Pikachu - Gotta Eat 'em All!

My granddaughter always likes to make cookies when she visits...and eat those cookies too!  I noticed she had a "how to draw" book in her suitcase from home and asked if she thought we might make one of those Pokemon on a cookie?  She thought that was a grand idea.

Because we are so busy going to Schlitterbahn at the Beach (she is a Boogie Bahn addict), the project has taken several days.  I had Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookie dough in the freezer because I knew she was going to want to bake.  We rolled out a few cookies together (she now understands that is very hard work).  We cut and baked and waited for the next day.  Then, we made royal icing together (again, "gee Grandma, no wonder it takes so much time to make your cookies" - yep).  I base coated the cookies because she recalled not enjoying that last year.  She did, however, like eating one of the cookies where the base coat fell over the edge.  We ended up with three large 5 inch circles and a few stars to play with.

Today we decided to decorate (is it sad that it took us all morning to finish one big cookie?).  She is so happy with the cookie she is just bouncing up and down wanting to eat it.  I asked if she didn't want to wait and show it to Grandpa when he got home from work.  "Yes, Yes!" she yells and runs back to her Kindle where she is building some incredible roller coaster on her farm in Mine Craft!  There is a plane and an UFO involved as well.  She is very creative!

So, anyway, I'm not great at drawing in general and my hands were particularly shaky today so I printed off a couple of copies of the Pikachu she selected for the design and I used the tissue paper method of tracing the design onto the dry royal iced cookie.  I think I first saw the technique on SweetAmbs' blog and I know I have seen Haniela demonstrate it, as well as others.  The technique is easy to Google.  In a nut-shell, you use white tissue paper (like the kind used in a gift bag) and trace the image onto the tissue paper with a food color marker.  Then, you re-trace (using food color marker of course) on top of the cookie.  The first trace may or may not go through the tissue paper, the second tracing transfers the image to the cookie very easily.

I also thought it would be better to paint the cookie so my granddaughter would have a better chance at participating.  I explained how painting a cookie with food color worked - she thought that was pretty cool and asked how I got the food color on the M&Ms I used on her Paint-Your-Own Easter cookie.  I am enjoying the teaching - she is always so wide-eyed in wonder.  Montreal Confections was the creator of the PYO cookie using the M&Ms...and boy were they a hit!

She and I both painted portions of the cookie and she helped select all of the colors and guided me on any specifics of the Pikachu that I was unfamiliar with.  The we decided to add some of the lightening bolts.  I think Pikachu has some kind of shocking power ... so, of course, that was added.

After she returned to her Mine Craft creation, I outlined everything in black piping consistency royal icing and made up a small amount of red and yellow for a border.  She is very happy with the end result...and can't wait to eat the cookie!

It was fun - and a day I hope she looks back on when she is older and thinks "you know that day we made Pokemon cookies Grandma?  That was so fun".  It's what we live for!

Bon Appetit, Y'all 
- and thanks for reading my blog all these years!

Paint-Your-Own Cookies

Ready to package!

This is really just a quick share!  If you want to learn how to make these cute cookies, there is a wonderful tutorial online via Montreal Confections' Patreon page.  It is a subscription - but for as little as $1 per month you can have access to many of her tutorials.  I enjoy learning from Marlyn and I bet you would too.  She was the original creator of the PYO (Paint-Your-Own) cookie - often copied in the cookie world!  She always says she's happy for people to learn and use her designs.  I do think, however, it is important for cookie artists to attribute the source of their design ideas in social media.  That's why you often see my posts including where I learn things.  I'm a little creative...but not THAT creative.  The link to her YouTube channel above shows samples of the types of PYO cookies you can learn to do on her Patreon Channel.  The actual tutorials are on Patreon at this point.

These were my first PYO cookies.  I made them for my grandkids and some friends of my oldest son...everyone seemed happy to get them!  They were also happy to see I had used my Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookie dough.  It's the family favorite.  These cookies were really large and sturdy.  They measured 6 1/2 inches tall and were rolled 3/8" thick.  I only used 1/4 tsp. of  baking powder to prevent spread (but I used a tiny bit so I would have some lift - it's a fine line)!

