Cookie Birthday Cake

I have always wanted to make a tiered cookie cake and finally had the chance!
This cake was a blast to make, plus it is a surprise cookie cake, the middle two tiers are hollowed out and filled with candy.

This was a super easy cookie to make, over and done with in one day.  The nice thing about a stacked cookie like this is you don't have to let the icing dry for 24 hours like your regular sugar cookies.  I have actually found that stacking after about 30 min of a set time helps the structure say together while still keeping it easy to take a cookie off .
Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Stay Sweet Everyone!

Key Cookies

The hubbie and I recently went to Korea for Korean Thanksgiving.  It was the first time we have seen his folks in two years.  It was a wonderful trip filled with great food and lots of family time.  The only down side of the trip....Hubbie forgot his green card.  Fair warning to any international couples...you don't need your green card to leave the U.S. but you do need it to get on the flight back into the U.S.

Lucky for hubbie and me my folks and apartment manager are awesome people.  My folks were able to get into our apartment and fedex hubbies green card to Korea.  It arrived just on time.
These cookies were for the apartment manager and office staff because they were so amazing, they really helped us out and because of their quick response to my S.O.S email hubbie and I were able to leave Korea together.

These cookies were a combo of airbrushing, stamping, wet on wet and royal icing transfers.
I made the keys and key rings by piping icing over parchment paper (with key designs laid underneath) once the keys were dried they were airbrushed with either copper or silver.
Next I flooded the cookies and let them set for 3 min. and added the key transfers to the semi wet icing.

It was my first time trying transfers and with such a delicate design I was terrified that they would all break.  Luckily for me only a few keys broke and I made sure to make a tone of them.

I am really happy with this set and can't wait to try making some more transfers in the near future.

Stay Sweet Everyone.

Dapper Animal Cookies

These cookies were a real treat to make.  They were made to match West Elm's Dapper Animal Plate set.

The plates and cookies were given as a gift at a bridal shower.

  I guess no one could believe they were cookies.  At first glance guests at the party thought they were napkins or coasters to match the plates.

I still don't know how I knocked these out.  I will call it a cookie miracle.  These cookies started out with a wet on wet icing technique.  

  A pink ivory icing outlined the animal head shape and an off white icing filled in the head.

 Then I hand painted each of the animals working off pictures from the West Elm website.
 

I am very proud of these cookies and love the plates... I am tempted to go out and get my self a set.
What do you all think?

Stay sweet everyone <3

Madeleines/ blogging date night

The hubby and I have thought up a new brilliantly cheep date night.  It involves staying home a glass of wine or beer a camera and making stuff.  I am talking about a blogging date night of course.  Hubby has a blog about wine making.  For those of you who can read Korean go here http://blog.naver.com/hunterlee347 for those of you who can't read Korean go check it out anyway it's fun to look at.
Basically date night consists of us helping each other with our projects.  I help the hubby make wine and he helps me with my baking.  We take pictures for one another and hold desk lamps up for one another (we are super technical with our lighting here)
Tonights date night involved the making of a traditional Korean rice wine Makgeolli 막걸리 and Madeleine cookies (for breakfast on Sunday)

Because I had an extra hand while I was working I decided to make a tutorial for you all.  I have a few different ways that I make madeleines this is the very first way that I tried right after I bought my first pan.
The recipe I use is basically the same as the the one featured on  The Kitchn so if you don't need the pictures to help you out with the step by step I would recommend going over there.  If you want to hang out and look at some photos then this is the place to be.

