Pastel cookie bouquet

Sometimes cookie projects go as planned, sometimes they turn out better than I anticipated, and sometimes, well, they just frustrate me.   

This one goes in the frustration category.  

I had an idea of how I wanted to do a cookie bouquet where the faces of the flowers sat on top of the stems.  I have done several other bouquets where it is simply a cookie on a stick pushed into floral foam and they face outward.

Like this.

Or this.

With a plan in my head, I decided what kind of cookie flowers I wanted to make.  I decided that double stacked cookies would make for a more interesting presentation.  

Note to self:  keep it simple when attempting a new technique.

Anyway, I began by cutting out my flower shapes in two sizes and making a hole in the centers using a skewer.

Bake and cool, you know the drill.

I decorated the cookies with icing, and let them sit overnight to dry.  The next day I assembled the cast of characters that would become the cookie bouquet.

The first thing I did was to hot glue floral foam into the bottom of a basket.  I pieced together two shapes because I was trying to use up what I had in my craft supplies.

I love The Dollar Tree.  

You want to be sure to hot glue it to the bottom of the basket so the whole thing doesn't topple out.  That would be tragic.  

Next I covered some small skewers with floral tape.

This isn't strictly necessary, but I was still in dream land about how great this would look.

I then pushed a green Dot candy on the skewer, followed by the large cookie, then the small cookie, and finally a yellow dot candy.  

Think shish- ka- bob.

Any hard gooey candy would suffice here - it is just to keep the cookies in place and hide the top of the skewer.  I also added some royal icing between layers in hopes of keeping things together.  

For an extra splash of snazzy, I put some royal icing around the bottom of the yellow Dot and then rolled it in nonpareils.  

This was my favorite part of the entire project.  

Time to push the skewers into the foam and make my 
bee -yoo- tee- ful  bouquet.

Problem was, I didn't have the proper amount of cookie flowers.

Ok, you can all stop laughing now.

No time to make more cookies or go to the store because this was to be a gift for my daughter's after school Spanish tutor, and I had about an hour before it had to go to the school.  

Gulp.

I made a mad dash for my garbage bag full of gift wrapping ribbons and opened up another box of Dots.  I jabbed un-floral taped skewers into the Dots, made a few dots of icing on top of the Dots, and tied gobs of green curling ribbon on.  

I was hoping they would look like flower buds.  

A girl can dream.

Still looked too empty, so I added more green ribbon and piled in paper Easter grass.  I only had about 1/4 of a bag of green, so I put a whole bag of yellow in and then top dressed it with green.  

Still too bare.

Back to the ribbon bag, and I grabbed a massive ribbon package topper that was a good color match.  

Smoke and mirrors folks.

On the positive side, it was bright and cheerful and I really liked the cookie flowers.

The nonpareils were the star of the show.

Oh, I almost forgot!  I had also made a little cookie message for the sweet girl who gives up her time to help my sweet girl.

Cookies are sweet and so are you!

I ever so carefully loaded it into the car and drove it to the high school for the

COOKIE BOUQUET DELIVERY!

This was a learning curve for me, and I hope know I can tackle another one with somewhat better great success!

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Valentine cookie on a stick tutorial

Think pop tart on steroids.

I made these little dolls for three of my sweethearts, and the process is quite easy.  First, cut out your hearts - two for each pop.

Put the first heart on your baking sheet, and then cut a small heart opening in the center of the second heart.

Place about 1 1/2 tsp. of jam in the center of the first heart.  I always use strawberry jam, but you could use whatever kind you prefer.

Yes, my cookie sheets are looking battle worn.  One of these days I will try the baking soda/peroxide concoction from Pintrest to clean them up.  

Now place a lolly pop stick on top.  Put it up far enough to be secure, but not far enough to show.  If you do have a little showing through the opening, just put a little jam on top to conceal it.

Place the heart with the small cut out on top.

See the tip of the stick showing?  A dab of jam hid it.

Use the tines of a fork to seal the edges securely.

I used my normal sugar cookie dough, but baked a few additional minutes to make sure the top cookie got completely done.  I baked mine about 9 minutes at 350 degrees.  I started checking them at 7 minutes, and kept a really close eye on them.  Once they are out of the oven, keep them on the cookie sheet to cool for about 10 minutes.  This ensures a safe transfer to the cooling rack.

The decorating can be as easy or involved as you want.  If you don't want to embellish with royal icing, you can sprinkle the tops with regular or sanding sugar before they go in the oven.  I have done this before, and they look great.  To do a simple royal icing treatment, you could make little hearts or write the recipient's name.  I chose to make flowers reminiscent of Victorian valentines.

Tying a bright green ribbon on the stick, gives it an extra dose of color and interest.

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Now all you have to do is give it to someone you love!

Have fun!

Golf birthday cake and cookies

Yes, I am still alive.

After a little baking burn out, and quite a few home decor projects (repainted the trim on the mail level, repainted the guest room, gave chalk paint a whirl on my dining room set, reupholstered my dining room chairs, and added a touch of vintage French graphics on my buffet), I put together some golf goodies for Mr. Enchanted's birthday.

Aaaagh, the squiggly lines are killing me!

Cake decorating is definitely not my thing.  

The flavors, however, were spot on:

*The Barefoot Contessa's chocolate cake*

*Boston cream filling*

*Swiss meringue buttercream frosting*

Because of my being gluten free, I had to settle for a cup of decaf and a little frosting scraped up off the serving dish.  