Simple designs or more intricate.
You can gear it more towards
the age of the child by piping
larger patterns, easier to paint
and stay in the lines...
although staying in the lines
is not at all necessary!

A little tag stapled to the top of the packaging gives
instructions on how to activate the colors.
I loved that this particular project used
food color air-brushed M&Ms for the color dot
instead of more royal icing..
Tasty addition to the PYO line-up!

 Thanks Marlyn, for sharing your creative genius with the world.  I have learned so much from Obi-wan Marlyn!!!

Happy Easter Everyone!!!  May you be blessed with spending the day with your family and/or friends!  Those who don't celebrate Easter - just have a marvelous Sunday!

UPDATE:
I just received a photo of one of the painted cookies.  Yay!  Thanks for sharing the art work :-)

Photo Courtesy of James Harris

Easter's on the Way!

A very light violet royal icing stenciled onto base-coated
cookies - these three were all using Designer Stencils
products.  The flowers were learned by taking  two
different classes on Craftsy - SweetAmbs Sweet Elegance
and Wilton Piped Flowers.

Cookie show and tell time.  I've been working on these Easter cookies for the last few days.  I needed to have them finished by today and I met the deadline.  This isn't everything but I did end up with three dozen that I'm happy with!  I've been taking a lot of "online classes"... Montreal Confections, McGooU, Craftsy, and a lot of quickie tutorials I see on Facebook and YouTube.  Most of these were planned based on something I've learned online.  So, here we are!

I love the baskets of flowers I made based on my class at McGooU.  The basket and handle were piped white with a PME 1.5 tip and then, when dry, painted with a mixture of copper AmeriMist color, some gold petal dust and even a little pink in the middle one - gave it an interesting depth of color.  I like that there is some bare cookie showing with visible flecks of vanilla bean seeds in my Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies.  I worked on flowers every time I had extra stiff icing.  Stored in air-tight containers, piped royal icing flowers last for a really long time!  I keep several containers on hand for days like this.  Love the look!  My grandkids will love eating the "candy flowers".

Montreal Confections posted a video for this project this week on her Patreon channel.  Patreon is a wonderful way to support artists you admire.  I enjoy getting tutorials before others and sometimes they are available only to Patrons.  It's a worthy cause in my book.

I had already baked these little guys and was overjoyed to see her detailed visual on decorating them pop up.  I think they turned out cute and I used most of her technique but made a few slight changes.  I didn't cut out and use her template, but I did print it out to look at it while I piped.  I also did not want to drag out my airbrush so I used some dry orange petal dust to lightly highlight the edges of their cheeks and wings.  Love the depth it gave.  I also used dry luster dust on the cheeks...it was a deep pink with a little sparkle.  This cookie cutter is from Wilton and actually has a bow tie for the little chick.  I bake really thick 3/8" cookies and should have rolled the bow-ties thinner.  After I decorated them, they looked funky because the stuck up so high, so I opted not to use them.  I'm happy with how they turned out - very cute little chicks.

Next up, also learned from Montreal Confections, were these cute 3-D bunnies using a cutter from Chicago Metallics.  I had learned my lesson from the chicks and cut these guys at 1/4".  I would cut the hind legs even thinner if doing again. Pretty much followed Marlyn's tutorial except that I piped a dot of dark gray and lay in a pink 4mm sugar pearl for the eyes and then, using a needle tool, I dragged a bit of the dark gray into eyelashes...so these are girl bunnies :-)  Marlyn showed grass down by the bunny feet but I liked the idea of painting on some flowers.  I used a very fine paint brush (I finally found one I love) and just did little dot flowers. They remind me of the beautiful wildflowers currently being seen on Texas roadways and acreage.  Also loved this little project (especially that they stand up so easily).  The paint brush I found at Michael's or Hobby Lobby I'm sure.  It is a LaComeille 18/0 Liner #7350.  I love that it has a thicker handle with a tapered grip which allowed me to hold it in such a way that I had a bit more control.  I tend to get shaky hands :-)

I make chicks every year.  Nothing new here beyond some little wings I piped on.  I found this tiny little carrot cutter in my box of Easter cutters.  I used some leftover icing to pipe the carrot and then used orange food color to paint some stripey looking color - going for a more realistic carrot!

