Sand Dollar Cookies - not my best work

How hard should it be to pipe a basic 5-petal "flower" with a dot in the middle?  I can pipe outlines, I can now pipe a decent stripe (after much practice)...but the centers of my Sand Dollar cookies nearly undid me!

These are the last of my most recent batch of shell cookies and I was happy with everything...except the sand dollars. 

My thought was "oh these will be super simple" and that is probably what cursed me.  I got the 5 "holes" piped...and they were irregular. 

I had a real sand dollar I was looking at...longer "top" hole (or maybe bottom, I'm not sure) and then four more evenly spaced holes.  My piping icing was not stiff enough, despite it being a 25-30 second icing.  I used a 1.5 PME tip.  Still, it spread on some of the cookies. Then, I allowed them to dry and flooded and smoothed...working hard to get it really smooth since there wasn't much to these.  After they dried a bit, I added a bit of white disco dust. 

In the continuation of my apparent curse...this new disco dust tasted "grittier" than most.  Who knows why...but it was.  Same brand - brand new container.  I didn't use much and dusted off the excess when they were all the way dry.  Still, when I bit into them I tasted grit. (sigh)

To make it even worse, the next morning, before having coffee, I head straight for the table and start finalizing these cookies.  My hands were shaking.  The icing was too thin (ANOTHER batch) and I was piping like a drunken sailor...all wobbly and cock-eyed.  I reverted to dots... I was pleased with the dots.  I wish I had done all dots.  I really wish I'd had coffee and a steady hand!  What you see is what I ended up with AFTER using the boo boo stick...these are the better ones, believe it or not!

The pitiful attempts at piping a five petal flower (in essence)
on top of the dried sand dollar cookie.  Waaahhhhh...

The dots were much better.  These I could be happy with.

I guess I'm really glad I didn't make a lot of these!



So, the moral of the story is never assume something will be easy and don't decorate before coffee first thing in the morning :-)

I gave all of these cookies away.  Sorry my friends if they look wonky and taste gritty.  No one has complained...I'm not sure if they would actually.  Onward thru the fog (as we said in the 70s)!

BON APPETIT, Y'ALL!!!

Scallop Sea Shell Cookies

Yesterday I showed how I completed the Conch Sea Shell cookies.  Info regarding the dough recipe and the royal icing recipe are included there. Today is a tutorial for the very simple Scallop Shells.  Even a novice decorator can do these.  They are very easy.  I used the same icing to pipe and flood.  I used a #2 tip to outline and a #4 to flood.  I used squeeze bottles for all of the various sea shell cookies.  Sometimes I use piping bags, but I was in the "keep it simple" mode for the past few days and bottles are an easy way to do this.  You can actually do all of these without the tips and just use squeeze bottles made by companies like Wilton.  I bought some bottles from Karen's Cookies that have a coupler which allows you to change tips.  They come in an 8 ounce size and a 2 ounce size.  They fit all standard decorating tips (Wilton, PME, etc.)  Karen is a wonderful resource for cookie decorating products and techniques...great tutorials!  You'll notice from previous blog posts that I love to feather wet on wet.  There's a reason for this.  I have trouble piping straight lines :-)  You can hide a plethora of boo boos with feathering.  See the next picture for an example (I reaaaaallllly can't pipe straight lines consistently).

Let's get to it!  You'll see how easy it is!!!

This is such an easy shape to do.  Outline the outside of the scallop but leave the bottom of the cookie un-iced for now.  Flood the center with white flood icing, pipe some alternating curved lines from the top of the cookie to the bottom.  Start the feathering, either up or down, in the center.  Use a toothpick and drag it from the bottom (or top - it doesn't matter which direction) and wipe the toothpick after completing the pass.  On either side of the center line, drag the toothpick the opposite direction of the line next to it.  Remember to wipe your toothpick (I use my alternate hand for wiping because it is quick) after each pass.

Here you can see the wet on wet stripes as they are turned into pretty feathering.  Next we fill the bottom portion - again, just outline and flood - with either of the two colors from the lines.  I then carefully place, using craft tweezers, five pink sugar pearls at the bottom of each scallop.  Do that while the icing is wet and they will stay put after drying.

