do. It's a sad thing.

So that was my weekend....screaming and acting a fool for some cheap beads.

These cookies were pretty easy to make. Wanna learn how?

Ok here's what you do.....

Roll out cookie dough with a heart shaped cookie cutter. Need a good cookie recipe? You can get mine here. Then cut the hearts in half. I used my dough scraper to cut these. A pizza cutter would work well also.

With a food safe marker and a small heart cutter, trace half of a heart on the cookies towards the bottom center. This will make the birds' wings. Tracing the shape keeps things symmetrical.

With a #2 tip and red royal piping icing, outline each bird's wing. To get this color red I used Tulip red and a tiny bit of Super Red Americolor gel.

Fill in wings with flood consistency red royal icing. Let dry. This helps prevent the colors bleeding.
After the red wings are dry, outline bird's body with blue piping consistency royal icing and a #2 tip.

With flood consistency blue royal icing, fill in bird's body. Let dry overnight.

Using a #12 tip and a little thicker than flood consistency icing, add whites of eyes.

While whites of eyes are still wet, pipe a blue dot using a #4 tip and blue royal icing. I used the same consistency as the whites of eyes.

Add black dot to eye with a #2 tip and black royal icing. Once again same consistency as white and blue of eye.
Add an orange beak. Let cookie dry.

Have a Happy Monday!

Royal Icing Hearts

2013-01-25T09:23:00.001-06:00

Slade had his four month old check up this week. You mom's know what that means....SHOTS! A mother's nightmare. Luckily this time he only received two injections.

The first one he didn't even let out the slightest whimper....oh but the second one he was not pleased with. It was the saddest little cry I ever heard. Totally broke my heart.

He's over it now and on to being a happy four month old. Smiling at everything. He even giggles...but only at me. I'm his favorite. He told me this.

I heard him.

It's true.

Well even if he didn't actually say it because he can't say words yet, we all know it's true. You can just tell.

Pay no attention to the picture of him sleeping on daddy with his favorite toy. I'm still his favorite. Daddy is just snuggly. I fall asleep if I lay on him too. He's good like that.

This week I made tons of cookies. Which means tons of icing.....leftover icing. Since I had a good bit of red left over I thought I'd put it to good use and make some royal icing hearts. They were really easy to make.

Wanna give it a try?

Ok, put your red icing in a bag with a #2 tip. If you want bigger hearts, use a bigger round tip. I used a #2 for mine.

Get out a sheet of wax paper.

Begin by squeezing a dot onto the wax paper, then stop squeezing as you pull down.

Then squeeze another dot next to first one....stop squeezing and pull down forming a heart.

Repeat this a five thousand times or until you're sick of piping hearts. It's totally easy.

Let these dry for a day. You want to be sure they are completely dry. Then just simply peal them off the wax paper. Store them in an airtight container and use on cookies, cupcakes or whatever else you want to add little hearts to.

Hope y'all have a totally fabulous weekend!

Monkey Cookies

2013-01-24T09:15:00.002-06:00

Monkeys and Banana's..... My kids have been acting like little monkeys and I feel like I'm going bananas.

Really and truly bananas. Like, lock me in a padded room bananas.

Then, I keep thinking I'm seeing things. I swear I can see something crawling from the corner of my eyes, only to look and it's not there.

See...I'm officially loosing it. I think it's lack of sleep syndrome. My baby sleeps through the night but, I'm up......wide awake.....making cookies.

Hey, it's when I can truly be alone in my own little world. Don't judge.

Wanna see how to make these cute little monkeys?

To make these cute little cookies you will need:

Monkey cookies, baked and cooled. {I bought my cutter here.}

Brown royal icing

Pink royal icing

White royal icing

Cream royal icing

Food safe marker

With a food safe marker outline an oval shape onto bottom center of cookie.

With cream royal icing and a #2 tip, outline the oval shape you drew.

