Antique 1st Birthday

By now most of you know my favorite orders are..... I would like some cookies, for this event, decorate them as you please.

It gives me a chance to try out a bunch of different techniques that I haven't had a chance to try on other cookies.

This next set was exactly that.  I got to play around with gumpaste, stenciling with icing, and adding cool texture to cookies with sprinkles and then airbrushing over it.

Hope you enjoy the cookies in all their Antique themed glory!

Stay Sweet Everyone ^^

Swimming themed Grad cookies

It's graduation season, which means lots of fun cookies in school colors.  This next set is one I hold near and dear to my heart because not only did I get to make them for a Mankao West graduate (my alma mater) but they were swimming themed cookies as well which is one of the many activities I took part in while attending West. 

It was fun to think up different color and design combos for these lovely ladies.  

However I do have to say these were some of the most difficult cookies to work with.  From time time to time I have a client provide me with a special cookie cutter that they want me to use.  I will gladly do it too, but this cutter was a doozy.

Small shapes at sharp angles make for a cookie that doesn't release well from the cutter, and to top it all off the cutter had guide lines built into it to distinguish the different parts of the cookie. 

These guide lines in theory are great, they keep each cookie looking the same as far as swimsuit and cap placement.  However in reality they are a nightmare, the guides were set so low in the cutter that I couldn't make the cookie very thick or the whole thing would have fallen apart.  

After baking the cookies were equally as fragile because of how deep the guide lines cut into the cookie. It's a good thing I made a few extra cookies because these poor girls kept loosing their heads.  

Had the cutter been one of mine I would have cut the guide lines out.  If you are ever having issues with a cutter it is always a safe bet to remove sharp angles form the cutter by bending it a bit and remove those guide lines.  While they make decorating easier (in some cases) it's not worth worrying about the structural integrity of your cookie.  

After all the girls were decorated I was still a bit worried about a few breaking.  The last thing I want to do is give a client a bunch of broken cookies.  To hopefully make up for any broken cookies (once they were put on display...it happens) I made this lovely focal cookie.  The flags read Congrats Ally and the starting blocks display the graduation year.  

Here is a closer look at the little swimmers ready to start off their blocks.  I am so happy with how this one turned out.  Plus how cute is that crowd of cheering people.  I will for sure be revisiting this cookie design in the future.  

Congrats to all you grads out there!!!

Stay sweet everyone :D