You Will Need:

1 stick of butter and 3 tablespoons of butter (for greasing the pan)

2/3 cup of sugar

1 cup of flour and 1 tablespoon (for the pan)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter)

1 tablespoon lemon juice (about 1/2 a lemon)

Zest of 1 lemon (about 1 tablespoon)

How To Do It:

1. Cut one stick of butter into small chunks and place in a small sauce pan.  Melt the butter until it starts to bubble, you can remove from the heat now or for extra tasty madeleines brown your butter.  Keep it on medium heat until you can see the butter start to brown or smell a toasty nutty smell. Be sure to keep a close eye on your butter or it can burn.  Once removed from the heat pour into a small bowl and set aside to cool.

toasty nutty sweet browned butter

2. Mix 1 cup of flour and the 2/3 cup of sugar into a small bowl and set aside

3. Place the wet ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer or a medium sized bowl.  With the whisk attachment mix the two eggs, vanilla, salt, lemon juice and zest until the eggs are frothy.

ready to get mixin

frothy happy eggs

ready for the dry ingredients

4. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet and then fold in the cooled butter (the butter can still be warm to the touch but not hot, you don't want to cook your eggs)

mix mix mix

add the butter

look at that nice nutty browned butter

5. Rest the batter in the fridge for 1 hour to overnight.

mix just until incorporated.  you don't want to loose you air bubbles that you whisked into the eggs. 

6. While the batter is resting melt the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter and whisk in the remaining tablespoon of flour.

7. Prepare your pans by brushing the melted butter and flour mixture into the pans.  Place the pans in the freezer for 1 hour to overnight.

brush brush brush

8. Preheat the oven to 350 and fill the pans with one tablespoon of batter for each well.

9. Bake for 8 minutes and then rotate the pans, bake for an additional 5 minutes.  The madeleines should be brow around the edges and have puffy domes along the back.  When touched the madeleines should feel a bit spongy.

10. Remove and let the madeleines cool for 2 minutes in the pan.  Invert the pan over a cookie sheet or cooling rack and lightly tap.
11. Dust with powdered sugar or dip in chocolate or just eat them as they are.

The hubby and I had these for breakfast with some fruit salad and coffee.

Have a Sweet Sunday everyone ^^

as always Stay Sweet

Mankato West Class of 04

I went to my High School 10 Year Reunion this past weekend....as well as a graduation party for a little boy that I babysat for/literally changed his diapers.  So I'm feeling old ;p

The reunion was a lot of fun though.  It was great catching up with people who I haven't seen since graduation and learning where they are in their lives.  

I lucked out big time because the 1st part of the reunion was a potluck in the park and I just happened to be assigned desserts.  So I broke out the airbrush hand made a stencil of my school logo and airbrushed and iced some cookies.

The cookie is a brand new franken recipe that I came up with.  It is a combo of 2 different chocolate cookie recipes and a coconut cookie recipe.  The result was a brownie/cake like cookie with coconut flecks scattered throughout.  As soon as I remember exactly what I did to make them I will post a recipe.

Hope your kick off to your summer is as exciting as mine has been so far.

Stay Sweet Everyone!

Good Luck Y'all

I was recently comishonded to make some cookies for a going away party.  No problem, I can do that.  Then I heard what the theme was....Texas.

Hmmmm, I was stumped.  I know Texas has some wonderful culture but I have never been and never thought much about it.  I turned Bake and 350 for inspiration remembering she did some beautiful themed Texas cookies awhile back.

I was struck with inspiration and after consulting with my client we decided on a bedazzled texas theme.
The results were extra shiny sparkly cookies and a better understanding on how to do a set of texas themed cookies.

I have to say that the Lone Stars were a lot of fun to make.  I would love to make a bunch of the double stacked cookies pictured below in a variety of colors.  There is something very calming about piping repeating geometric shapes.  

The one thing this set really taught me was how important it is to have quality luster dust.  Right after I finished this set I went out and bought some quality luster dust instead of the big name brand you can find in your local craft stores.  I will try and post a comparison of the two later on so you can see the difference in quality.  This set would have been far easier with a better quality product.  

So that's my Texas themed set for Y'all hope you enjoyed it.  

Finally being a Minnesotan girl and having the client be from Minnesota as well I just had to break out my Minnesota cutter for a few cookies.

Stay Sweet Everyone!