Fill in oval with cream flood consistency royal icing. Next take some pink 15 second royal icing and spread it on the cookie with an offset spatula. Outline cookie with brown royal icing. Let dry.

Outline center of ears with brown royal icing.

Fill in brown section of cookie with brown flood consistency royal icing. Let dry overnight.

With 15 second icing add whites of eyes.

With brown piping icing add mouth and outline cookie.

Add two black dots of icing to the eyes.

You can also add a little flower or bow by the monkey's ear and make girl monkeys.

Hope everyone's having a happy Thursday!

Mardi Gras Petit Fours

2013-01-22T13:59:00.001-06:00

Last week over at Confessions of a Cookbook Queen, Kristan made the cutest red velvet heart petit fours.

Which got me thinking.....I haven't had a petit four in like forever! I didn't feel like going to the bakery to buy an overpriced mini cake when I could just make a bunch for next to nothing. After all, that money could be better spent.....like on SHOES!

I altered a recipe I found online to make it taste more like the ones from our local bakery.

Now I must warn you, if you don't like things to get messy then this is not for you. This is a messy thing to make. Lucky for me, I have little cleaning fairies who I call children to help me clean up the mess. They want petit fours....I want a clean kitchen. It's a win win situation.

Almond Sour Cream Cake

Ingredients:

1 boxes white cake mix

1 cups flour

1 cups granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/3 cups of water

1/8 cups oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tbsp almond emulsion

1 cups sour cream (room temperature)

4 lg egg whites

Preheat oven to 325˚

1. In your kitchen aid mixer or a bowl, combine cake mix, flour, sugar, salt and mix until combined.

2. Add water, sour cream and oil and mix until combined.

3. Add almond and vanilla, mix.

4. Add eggs whites one at a time until incorporated thoroughly.

5. Mix until there are no lumps, about 2 minutes.

6. Pour cake mix into a greased and floured pan. I used a 9X13 pan. Place into a preheated oven. Bake @350˚ for about 50 min or until a toothpick comes out clean. Bake time varies with ovens. Allow cake to cool.

Glaze

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond

Mix all ingredients in a mixing bowl until combined. Place in microwave about 1 min, maybe a little longer. Just like ovens, all microwaves are different. Mine gets pretty hot, fast.

Cut out square shapes. I used a 2X2 square cutter.

Place square pieces on a wired rack and place a cookie sheet under it. Pour warm glaze over cake pieces. Allow a minute or two, then pour another layer of icing. I did this two or three times.

While cakes were still sticky I transferred them to a piece of wax paper and sprinkled with Mardi Gras colored sprinkles. Then allow the icing to set up. They will stay tacky for a few hours.

This recipe was so worth all the sticky. The petit fours went in the matter of minutes. I'm sure my kids were wired at school.

I Love Ewe Cookies

2013-01-15T11:45:00.000-06:00

A while back I bought this cute little sheep cutter from Fancy Flours.

Finally, I'm getting around to using it. Better late then never right? These are perfect for a child's Valentine party.

I thought these cookies were simple enough that even the beginner could make them. It's not the fastest cookie to make. You must exercise some patience with drying in between, but the final outcome is worth it. I love the texture the dots give the cookie. Don't you?

Here it goes......

I Love Ewe Cookies

1. Start out with baked sheep cookies. If you don't have this exact cutter you can use a different sheep cutter. Just adjust steps as needed.

2. Outline head of sheep using black piping consistency icing and a #2 tip. Switch out tips to a #3 tip and pipe legs on the sheep.

3. With flood consistency black royal icing fill in head of sheep. Allow to dry.

4. After head is dry. Using white royal icing a little thinner than piping consistency add a dot for the sheep's eye. I used a #2 tip for this. Then with a #1 tip pipe a small black dot on top of the white one.

5. With red royal icing a bit thinner than piping consistency fill in the heart that is embossed on the cookie. If you are using a different cutter, simple make a heart in the center of the sheep cookie you are using.

