Little League Baseball Cookies

These cookies are for a little league team called The Bombers and their end of the year party.  Their uniforms are maroon and grey, so I made a few jerseys with a B on them.  My favorite cookie, though, is the baseball 'bomb'.  It's a super simple cookie--I just wish I had a basic ornament cutter, that would have saved from from hand piping circles.  

Go Bombers!

Smurfs!

Talk about an order taking me back!  I loved doing this smurf 6th birthday platter.  I can't believe the smurfs are popular again, it's so much fun.  I loved sitting in front of the TV on Saturday mornings with my dad and brother watching the cartoons and Smurfs were definitely one of my favorites.  My mom hated the voices, but they never seemed to bother me.  

My trick for characters is to make royal icing transfers.  I don't have (nor can I afford) a KopyKake projector, so I print the characters out and pipe the outline onto wax paper.  It doesn't give me much help with the details, but the outline is the crucial part anyway.  Then, I let the transfers dry, and while the flooded cookie is still wet (2-3 minutes dry time), I place the transfer on to the cookie.  This way it sinks in a bit and doesn't create an unpleasant crunchy top.  I mixed in some 6s, cupcakes, presents, and wish cookies to round out the platter.  Happy 6th Birthday Em!

Summer Time Cookie Tray and Pops

I really loved doing these bright fun cookie pops for a end-of-year- party for a kindergarten class.  The accompanying platter was for teacher gifts.

 Beach balls are a great beginner cookie, because they are just circles, and the white outline icing helps to cover any mistakes.

Caramel Cups (with a Recipe!)

Whenever I'm making cookies for an order, if there is a type I haven't made in awhile, I always make a practice batch.  This way, I can be sure how many the recipe makes and if it need any tweaks.  Also, I pass the cookies on to my husband's work friends, so I get brownie (pun intended) points there too.  I'll try to include a recipe when I do a post on different types of cookies.  If you haven't heard of caramel cups or caramel tassies before, they are a unsweetened pastry crust, filled with caramel, topped with a swirl of buttercream.  Yum!

Caramel Cups Recipe 

Adapted From Taste of Home  

Crust:

1 Cup softened salted butter

6 oz cream cheese

2 Cups all-purpose flour

Beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth, add the flour gradually.  Stir to combine.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to make the dough easier to work.  Roll into 48 1in balls and place into a lightly greased mini muffin tin.  Use a tassie press or your fingers to make a well.  Bake at 375° for 15-17 minutes.  Let cool in the tray for a few minutes and then move to a cooling rack.

Caramel Filling:

1 14oz bag of caramels

1/2 cup + 3 Tbsp evaporated milk

In a saucepan (or microwave) melt the caramels and milk until smooth.  Let cool a few minutes and then use a spoon to fill each cookie cup.  You can also use a zip-top bag or pastry bag, but I've had better luck with a small spoon.  Let cool to room temperature.

Frosting:

2 Tbsp softened butter

2 Tbsp shortening (you can use all butter, but it creates a softer consistency)

1 Cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp evaporated milk

Beat butter and shortening until smooth, add the powdered sugar and milk gradation and beat until light and fluffy.  Use a pastry bag with a star tip (or a baggie with the corner cut off) to put a dollop on each cup.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  

Just a note, I can usually get 1 1/2 batches of cookies filled with the amount of caramel listed, but I usually make an extra half batch of frosting for the 48 cookies.

Burgundy & Silver Graduation Owl Platter

This was a fun platter for a wonderful cousin of mine who is graduating from high school.  Her school colors are burgundy and silver, so I used luster dust on all of the gray.  Unfortunately, my (very) poor photography skills don't showcase the sparkliness of the silver!  I mixed the owls with some twelves (a 1 and a 2 cutter just placed against each other), some plaques, and a few mini stars.  Congratulations K!

Hydrangeas

I got to make several dozen light pink hydrangeas for bridal shower favors.  I'm really happy with how they turned out.  The nice thing about this cookie, is the colors are completely interchangeable (provided you're not too picky about matching nature exactly.) I'm making the same cookie in a few weeks in light purple with purple centers (rather than the pink with white centers).