Sigh.

And you knew there had to be cookies, right?

I have seen similar designs all over the web, so I can't take credit for the design (same with the cake - my touch of creativity was the cookie-on-stick additions).  I got such a kick out of the sand trap made with gold sanding sugar.  There is one on the cake too, just behind the argyle golf bag.  

I'm cranking out the Valentine cookies now, so stay tuned for some pink and red!

And happy birthday sweetie!

Turkey cookie bouquet for Thanksgiving

Gobbity gob gobble everyone!  Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and I have been plotting this project for a couple of weeks now.  

I'm thinking centerpiece for the children's table, hostess gift, or a cookie to nibble on for those non pie eaters.  

*I really cannot relate to non pie eaters.* 

This is not a difficult project, but it does take a little planning and perhaps a trip to the Dollar Tree.  

Along with cookie dough and icing, you will need cookie/candy sticks, floral foam, clean stones, shredded paper, fall paper leaves, a basket, and some candy pumpkins.

All my goodies from The Dollar Tree

Once you have your supplies, you can begin the cookie making by creating templates for the turkey body and feathers.  I cannot make ANYTHING symmetrical, so I fold a piece of card stock in half and draw half of the shape I want.  Once I cut it out and unfold it, I have perfect little feathers and body.

For this particular basket I wanted three small feathers, four medium feathers, and five large, but you can adjust for the size of container you are using.  

Use your templates to cut out your cookie dough.  I really dislike hand cutting, but sometimes you just have to.  

Place your cut outs on a baking sheet, gently press a stick on top, and I always add extra dough over the stick for added stability.  I am very paranoid about cookies falling off of sticks.  

Quite tragic when it happens.

 Once the cookies have baked and cooled, it is time to start decorating them.  For cookies on sticks, I always decorate the side that was on the cookie sheet because of the lumpy stick situation on the top.  

I also put a small dowel under the top section to ensure that the cookies are sitting flat.  You don't want your flood icing to flood.  

I used red, yellow, and orange with black details, but you could really do anything here.  

Time to start assembling!  I put some hot glue in the bottom of my basket to keep the floral foam secure and I added stones to weigh it all down.  Cookies of that size are pretty darn heavy, and you certainly don't want the whole thing to topple over.  

Just stick the cookies into the floral foam, add some paper grass, leaves, and candy pumpkins.  

I couldn't resist making the turkey look like he is looking over his shoulder - after all, it is Thanksgiving.  Yes, I would be very paranoid if I was a turkey in November.

Then I made a cute little card using graphics from The Graphics Fairy, and glued it onto a stick.

And there you have it kids -  A fun edible Thanksgiving centerpiece that can be enjoyed by young and old!

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Get well cookie bouquet

Poor Brooke was in the hospital last week, and I wanted to do something to cheer her up.  

That would be cookies, of course!

Unfortunately, it was pouring rain most of the week making the humidity level in the house very high.  You know, too warm to turn on the furnace and too cool to turn on the air?  It makes for cookies that are a bit soft - YIKES!

I assembled them with great care, and didn't do it till right before I gave them to her.  Even then, one fell off the stick. 

I am happy to report that she is out of the hospital and doing well.  

And it is almost furnace season, which is a cookie baker's best friend!

Umbrella drink cookies

These cookies were the culmination of three things:  I found these cute little paper umbrellas at The Dollar Tree, the desire to make another cookie on a stick, and being hot and thirsty.  And these aren't regular old cookies, but I'll fill you in on that in a minute.

These are easy to make, so lets get started.  I didn't have an appropriate cutter so I pieced it together using three different cutters.

The top was made from the lid of a mushroom cutter turned upside down.  The middle was the cone part of an ice cream cone cutter.  The bottom was the stem of a wine glass cutter.  If you have a margarita glass cutter, by all means use it. 

See what I mean?  I then smooshed the shapes together.  Please don't be intimidated by my using technical baking terms like smooshed. 

I  placed lollypop sticks on the cookies, and presssed more dough on top for added stability.  They look kind of Frankenstein-ish at this point, but don't worry because they will be iced on the other side. 

I also added a small half circle to some of them to become lime garnishes.  Keep a close eye on baking them because you will want to add a minute or so to be sure they are done enough to not fall apart or lose the stick.                                                                                                                                                         

Right out of the oven, add the paper umbrellas while the cookies are still soft.  

Once they have cooled completely, they can pick flipped over and decorated.  I chose to do strawberry dacquiris, pina coladas, and mojitos so the flood icings were pinkish red, cream, and white. 

But thats not all folks.  Here is the best part.  THEY TASTE LIKE THE DRINKS.  For the strawberry daquiri, I used strawberry, rum, and lime extracts in the flood icing.

I also added some sanding sugar to the rim :) 

The pina colada flood was flavored with an extract by the same name.  You could also use pineapple, coconut, and rum extracts. 

The mojito was made with rum, peppermint, and lime extracts. 

I have never had a real life mojito, but I just might after tasting this - it was incredible.  These are quite possibly the best tasting cookies I have ever made. 

Think of how fun these would be at a party.  I can totally see myself saying "Lets all raise a cookie and toast the happy couple".  How about at a celebration that is non-alcohol?  Or as an option for non-drinking people that you want to have something special for?  As a centerpiece stuck into floral foam?  Yes, yes, and yes!

And you never have to worry about guests eating a couple of cookies and driving.  You could eat a dozen of these and not get drunk....just a little chubby.

Cheers!


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