I don't know where I got this bunny cutter with a tail.  I saw lots of people using this cuter this year but using it face-forward.  I was working on trying out some stencils and decided to do the rear-facing bunny on the left and some bunnies stenciled onto an egg on the right.  Stepping away from the "expected" with these two.

These were all stenciled and painted with food color as well.  The bunny ears and eye lashes were painted, the flowers and grass on the left also painted.  The center bunny was stenciled, then dots piped for flower centers and leaves/stems painted two shades of green.  The bunny on the right utilized half of a stencil which I masked off using Press 'n' Seal so the eyes and ears didn't end up with a design on top of them.  These are some of my favorites.

A simple stenciled bunny.  She's pretty in purple.  Very light purple!

By the time I got to these last three cookies I was getting weary.  I used a glass etching stencil for the hummingbird over the flowers.  Trying to hold the stencil still while changing colors with my palette knife was challenging, but it turned out nicely.  The butterfly was stenciled in light blue and then I highlighted with painted accents using that new extra fine paint brush.  The flower spray on the right was the same stencil I used on the bunny above except I didn't paint it.  I was really tired by this point!

Thanks for checking out my cookies - I keep thinking I should start a second blog just for cookies but, darn it, I'm just too lazy!  My blog is kind of like my life - scattered with a variety of interests - I enjoy sharing whatever I find that I like!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

Using a Stencil Mask

These three cookies were all stenciled utilizing a Stencil Genie.
The top right cookie utilized a 2Ts Stencil Mask

This past week-end I had a friend over to photograph some of the process of decorating cookies.  She and I played with icing for a while and then she began working with her camera while I continued decorating.  I asked her to help me photograph the process of stenciling because it was one of the things I could not photograph myself.  She sent me the photographs yesterday and I can't wait to finish writing this post to share her lovely photographs with you!  All of the rest of the photos in this post are courtesy of my friend Jessica of Just Us Photography. You can link to their web site and their gallery has a Food Photography link.

I met Jessica one Summer after we moved to the coast when she did some home visits for speech training with my youngest son who is deaf and wears cochlear implants.  I liked her immediately and have continued our acquaintance through the years.  The Sugar Skull cookies I made were for her wedding.  She and her husband are really good people and I'm thrilled she took her Saturday to come play "photograph my cookies" with me.  She's really quite good - speech therapy training, photography, entrepreneur... I love a multi-tasking woman!

I recently purchased some stencil masks from 2T's Stencils, to use with the Stencil Genie from Creative Cookier.  Both of these companies are Texas-based...which I love!  I have occasionally been challenged with feeling like I didn't have enough hands to get a good stencil on a less than perfectly flat iced cookie.  The Stencil Genie really helped me improve my stencil-ability but it didn't help with some of my favorite round stencils from Designer Stencils.  I love the sturdy products from Designer Stencils, but I regretted the inability to use them with the oh-so-cool Stencil Genie.  When I saw a video of Tammy's masks, I ordered them instantly.  Saturday, the day of these photos, was the first time I used one...so that tells you how easy and helpful they are!

The only issue I had was that my stencil slipped around a bit between the masks.  As I was not spraying the color, instead spreading thick royal icing, I was pushing and there was movement.  My solution was anchoring the center of the round stencil with a needle tool (as I usually do anyway) and working around it.  It allows me not to need any addition of Press 'n' Seal or trying to juggle everything (like when I really need two needle tools and an extra hand to hold one of them!).

I'm all about the "easy" way of doing things and this product definitely helped.  The only thing I was less than happy about was the slippery texture of the mask.  It all turned out well - and I'll continue to practice with the other shapes to see how it goes as I grow more comfortable with the product.  I do bake 3/8" thick cookies, and I like using the thinner side of the Stencil Genie so that it lays down on my cookie and sort of hugs it. That didn't work as well with the mask - so, like I said, will need to play with it some more to see what works best. .I simply seem incapable of icing perfectly flat cookies... this helps without a doubt!  I used my Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookie Dough for this cookie - and I will say this batch was a bit flatter than normal because I only added 1/2 tsp of leavening.  Now, if I can figure out how not to have dips in my icing - no matter what I do, I have slight dips... grrrrr.

Anchoring with a blob of icing and holding a needle tool
on the stencil helps avoid slippage.

