The Luck of the Irish!

I must have Irish in me somewhere - my father always said so...quite a melting pot in my blood stream!  I do have freckles and always have a reddish tint to my hair when I'm in the sun for long...and very pale skin.  I always hoped my freckles would tan together when I was a teen ...now, I slather with sunscreen so they won't!

Despite the supposed bit of Irish blood, I realized I've never done cookies for Saint Patrick's Day.  Who knows why not?  Certainly not me.  My son saw a shamrock cutter I had sitting out and wondered if I would be making cookies that he might could eat.  I assured him I would, if he would just let me get some photos before devouring them.  He's moving off to live in a dorm in another city and I know he is going to miss my cookies (and hopefully me a little bit).  I see care packages in his future.

I didn't get very many photos - I only made a dozen cookies for St. Paddy's Day - but I had leftover icing and a big cookie so I played around with an green and orange theme with the extra.  The family ate four cookies before I could get them photographed.  They were darn tasty.  I haven't eaten one of my cookies in over a month - and it's always good to check on the quality!

I think I'll pack up the last few cookies for my boy to take with him...oh wait, I see there are only four left now!  Heck, there will be none left come Monday morning!!!

I used my Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookie recipe and decorated with royal icing as usual.  I tried to stencil a little butterfly on one of the shamrocks and it ended up looking a bit "camo". LOL! 

I really loved the Celtic Knot stencils I purchased from Designer Stencils last year (and never used).  They make such wonderful culinary stencils.  I enjoy stencils a lot in my decorating.  I'm going to try to work on my airbrush skills - so you may see some of those in upcoming posts.  I usually manage to ruin a few cookies in the process.  I suspect I should practice on paper first!  For today, however, the thicker royal icing was carefully smeared over the Celtic Knot stencils, the butterfly stencil, and a concentric circles stencil I got from SalsaSweets.  Fun with icing!

Here's my favorite Irish blessing...

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

You guys have a great St. Patrick's Day!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!