Fall baking

Lots and lots of  baking in the last several days.  Mercifully, my bedroom carpeting is becoming dryish and the outside temperatures have gotten warm enough for me to justify turning on the air conditioning, so getting icing to set is MUCH easier. 

Here are a couple of pictures of the cookies requiring a blow dryer late last week.  First are cookies for Alec's football team. 

Believe it or not, the rain stopped shortly before the start of the game and it wasn't cancelled.  And I got the 60 plus cookies dried just in time.  And the blue devils won.  Whew. 

These next slow to dry apron cookies were for my son Ted's girlfriend Katherine's birthday.  Adorable Katherine is an apron lover,  so it was cut, bake, decorate, and blow dry - apron cookies sent off to Oberlin.

Has anyone else noticed a surge in apron popularity?  Katherine would have fit right in with the 50's or even 30's with her fashion sense - like I said she is ADORABLE. 

On to the fall baking with the AC on and no blow drying involved!  Project number one was owl cookies with stained glass tummies.

LOVE doing stained glass cookies and I highly recommend it for baking with children.  All you do is make a cut out in the center of the cookie before baking, smash up some hard candy and put it in the cut out area and bake as normal. 

Just remember to use parchment paper on the baking sheets.  Once the cookies cool you just peel them off the parchment - no muss no fuss.  To get the color I wanted, I used root beer barrels and lemon lollypops.  Oddly enough, it tasted good together.

 I am addicted to the food network program called Chopped - as I was preparing the unlikely bedfellows of lemon and rootbeer I kept imagining Ted saying "chefs, in your baskets you have rootbeer barrels, duck liver, lemon lollypops,  and Swiss cheese.  You have 20 minutes on the clock".

 I didn't have fat owl cookie cutter, so I used an apple cutter turned upside down and it was the perfect shape. 

Next, I made leaf cookies.  I wanted a simple color combo, so I used wilton copper and detailed the cookies in black.

I also used just the tiniest amount of copper disco dust on them.  For the record, I am in love with this dust.  It is GORGEOUS.  I also think a little bit of sparkle goes a long way on a cookie.  Just a touch is magical.

So pretty added onto team owl.

Time for cupcakes to take to Tony's mom's house for dinner.  I wanted to follow the same color scheme as the cookies, so I made chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting in three shades - light copper, a more vibrant copper/orange, and a deep rust.

I used a wilton grass tip (like I made my starry night cake with) to make a mum and a petal tip to make the others.   I really like the three colors together.

And if you liked the leaf cookies, I am making one dozen of these in your color choice for my give away which ends tomorrow.  Leave me a comment that you are following, and the cookies, kitchen towel, vintage looking cupcake liners, and orange sprinkles are yours.  And because only six people have entered, your chances of winning ARE REALLY GOOD.
Contest closed and congrats to Barbara F!

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