Using a plastic scraper instead of a metal spatula
helped me avoid magnet grabbing...but that's
no longer a real problem when you use the
Stencil Genie.  I wish it came in a variety of sizes.
I bake some big cookies it doesn't fit over.

Ta Da! A good stencil...hooray for great tools!

Some simple dots around the edge and voila!  'Tis done!  Well, with a little action from the boo boo stick when  one of my dots became rebellious and didn't comply with my regulation dot size.  I know you guys can tell I am obsessed with dots.  I simply love their look on a cookie.  The great thing about the boo boo stick, which all cookiers know, is that you can take the flat edge and scrape the dot right off of the cookie and it's ready for take-two on the dottage.

I'll admit it is kind of weird to see myself in photos (I demanded no face shots - I had on no make up and I just wasn't going there).  I also find it weird to see my hair in photos of me decorating.  100% of the time it is up in a pony tail or a huge teeth clip.  I really don't want people to find a hair in my cookies!  Ewww (althoug my hair is very clean, it's just a yucky thing).  Jessica, however, kept saying she wanted to get my curls in the picture.  I laughed because even without seeing my face, friends can tell by the hair and freckles that this is me.

I love making Valentine Cookies - it is the epitome of the way I like to decorate - swirls, flourishes, flowers and more.  I have been taking Craftsy classes to learn more and more techniques.  I wonder if the new Culinary School coming to Port Isabel will have a baking and decorating curriculum.  I might need to go back to school if they do!  Secret I'll share - I have dreamed of teaching classes in cookie decorating.  I have to be good enough first...I'll probably be an arthritic old lady before I get to that point... we can always dream, yes?

More Valentine Cookies will be forthcoming - some will have Jessica's lovely photos as well.  I love the soft touch she gets and I can't wait to share the rest of them with you!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

UPDATE OCTOBER 1, 2015
An email from Tammy with a trick to prevent slippage:

Debbi,  I just read your article from back in February and your stencils slipping.

I had that problem to.  Initially I found

made these to adapt to stencils of all shapes and sizes and sandwiching between 2 pieces.  But that does not secure the movement.  So recently I have been putting the stencil I want to closest to the cookie,   Piping a thin line of royal icing or piping jell around that stencil and then placing one piece of the adapter directly on top creating an airtight seal especially for airbrushing and eliminating under spray but it also holds the stencil in place with less movement for royal icing transfers too.

I hope you give this a try and find it an option and less movement. 

I loved your article!!!!

Tammy

2 T's Stencils

2014 Snow Globes

I am frequently asked "do you sell your cookies?" The answer has become a resounding no.  I did a few times, but found the stress involved more than I care to handle.  However, I do make cookies, from time to time, to give to friends, co-workers, and family.  It is a time-gobbling, labor of love, hobby!  I don't know how professional cookie decorators do it.  After about 10 days of this, my hands and shoulders ache.  I still have much more to do before Christmas arrives!

This year I have spent a long stretch of time creating the 2014 version of a Christmas Snow Globe.  The original tutorial for this lovely cookie was created by SweetAmbs and can be found on youtube.  Last year I made a few, but this year I made a dozen.  I was much more organized than last year.  I made my royal icing transfers a week before and it took 3 days to complete them.  I tried acetate for the first time instead of my normal parchment paper.  Wow!  Talk about sliding right off and zero breakage!  That is indeed the way to go if you have a lot to make!  I made a variety of snowmen and trees and the detail work was so time consuming.... I may make them in the Summer this next year.  I'm so far behind on my regular baking, I know this year is not going to be up to my expectations.

Royal icing, piped on  either acetate sheets, parchment
paper, or wax paper and allowed to dry until hard, are called
Royal Icing Transfers.  They keep forever in a sealed container.
A step above the "candy flowers on a sheet" you buy at
the grocery store.  I adored eating those as a child.
These are miles above the factory-made decorations!

After drying, store in a container with a good seal.
For delicate decorations like these, I temporarily
used a cupcake and deviled egg carrier.
Long term storage would be a plastic container
with bubble wrap between the layers for the
snowmen and the trees are sturdy enough
to just be in a container sans bubble wrap.