Finish all the cookies and leave them to dry on a rack or tray.  Be very careful if moving.  That is one of the reasons I like to decorate on a rack in a baking sheet.  I just switch out racks and don't have to physically move the cookies.  I tend to run the a/c a little colder (it's humid here) when decorating as well as run a fan on the table with the cookies.  It helps my cookies not to pit and not to take days to dry to a point where they can be handled and packaged for "sharing".

I only made a dozen of these, and two got eaten, so I'm left with ten :-)  Easy and cute...you should try them!  I'm still deciding if I want to embarrass myself and write about the sand dollar cookies.  My piping sucked.  Some days it's good and some days...well, like I said, it's embarrassing!

I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.  I've done scalloped cookies before...but never the conch or sand dollars.  I thought the sand dollars would be easy peasy.  Unfortunately, the devil is in the detail...and that is what tripped me up.  We'll see...we'll see!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

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Seahorsies and Starfish Cookies

I received an order from Karen's Cookies this week and could barely wait to tear into the package....felt like a little kid at Christmas.  I sliced open the box and carefully took out each item, admiring it and thinking of how and when I would use the different products.  I had most of these items in my online basket for over a month...I just kept thinking and changing my mind - adding stuff - tossing it out.  These are luxury items - Momma's toys.  I wanted to make sure I spent my money wisely.  I'm much more impulsive in a walk-in retailer.  When it's online, I'm a bit more careful.  Returns require too much work, so I want to make sure it's just right!  I scored - it was perfect.

I got some new cookie cutters, some sugar pearls in colors I can't find locally, disco dust of various colors, some booboo sticks (those are wonderful), some pixie dust shakers (another marvelous invention),  and some small 2 oz. squeeze bottles with tip couplers for detail work.

For my first play time with the new toys, I went for the starfish and seahorse cookie cutters.  I had cookie dough left from my last round with tropical themed cookies so that saved time.  I always try to make extra and keep in the fridge or freezer.  Baked off a couple of dozen - ended up with two different seahorses - so I tried them both.

Next day, it was time to start the decoration process.  I wanted to try Karen's Meringue Powder Buttercream Frosting recipe.  She said she's used it for a lot of years and likes the texture and flavor for decorating.  I watched her tutorials something like three times to make sure I got it right.  It seems counter intuitive to add fat to a meringue but I forged ahead, following her steps with precision.  It turned out beautifully!  It tastes delicious with a bit of almond extract and vanilla extract.  The taste is vastly superior to regular royal icing.  It takes a LOT longer to dry...and it doesn't dry as hard as royal icing so I did mark a few, even after they crusted.  You have to handle them a lot more carefully...a LOT more carefully!  However, this morning, after drying under a fan overnight and part of yesterday, they are safe to handle and package with no oopsies.  I've yet to see how the packaging and stacking goes.

I also learned my lesson last week - you really can't outline and flood in assembly line fashion.  The outline will dry and you can't nudge the flood into the edge - you will always see an outline.  I really noticed it on my dolphin cookies last week so this week, one cookie at a time.

I've linked Karen's frosting recipe above - she has several video tutorials on her web site.  I also like the tutorials for icing consistency from Ali Bee.  I LOVE video tutorials - I'm definitely a person who likes to see how to do things in action!  I found her method of thinning with a spray bottle of water to be so much more controlled and better and getting a good consistency than any other way I've done it.  I didn't use the squirt bottle of water for the batch of frosting for the starfish...and I got it a bit too runny - overflows!  I learned my lesson and got the squirt bottle for everything else.  Soooo much easier to control.  I also find working in small bowls in small batches to be the best way to get good icing consistency. I never think I'm going to have enough...and I almost always have too much! The small squeeze bottles were superb for decorating the details. 

I'm on a roll here - and I have more new cutters I haven't used.  You'll likely see more and more cookies from me.  I hope my friends and neighbors are hungry!  I am loyal to the sugar cookie recipe obtained from the Central Market Cooking School class with Laurie Mather.  It is just so easy to make and to work with.

