Nautical themed wedding cookies, and Gum Paste Tutorial

There are people in this life that do nothing but spread happiness to others, they walk into a room and light it up with their smile and positive attitude.

Keith and Amy are two of those people in this life and I am so happy that they found each other.

I was thrilled to make some wedding cookies for the two of them and share a bit of my love with them during this amazing journey in their lives.  The two of them are getting married soon in the tropics thus the beach theme of the cookies.

 This set gave me the opportunity to use a new technique, Gum Paste!  I used ModPodg molds to make all the different shells and then airbrushed, petal dusted and hand painted the dried results.

Making GumPaste decorations is now my new favorite thing to do in the evening, it's quick and easy and I can do it while watching TV or chatting with the hubby. 

I was so surprised how easy it was to make these little decorations.  All you have to do is buy some powdered gum paste and follow the directions to mix up the gum paste, then you can work with it straight away or keep it in the freezer for later use.  

Once your GumPaste is mixed and kneaded I make small pea sized balls and push them into the molds.  I let the GumPaste sit in the mold for a few min. before popping it out.  Any silicone mold will work just be sure to wash it before use and dusting it with powdered sugar helps keep the GumPaste from sticking.  

Once the GumPaste pieces are removed form the mold I use and exacto knife to cut off any of the scraggly bits and smooth up the edges.  Be sure to do this before the GumPaste dries otherwise you will be hacking away and the edges the next day and may end up breaking your lovely pieces you just made.

I let all the decorations air dry for about 3 days and then store them in a small tupperware.  Be sure to let the pieces dry out before sealing them away or they could cause already dried pieces to melt.  Same goes for painting your decorations, if you are not applying them to a cookie right away let them dry for a day or so before sealing them up with other decorations.  

Comment or e-mail if you are interested in a full tutorial on making GumPaste decorations.  I would be more than happy to make a photo tutorial or even a video if their is interest in it.  

Stay Sweet Everyone and Congrats Amy and Keith <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

Corset cookies: tutorial

As promised here is a brief tutorial on how to cut out the corset bachelorette set posted  here.
You will need two cutters to make these cookies, a small heart and an egg cutter.
If you don't have either of these cutters you could make a template or cut these by hand.  But it is much faster to use the cutters if you have them.

First role out your cookie dough and flower your cutters.  

 Use your egg cutter to cut out an egg shape.

Then use your egg cutter to create the hourglass shape of a corset.  If you space it right the first cookie should cut out the hips of the second cookie.

Use your small heart cutter to cut out the top edge of the corset.  You could do this part by had as well.  I just pressed along the top edge of the cutter so my cookie wasn't cut into two sections.  You can cut the cookie into two parts and bake them together on the cookie sheet but I like keeping the cookie in one section.

This is what your finished cut out should look like.  If needed you can use your fingers to pat down the edges and make the cookie smooth and uniform along the top edge.

Transfer your cookies to a baking sheet and bake these babies.  

My first set was so popular I made a second set of lingerie cookies for a friends bachelorette party.  It was a perfect gift because at the party the played a game where each girl brought the bride a pair of underwear and the bride had to guess who had bought here each pair.

How fun are her wedding colors!  Teal and orange for a fall wedding. 

Happy baking everyone, Stay sweet ^^

Cookie Box Tutorial

At last as promised here is my cookie box tutorial.

These are my new favorite structural cookies to make!  They were a huge hit for Valentines day, and I can't wait to use them for other special events.

Here is what you will need to make your very own cookie box:
Your favorite sugar cookie dough
Food Coloring
Stiff Royal Icing
Silipat Mat or Parchment Paper
Cups
Optional:
Stencil Paper

Before starting out decide how big of a box you want to make and cut a template out of card-stock, paper, or ideally stencil paper.

Here are the approximate measurements for my box:
Small End: 2in x 2in
Large Sides and Bottom: 4.5in x 2in
Top of Box:  I got super mathematical here and made it slightly larger than the sides....
Top Knob: Hand cut
Bottom Feet: Cut 2in x .5in (I just used my small end template and eyeballed it)

Starting Out

Role out your cookie dough and get to cutting.  You will need 1 top, two long sides, one bottom and two short sides as well as feet (made using the short side template)

 You will also need a knob for the top so you can open the box easily.  I made mine by stamping a small circle to my cookie dough and then cutting it out.  I also added a small hand cut heart to the top of the circle since the box was for Valentines day.

Once all your cookies are cut out it is time to pain them.  You can choose to skip this step if you plan on icing the whole box.  I like the look of painted cookies because the food coloring cracks as the cookie bakes giving the box an antique look.  After Painting the cookies place them in the freezer for 10 min or more to ensure they do not spread too much while they bake.

Assembly

 I like to let my cookies sit out for a day before icing them, it is totally up to you how soon you ice them, just be sure they are completely cool.  Mix up a stiff royal icing (check out Bake at 350 to get started if you have never made royal icing before)

Making a cookie box is a whole lot like making a ginger bread house.  First attach one of the long sides to the bottom piece by piping a strip of royal icing along the bottom of the side piece.  Attach and support with a cup or whatever you have on hand.  

Continue your way around the box being sure to support each side you attach with a cup.  While you let the icing set you can attach the knob to the top of your box by placing a small dot of royal icing on the bottom of the knob. 

Once the icing has had a bit of time to set pipe icing along the sides to connect them.  I intentionaly left a gap between my cookies because I wanted to have some icing showing on the outside.  Pipe all four corners and then...

Pipe along the inside of the box as well.  Now is a good time to put a hidden message in the box as well.

Once the icing has had a good long time to dry (2 hours or all day, whatever works for you) attach the feet to the bottom of the box.

The feet really are optional but I think the box looks much nice with them.  Finally it is time to decorate.  You can do this before or after constructing the box.  I wanted to practice piping on a vertical surface so I did it after the box was made, but it is easier to do it before constructing the box.

Make some fun mini cookies or chocolates to fill your box or put some other fun stuff inside, notes, jewelry, candy, really anything goes.

See how I added fancy sides to the box, and or attempted to

Happy chocolate truffles nestled in their very own cookie box.

A special message for the lucky gal who received this box.   

See how big and long that message is on the under side of the lid....big mistake on my part because it kept the lid from sitting flush on the box, next time I will have to keep the message much shorter.

Well that's all guys, hope this was a helpful tutorial.  Please feel free to leave questions in the comment section and I will get back to you asap.  Also please feel free to send me pictures of  your fancy cookie boxes, I can't wait to see them!!!