6. With white icing (a little thinner than piping consistency) add dots all over the body of the sheep. Leaving a space between the dots. Allow the dots to dry about 30-40 min before applying next layer of dots.

*TIP.....Squeeze harder for larger dots and lighter for the smaller ones. I used a variety of sizes.

**TIP....stay clear of the heart if it is not dry yet. Otherwise you have the mess you see pictured above. That can be avoided by allowing the heart to dry first.

7. Repeat adding layer of dots. Allowing them to dry 30-40 min before applying another layer. Do this until the entire body of the sheep is filled.

The finished sheep!

These sheep would also work well for a baby shower. Just simply change the red heart to blue or pink.

Metallic Dress Cookies

2013-01-11T15:39:00.002-06:00

It's FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!

I took a little break to recover from the holidays. I need a real vacation. I thought after I had the baby my life would just go back to normal...wake up, drink coffee, get kids to school, clean house, eat lunch, clean some more, pick up kids, clean some more, cook dinner, decorate cookies, blog, clean again, then off to bed.

Not happening! It isn't going that way. I certainly didn't think adding baby #6 would make that big of a difference. What's one more? Apparently one more is like fifteen more. I'm frazzled! Don't get me wrong, he is a fantastic baby. He just ALWAYS wants to eat. Nursing is a full time job. My girls never nursed this much. Not to mention I am now a human pacifier.

My schedule goes a little more like this now.....wake up, fall back asleep, wake up, drink coffee my teenage daughter has made me (God bless her), get kids to school, nurse baby, potty train toddler (that's an all day thing), get baby down for nap, pull out my hair because toddler wakes up baby, feed myself and toddler, nurse baby, pick up kids from school, nurse baby, throw dinner together, nurse baby....blah blah blah...it's now 2am and I've not made cookies and I can't blog!!!!

I really think I got ten grey hairs last week. GREAT, now I have to squeeze in a hair appointment. Can you say stressed out?

So I took a step back to focus on the most important things in my life....my family. I had lots of snuggles with the baby. Spent time with the older kids. Still potty training the toddler....she's a bit slower than the other kids were. Things are getting into more of a system. I even got some baking and cookie decorating in! Life is good.

Georganne of LilaLoa gave us a challenge on the first of January to make something without color. I thought...how perfect. Less colors to mix=more time to decorate! It was a win win. I'm not a fan of mixing icing....or the clean up after. I simply like to decorate cookies.

These were the cookies I came up with for the challenge.

I'm going to show you how to make the dress in the middle. The dress on the right was inspired from these cookies by Callye of Sweet Sugarbelle.

1. Bake cookies and allow to cool. I pieced the dress together using a heart and large party hat cutter.

2. With a #5 tip and piping icing, pipe a row of dots across bottom of cookie. Take a small damp paintbrush and stick it in middle of dot and pull toward you.

3. Pipe a second row of dots, repeating step #2.

4. Repeat this until you reach the top dress section. Leave room for the sash.

5. Outline dress top with #2 tip and grey piping consistency icing.

6. Fill dress top with flood consistency grey icing. Let dry several hours.

7. Add a sash with white icing. I used icing that was a bit thicker than flood icing. Let dry over night.

I made rose royal icing transfers and allowed them to dry overnight. I added the rose the next morning using a dot of piping icing and glued it onto the sash.

8. For a metallic sheen, spray cookie with Wilton color mist spray in silver. Let dry.

Santa Claus Cookies

2012-12-25T22:32:00.002-06:00

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

2012-12-22T17:57:00.002-06:00

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

2012-12-21T10:49:00.000-06:00

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

2012-12-20T09:36:00.000-06:00

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

2012-12-18T19:16:00.000-06:00

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

2012-12-05T06:33:00.001-06:00

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

2012-12-03T08:44:00.001-06:00

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

2012-11-27T15:32:00.000-06:00

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

2012-11-26T08:34:00.000-06:00

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

2012-11-21T10:49:00.000-06:00

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

2012-11-16T11:29:00.000-06:00

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?