First I baked
Then I piped and filled
Then they dried for 10 hours
Then I decorated
Then they dried...for about 12 hours

I so enjoyed this little project and trying out my new tools and products.  I finished the seahorses with a baby yellow disco dust for a bit of sparkle.  When using disco dust be sure to put some wax paper under the cookie or cookie rack.  It is very expensive and you can add the dust that falls onto the wax paper back into the tiny jar very easily.  I love, love, LOVE the pixie dust shakers.  They are the tiniest little shaker and they distribute just the right amount.  I've never found anything that works as efficiently.

So, as you can see, I'm a huge fan of Karen's Cookies web site.  A great online store, wonderful recipes, and awesome tutorials.  Now I'll be looking at more cookie cutters and I wonder how long it will take to complete the purchase this time?

Spring Break starts today for the teen - I sent some of these cookies to his teacher and his note-taker.  Hope they enjoy the treats as much as I enjoyed making them :-)

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

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Tropical Sugar Cookies - Warmth in Winter!

I started these cookies on the last day of February...it was 85 degrees outside and gorgeously sunny.  The joys of living at the tip of Texas in the Winter.  I felt compelled to make some sugar cookies in tropical shapes so I got busy baking.  I knew this would be a multi-day task...baking one day, base coats the next day, and details on the final day.  I finished up late Friday night amidst a most hectic Thursday and Friday with errands, school meetings lasting until 7:00 at night, an unexpected trip into "town" - 30 miles away - which took most of the day.  All-in-all, it was not what I planned, but still they turned out okay.  I used up all of my royal icing before I got some additional colors for further details I had planned...and some of it wasn't the right consistency...and a couple were sacrificed to the teen-ager (he gets the ones I mess up).  Then, I wake up Saturday morning and a windy "cold front" has blown in...it's 67 now instead of a lovely mid-70s.  However, I feel certain my Northern friends will not give me any sympathy as they are being coated in snow.  News of horrific tornadoes throughout the South and Midwest states also bring a pall to the days.  Still...for us, we are entering the period of time that brings a ton of visitors to the area...SPRING BREAK!  Some of the far Northerners began arriving Friday.  It was noticeable on the road and at the grocery store.  As Winter Texans began their trek home, college students begin their treks South, seeking warmth, sun, and the fun to be had on South Padre Island.  They will come in waves...small wave this week, a monster wave next week, dwindling waves the following two weeks and then it's over.

To celebrate the onset of Spring, despite the blustery winds, I have tropical cookies!  Using my favorite sugar cookie recipe and royal icing recipe, I'll share the progress in pictures below!  Enjoy :-)

Cookies are baked and decorating station ready to rock and roll.  I have said it before and I'll say it again.  Mis en place is important, even when decorating cookies!
Maybe ESPECIALLY when decorating cookies!

The dolphins were outlined, floated, and then happy smiles and eyes drawn with edible marker

The flowers were going to be much more detailed...but I got tired and ran out of icing...
so tired, I didn't have energy to make more.  Still, happy flowers.

Palm trees will be my next task to "make better".  The detail piping on the trumk was done with icing not thick enough to stand alone...and I had some running.  The palm leaf top layer was going to be much different than it ended up with.
My hands were cramping...these were the very last thing I did.  I'd just done all I could!

The turtles take the most steps.  I start with the green base for
the shell, then do the heads and flippers after the shell
is well-firmed up.  About 6 to 8 hours later, I do the shell detail.
The next day after all is very dried and can be handled
easily, I do the eyes and flipper detail with an edible marker.
I do love my sea turtles!

So, there we have it.  I was sad that the sea horse and star fish and lighthouse cookie cutters had not arrived in time for this batch...but I'll be attempting those when I next get the hankerin' to bake and decorate sugar cookies.  This seems to be the season...It starts with Christmas, segues into Valentine's Day (which I skipped this year in the cookie department) and then we have Spring Break and Easter.  After that, I probably won't do any for a while.  Maybe until 4th of July...and then, of course, I have a lot of humidity to deal with so...we'll see!

Thanks for reading along!  Hmmmm. wonder who I will share these cookies with today???  Maybe my friends at Island Wheelies and The Salty Seagull!  If you are Spring Breaking on the island, please stop by their venue in the Palmetto Shopping Center just north of the bridge by a few blocks!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

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