However, I like the snow globes a lot, so the effort has given me a sense of satisfaction, despite the physical aches and pains!  Once they get baked and cooled and the various icing colors and consistencies all mixed up/bagged and have the proper sprinkles on hand (white nonpareils were not to be found this year - I had to order online and pay for express shipping...then low and behold, they appeared on the HEB shelf the next day - ayi!), anyway, once all that is done, the actual decorating took three days.  I made one dozen.  They are large cookies so it took 1 1/2 batches of my Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookie Dough (that's a lot for one dozen cookies).  I hope the lucky recipients enjoy the effort that went into these.

I hope you will watch Amber's video and then see how you can use an available cookie cutter, different sprinkles, and different design details to make it your own, like I did.  It doesn't have to be perfect (mine sure aren't) and each of mine are different.  Here's a photo journal of making this fun cookie.  Enjoy!

After baking and allowing to cool, I piped on sky blue royal icing, 
then while wet, sprinkled on some white nonpareils.  
Then I piped a white royal icing "reflection" 
on the upper edges.  This technique is demonstrated in the 
video tutorial from SweetAmbs.
These must dry completely (over night) before you can continue.

I am using some "tipless" piping bags.  
I ordered them on E-bay and they are very popular 
in the cookie artist community.  
They are very thin, you can cut the tip, thus the
nickname "tipless bags".
(if you don't need any fancy tips)  
They are so cheap you can throw them away
without feeling like you should clean and reuse.  
A sharp pair of embroidery scissors helps 
you get the tiniest opening...or a slightly larger opening
for the flood consistency I was using here.  Cool new tool!

Base for the "snow" is ready for some sparkle 
to be added while still wet.

I use a bead tray for sprinkles.  
It's easy to pour the leftovers back into the jar
using the little tubes at the end of the tray.  
I chose to use sparkling sugar
crystals for the snow on the ground.  
I like the glistening appearance.

Once the sparkling sugar is on and you have neatened up the 
edges of the snow globe with something like the yellow 
boo-boo stick on the right, it is time to apply
the royal icing transfers by applying some of the 
same white RI to the back
and carefully placing it on the cookie.

You can see that after you press the RI transfers, the icing
is displaced and moved towards the edge.
You'll need to neaten the edges again.

Now I want to add some depth and further dimension.  
I pipe some royal icing
on the tree and at the base of the tree and snow people.

This time I lay the cookie in the tray face up and manually sprinkle 
sparkling sugar over the wet icing and then carefully 
move the cookie up so that the excess falls off.
I clean it up with a dry paint brush in case sugar is where 
I don't want it....and once more  fix the edges of the snow 
to be even with the blue sky while it is still wet.  

Allow to dry overnight
or with a fan blowing on it for several hours.

The base is a simple flood.  Use a needle tool or tooth pick
to pop any bubbles or smooth any bumps.
Allow to dry.  
Then pipe a red line on top of the outline of the base.
Allow to dry.
Top outline again to get height and dimension.  
And, again allow to dry.
A simple zigzag and dot  pattern  in green outline 
consistency icing  with a very small opening 
cut in the tipless bag (on top of the dry red) 
gives it a Christmasy look!

The last step is piping some white snowflakes in the blue sky 
in any blank spaces.  I usually add 3 or 4 of these.
Allow everything to dry at least 12 hours before bagging 
(I always dry under a fan for 24 hours 
because of our humidity and then bag)

Now that I'm finished with this project, I can move on to my small nesting doll Santas which are a take-off, or miniaturization, of the large ones I did last year.  Got to get busy...Christmas is coming fast!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

Thanksgiving Cookies 2014

We are having our Thanksgiving on the Saturday before Thanksgiving... because nurses rarely get time off around the holidays...and my husband is a nurse.  Hospitals are 24/7 and you are all glad they are when you need them.  Like other service providers - police, fire, EMS, hospital, military - and any others I left out, well, the families learn to be flexible.  We learn it isn't the specific day we celebrate, it's celebrating the season in whatever special way we make it.  I'm kind of used to it now...still don't like it, but I'm used to it.  We are driving to spend time with some of our Austin family and to make our presence known with the Indiana family, I sent cookies (what else).

