Lumberjack Birthday Party

Sweet Travis is turning three soon, and his mama put on one heck of a party. Keri and I pulled together some cookies to add to the spread.  I got my inspiration from Sweet Sugarbelle (of course), you can see her versions here and here.

The process:

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2014 Christmas Baskets

Better late than never. These are the cookies for this year's departmental Christmas party door prizes.

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Caramel Apple Cookies

I made fall-themed cookies for fun, not for an order. I am a little behind in posting them, but they happened a couple weeks ago. I found inspiration from LilaLoa's caramel apple cookies...

...which led me on a wild goose chase for the correct ingredients. These cookies differed from my usual sugar in that I used green apple Kool-Aid to flavor the cookies and Watkins caramel extract to flavor the icing. Three out of three tasters said the finished cookies tasted just like the real thing, minus the sticky mess of course.  I grabbed some paint chips at Lowe's to use as reference, caramel is a tricky color to recreate, so I wanted some guidance:

Not too far off:

These cookies were hard to love after having just made the Frozen-themed order. But were much more convincing after being packaged:

Tonight I will ice 2014's first set of Christmas cookies...stay tuned.

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With the cold front came cookies....

Long time, no cookies. 

I'm going to be honest...I got burned out. I'm finally back to the point that I can look at a cookie without hating it. And boy, I think I really made a winning set to welcome myself back to the game. Not only that, the humidity has been super low with the weather change, which makes decorating SO MUCH easier. Ironically enough, my first request in some time was for Frozen themed cookies. Based on my humble opinion, and votes from my peeps, these may be the best ones yet. I'm pretty proud of these :)

I REALLY love them. I have a second project going, I hope to ice those tomorrow.

They will hopefully look and taste like caramel apples. I got my inspiration from LilaLoa, she is truly hilarious, and talented. You can see them here.

Since its been a while, I thought I would put a puppy photo in here too. She is 10 months old, holding steady at 38.5 pounds, and has effectively chewed through two dog beds since the cold snap....fun times in the terrible two stage.  Here she is, being a good girl, and helping me with the pot roast:

That's is for now, stay warm!

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Long time, no blog...

Why hello there.  I am currently trying to correct a misconnection caused by a delayed plane.  What better thing to do while you are on hold, than to update your blog, right?  Anyway, I was in Indianapolis last week, I am headed to Kansas City now (I hope), when I get home tomorrow I will have three days and then I leave for Uruguay.  Needless to say, I haven't weighed Harley lately, but she is huge and still gets prettier every day.

Surprisingly enough, I have gotten two orders knocked out in between these trips.  One was a wedding order, 10 dozen monogrammed cookies in eggplant and white.

The second order was for a "sip & see" baby "shower" of sorts.  So we went with 2 dozen baby's feet.

Also on the docket lately was a cabinet that John and I worked together to design, and he executed.  It looks pretty fantastic I have to say!

Alright, break is over.  I am not sure what the internet situation will be in Uruguay, but for those who don't know, I keep a separate blog for my periodic international travels, since there is never a dull moment.  We land in South America on Sunday, so if I get a chance, you can catch our stories over at: Summer Travels.

 

Two Birthday Orders

One birthday order for Animal Science professors, and one for a 21st.  All went well except for two things: (1) the black acted funny on the livestock cookies and (2) I tried my best to get "Happy Birthday Kara" onto what WERE beautiful plaque cookies, only to discover that my transfer template method was not working.  I have used this method before with excellent results, but those were characters, not text.  While no solution was found for this order, I have asked John to make me a KopyKake to prevent future order woes.  If he succeeds I will have to name it something cute...KopyFake maybe? Meh. Knowing him, I have 6 months to come up with a name ;)

How to make a KopyKake 

How to use a DIY KopyKake

On to the photos:

The little cuties even made it to Facebook:

Oh!! I almost forgot!  Look at these BEAUTIFULLY PACKAGED cookies:

After a little trial and error I came to a very important conclusion.  The heat sealing machine is the best $50 I have ever spent, and greatly improved my attitude towards bagging cookies.

Thank you technology.

Jungle baby shower & Nautical birthday

Two very different orders this week from two new clients. I have to say the jungle/safari order may be my new all-time favorite. The order was small, 1.5 dozen, the shapes were fun, I loved the colors, and since there were three shapes, I did six of each, so I never got tired or bored. Not to mention, they turned out amazing. I have to give credit though, per the usual, my inspiration came from Sweet Sugarbelle. Here they are:

I just love how they turned out!

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The second order was for a first birthday. I ordered a sailboat cutter, but it didn't come until after I needed to bake the cookies. So, I used my pirate ship cutter, and modified...

These were a set that I wasn't able to love until they had a little ribbon. But then again, it's hard to compare after doing the jungle cookies.  Still cute though:

We are on the way to San Antonio for an HEB meeting, so I guess I will post the pupdate while I'm at it.

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Bridal Shower + Tarleton Auction Cookies

This was my biggest order to date. Ten dozen cookies and four dozen cupcakes on top of a crazy work week, puppy class Tuesday, a banquet Wednesday, and I don't even remember what else happened. I didn't even have my sous chef, but somehow, I got it done.

Also, have I mentioned lately how much I dislike the bagging and tying process? And after this: 

I'm done. At least with the tying and cutting part. I am buying a bag sealer very, very soon. With a cutter. That means, all I have to do is put the cookies in the bag. Poof. Magic. Bagged, sealed cookies.  Thank you technology.  This does mean however that bagged and sealed cookies will be cheaper than bagged cookies with a ribbon.  Just FYI on that one.

Happy Easter to all my Peeps!

Okay....after my ranting post at midnight last night, I'll admit, they are cuter today than they were then. A little Easter decor probably doesn't hurt either :)

Packed up and headed out to visit the family: 

Happy Easter :)

Easter Peeps

Okay. I have NEVER been so amped about a cookie plan and then been so let down/frustrated/sad with the outcome.  I was SO EXCITED to make these. They were supposed to be cute, pretty, and easy. What happened you ask?! Bad icing consistency, the single most important, yet difficult thing to get right. Being an amateur at this cookie thing, I get the consistency right about 60% of the time. I'll let you do the math on tonight's venture. *sigh* I am so bummed.

Inspiration (Sweet Sugar Belle): 

The real thing:

My disappointing result:

It's been a long week and you can't win them all. Maybe tomorrow I can put them in Easter grass and get some pictures that will help their cause.