Hawaiian Shirt Cookies (and Flip Flops!)

These Hawaiian Shirt and flip-flop cookies were just for practice.  I try to make a few extras each time I make a batch of cookies so I can try new cutters, new techniques, or just to have a little relaxed decorating. The designs are actually pretty simple.  I used the wet on wet technique and made little 'donuts' with the accent color.  Then, take a tooth pick and pull the icing towards the middle of the circle in 4 points.  You can always take some towards the outside of the circle, or swirl all around the cookie (like I did on the pink shirt).

Mickey Mouse Inspired 1st Birthday

I love the basic colors and style of this mickey mouse set.  I added some white stars with red dots and a few sparkly star minis.  Using the Americolor gel coloring really helps to eliminate the flavor that can come with red and black colors.

The style of these were inspired by Firefly Confections who has some of the most amazing cookies I've seen (check out the Hunger Games birthday cookies!)

Happy Birthday Basics

My favorite sister-in-law turned 25 last week and requested a plate of birthday cookies.  I'm always happy to oblige those requests, especially when I can just do whatever I like.  I went pretty basic on these cookies, but I think it's always a good idea to have a basic birthday/wedding/etc platter idea in your back pocket for last minute events.  My normal cookies take me about 4 hours to decorate 2 dozen (I'm a little slow, and a lot OCD about cookies), but I whipped up these 18 cookies start to finish in an hour, using leftover royal icing.  Add in a few hours drying time and you can make cookies in the morning for an evening party.  These are vanilla almond cookies with almond butter royal icing in purple, yellow, and black.

Fireman First Birthday

I had lots of fun making this fireman platter for a first birthday.  Believe it or not, all of these cookies are made using the wilton 101 cookie cutter set.  So there's no need for a huge investment into cutters to make fun cookies.  This platter was a mix of chocolate and vanilla cookies with almond butter royal icing.  

Teal Ocean Wedding

These cookies were actually practice and taste testers for a wedding I'm doing in June.  I'm so happy with the colors and design. I got the idea for the simple sand dollars from Sweet Sugar Belle and just made them my own.  The actual wedding cookies will have starfish, clam shells and a few other things included.  

Turquoise Wedding Platter

This is a bridal shower platter whose colors were based on David's Bridals Malibu color.  The additional theme of the shower was Gerber daisies, so I added some of those in as well.  I love doing cookie platters where I mix several different shapes and styles all in the same color scheme.  

Chocolate cookies with almond/vanilla royal icing.  

Purple Elephants on Parade

This is a birthday platter for a fan of elephants and purple.  Couldn't get much more fun. :)  I made mostly elephants (2 in cutter), with a few cupcakes mixed in and the platter is topped off with Happy Birthday cookies.  I hope they enjoy them!

The cookies were vanilla, they were frosted with vanilla butter royal icing.  

Pittsburgh Cookies

These are definitely my most favorite cookies so far!  They are chocolate cookie with vanilla royal icing.  Cookies to represent the Pittsburgh Penguins, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Pirates.  Also, a silhouette of the skyline, and the incline.  My husband came up with the idea for heart incline cookies, so simple and genius!

Spring Time Cookies

Spring Time Cookie Mix for a fundraiser bake sale.  Butterflies, tulips, & hope cookies done in a lemon sugar cookie with lemon glaze icing.  

Anchors Away Wedding Cookies

This was a platter of cookies for a bridal shower.  The wedding theme is centered around anchors and naval/nautical themes.  These are almond sugar cookies with almond royal icing.

These platters follow my normal pricing schedule.

Tangled Cookies

I love doing kids birthday cookies because they always have such fun themes.  These are cookies inspired by the movie Tangled.  They are made with a custom cutter and in a vanilla/almond and chocolate mix.  They are iced with royal icing and the accents are marshmallow fondant.  

The towers are a little more than 5 inches tall and $2.50 each, the rest of the platter follows my normal pricing schedule.