I've been working on these for days - and they are bagged, sealed, bubble-wrapped, and boxed with a prayer that they make it through the US Mail system to the Indiana crew.  If there are broken cookies, well, look at the photos and enjoy the taste.  I'm always wanting my cookies to taste better than they look.  A cookie is to be enjoyed both visually and by taste...but really, primarily taste, right?

I got my leaf inspiration and my cute turkey inspiration from enrolling in the online version of McGoo U.  That Arty McGoo has put together a first class cookie instruction/entertainment/share fest and I'm so thrilled to be a subscriber.  I have watched all of the October and November videos and the dotted and painted (with food coloring) leaf project was part of the long class for November.  Then, the precious seated turkey, looking somewhat alarmed and bug eyed (with those cuteeee feet) was the project from visiting Professor Georganne Bell aka LilaLoa, in the segment "Expert Lab" in November's sessions.

I doubt I really did either cookie artist/instructor justice, because I had to adjust each for my "tastes"...but I admit to feeling somewhat proud of my watercolor leaves!  It gave me the courage to try it different ways, despite not having a good color palette of Wilton gel colors to use.  I stopped buying Wilton several years ago and have been a devotee to AmeriColor with a few sidesteps to ChefMaster from time to time.  I will absolutely admit though, Arty McGoo is right on.  I had left some AmeriColor gel colors on the palette from maybe 6 months ago, in a plastic baggie.  The darn things were still sticky to the touch!  I set up a palette with the Wilton and they are dry and not sticky at all.  I'm going to re-stock my Wilton colors, just for painting!  My leaves look a bit psychedelic because I really didn't have the recommended colors.  Nonetheless, I like them...I am embracing my inner kindergartner who enjoys playing with water colors.

Let me just say... CHECK OUT McGOO U ONLINE!!!  If you want to step up your cookie decorating game, this is a great way to do it.  Internationally renown cookie artist, Arty McGoo, shows you step by step how to make some really cool cookie sets.  You can try it out on a monthly basis or there is a reduced price for annual subscriptions.  I'm changing my monthly to annual as soon as I finish paying for Christmas!!!  My gift to myself. (Although I may sound like it, I am not a paid endorser, nor stalker of these people...LOL!!!)

I haven't stenciled in a while, so I tried a few different plaques and stencils and sprays and thick RI...I learned, once again, that my cookies are not flat - but I still liked the overall look of these cookies.  My favorite is the large leaf with a pearlized spray over a Designer Stencils paisley stencil I picked up at CookieCon.  It looks simple, yet elegant.

I also really like the Cookie Countess subway art and leaf stencils.  They turned out nothing like I expected, but absolutely love they way they look in the end (the gold tint is from an epic fail on my part by over-saturating spray which I quickly wiped off - to result in a gold overtone to the light green cookie - then I sprayed darker green on top of gold green...turned out kind of cool.

Simple leaf was stenciled with thick royal icing, just blobbed
on in layers, then scraped upwards to make the
color changing Autumn leaf!

The stencil for this plaque cookie is from Designer Stencils obtained last year.  The berries along the edge were also sort of learned in McGoo U - I had never thought about dropping another color inside a berry.  That was from the October tutorial with visiting professor, Maryann Rollins, aka The Cookie Artisan.  I also used foodcolor from my palette and a fine tip brush to paint some copper/brown leaf veins and acorn tops.  I need to get over being afraid of painting things - especially when icing just won't do.  I'm gonna be stretchin' my wings, y'all!

I got this tall pumpkin cutter earlier this Fall and I must say I am in love with it.  The ivory pumpkins turned out just the way I envisioned them in my head.  I got it, and a stencil genie, from Creative Cookier.  Unfortunately, my big plaques were too large for the genie...but the paisley stencil on the leaf worked beautiful...Literally hands-free stenciling!  So excited to use it on some of the Christmas cookies I am planning.  Wheeee!!!  I'm getting wound up just thinking about it :-)

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my playtime with cookies.  I baked and decorated 80 cookies (I ate two - one red velvet and one vanilla bean sugar - just to ensure quality control!).  I can't wait to share the goodies with my family members, both near and far.

Good thing we are empty nesters and don't eat at our
kitchen table...because where the heck would I spread out
my cookies while decorating?
I cropped out as much of the surrounding area as
 possible - you just cannot imagine the mess I make
when decorating.  It's an embarrassment!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!