Flip Flop Cake & Cookies

Here's the flip flop cake and cookies I made for my mother-in-law's birthday. They turned out super cute! I had bought the flip flop cookie cutter a while ago and decided to make little flip flops to go around the side of the cake but couldn't find a mini-flip flop cookie cutter at All In One Bake Shop. But they *did* have a make your own cookie cutter set! We decided to try it and Thomas made me a little flip flop, which was perfect! It was really nice because both sides were sharp, unlike the one I bought, which had a dull side. It worked really well to have a reversible cookie cutter to make a left and right flip flop!

For the cookies, I made lime cookies with lime icing. I tried out a few new techniques. I tried out the animal print techniques that I learned at the San Antonio Day of Sharing. I also tried using rubber stamps, which was really easy and turned out very cute! Thomas took a lot of cute pictures, which you can find here. I didn't want to post all of them in the blog but here are a few of my favorites:

Citrus Cookies

I made these cookies for a party a few weeks ago and they turned out great! I added some lime zest to the cookie dough and substituted a little vanilla for lime juice. I also used lime juice in the icing, which really brought out the lime in the cookies.

Citrus Sugar Cookies
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla plus the zest of a lemon, orange or 2 limes

1. Whisk together the flour and salt in a medium bowl and set aside
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg, citrus juice and vanilla (and zest if you're using it) and mix until blended
3.Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until the two are thoroughly blended
4. If you want to color the cookies, you can add food coloring now
5. Refrigerate the dough for at least half an hour (I usually divide the dough in half, shape them into disks and wrap them in plastic wrap so they cool quicker. I found it's easier to just roll out one disk at a time so the other can stay cool in the refrigerator.)
6. Roll and cut out the cookies. (I like to roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment or wax paper instead of dusting the counter with flour. It's a lot easier to clean up and then if you need to roll out the dough several times, the cookies won't get too tough. I also like to line the cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicon baking mats, which makes it a lot easier to get the cookies off the pan)
7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 12-16 minutes. (The cookies will keep their shape better if you put the cut cookies in the refrigerator while the oven preheats.)
8. Cool the cookies before icing them.

For the icing recipe, use the royal icing recipe here and substitute lime, lemon or orange juice for half of the water.

Cake Quilt

I made this wall hanging for a raffle prize for Capitol Confectioner's Day of Sharing. I made up the pattern, based on this picture. I haven't uploaded my pattern for it yet so just let me know if you'd like it and I can post it. Thomas took a few different pictures, which you can see here.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! I had some extra buttercream icing and I just got new star punches at the San Antonio Day of Sharing last week that I couldn't wait to try out! I tried striping the piping bag with food coloring to make the border. It turned out cute! Click here to see more pictures.

More Cookie Fun

I have been having way too much fun with my new cookie books: Cookie Craft and The Flour Pot Cookie Book. Of course, this meant I got cookie cutter fever, so here's my new cookie cutters!

Most of my ideas came from Cookie Craft, although I did try some cookies with fondant. Thomas & I both agree that we prefer the taste of royal icing to fondant with the cookies, but there are some neat things you can do with fondant. Here's a link to my Picasa Album with the rest of my cookie pictures.

Peanuts Cookies

First bake your cookies. I used my Chocolate Cutout Recipe.

Next, I put a sheet of wax paper over my Peanuts template and traced the outlines with a tip 1 and royal icing.

Once the outlines are dry, you can fill them with thinned royal icing. If there are any holes you can use a toothpick to fill in the hole. Just make sure to do it quickly because royal icing dries pretty fast.

Let the characters dry overnight. If it's humid, you may need to let them dry for a day or two. Once the characters are dry, you can use food safe markers to add faces and details.

Once the details have dried, you can start icing your cookies. Since royal icing dries quickly, you'll want to do one cookie at a time. I find it's easier to put the royal icing in a piping bag and draw an outline, then fill it in.


Next, peel off your character from the wax paper and place it on your cookie. Since the are a little delicate, it's safest to use the edge of a table to pull the paper away.


Enjoy!

Snail Cake

Yesterday, I took a cake sculpting class at All In One Bake Shop and it was a lot of fun! Mostly because I love cake and snails so the combination is pretty awesome.

This is my first sculpted cake. I was glad to find that it's not as hard as it looks!

Tom's Bee-Day Cake

Here is the cake that I made for my father-in-law's birthday. I found a bee and bee hive cookie cutter that I thought might be nice to use for his birthday cake but realized it would be much cuter in 3D:

I made the bees out of gum paste and put them on wire so they could fly.

Here's their bee hive. It's made out of fondant and I added African violets made out of royal icing.

I used the bee cookie cutter to add bees to the side of the cake.

This is my first attempt at painting on a cake so I think it turned out reasonably well.

Easter Cupcakes

I made some cupcakes to bring into work. I used the Wilton mini-egg cupcake pan and had fun trying out some different techniques decorating them. They are just chocolate cupcakes with buttercream.

James Bond Cookies

We went to a James Bond themed birthday party last weekend and I was asked to make cookies so here's what I came up with:

Chocolate Cutout Recipe
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa (cocoa powder)
1 teaspoon baking soda

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in egg & vanilla. Combine flour, cocoa & baking soda; add to creamed mixture and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Cut out and bake at 375 degrees for 8-9 minutes.

Royal Icing
3 tablespoons meringue powder
1 pound powdered sugar (about 4 cups)
5-6 tablespoons of water
1 teaspoon almond extract (or any other alcohol or water-based flavoring, NOT oil-based)

Using the beater/paddle mixer attachment, mix together the meringue powder and the powdered sugar, then add the extract and water, a tablespoon at a time until you reach your desired consistency.

For cookies, use a thin consistency and make sure to use a disposable piping bag. Reusable piping bags will have oil from buttercream icing, which will thin down royal icing as you pipe, which is not fun. Once the icing is dry, you can use food-safe markers to decorate as well. I used them to add a face and spots on the octopus and the lemon peel on the martini glasses. For the decorations, I made them ahead of time. Here is my template. I piped them on wax paper, let them dry, and then put them on the iced cookies before the icing dried.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Fergie!

Today was Fergie's 7th birthday and what better to celebrate with than a puppy birthday cake? Well, I'm sure Fergie would have preferred a cheeseburger but she made do with the cake. I made her Peanut Butter Carrot Cake for dogs. Fergie made quick work of her birthday cake and made sure to lick up all the crumbs!

Lemon Ice Cream!

I finally decided to create a blog for all of my random projects so I can share pictures, recipes, patterns, etc with everyone. Enjoy!

Thomas & I combined a few ice cream recipes to come up with a really good lemon ice cream recipe. It is pretty lemon-y so if you don't like a lot of lemon, you might want to cut back on the lemon zest or lemon juice. It's still yummy nonetheless!

Lemon Ice Cream
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 cup milk
zest of one medium lemon, about 1 tablespoon
juice of three fresh medium lemons, about 3/4 cup

Whisk the eggs until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended. Pour in the cream and milk and whisk to blend. Add lemon juice and lemon zest and mix until combined. Refrigerate the mix for a few hours until thoroughly chilled to help the ice cream freeze faster when you churn it. Pour the mix into your ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions. Transfer the ice cream to a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 4 hours to cure.