We All Scream for Ice Cream Cookies

All I have to do is feel like it is going to

start getting warm and I am ready to make

home made ice cream!

Alas, it has been wet and rainy and so we are going 

to have to settle for these cookies that look like

ice cream sundaes.  

My daughter in law that taught me how to

decorate these kinds of cookies bought me

this fun ice cream sundae cookie cutter.

I love this pink and white one with a cherry on top!

This one is a little fancier with silver sprinkles

and pink polka dots.

Now even I agree, that these are too cute to eat!

I just need a little vanilla ice cream to go with them!

I will be posting these with 

Foodie Friday

What's In Your Easter Basket?

If these adorable bunnies and eggs are all

that make it into my Easter basket this year,

I will be one happy person!!

These are some of the prettiest cookies I have

baked up.  I still consider myself quite the

beginner on flooded cookies even though I

went to Cookie Con last year, so I am

pleased with these beauties.

My friend Kathy has been asking me for some time

to show her how to make flooded sugar cookies 

so the other day I invited her and Pam over for a

lesson on making and frosting the cookies.  Of course 

I was a little nervous setting myself up as a teacher

when I don't feel like an expert, but I decided to

show them several options for decorating the cookies.

They loved how easy the rolled fondant was and

were surprised at how delicious it

tasted.  We put a little fondant in a tiny rose mold for

his little tail.

I demonstrated wet on wet, writing on dry, sugared

and piping on dry.  One trick I learned at Cookie Con

was using a food dehydrator to dry your cookies so I 

could demo those things that needed dry icing.

Just a few minutes in the food dehydrator after

flooding the icing and you can pipe on details.

Another while and you can write on it with

edible writing pens.  Some of these are

cookies they helped decorate.  I would say

they were great students!

They each left with several varieties

of cookies.

After they left I kept playing with the 
bunnies and eggs trying some scroll work.

The scrolls are piped with slightly thicker

frosting onto frosting that has set up.  (I took out

a small bowl of the frosting and covered it and set 

it aside before I thinned the frosting down for

the flooding.  This is what you pipe with.  It needs 

to pipe out easily.)

The trick to smooth lines is to lift your tip and

let the line of frosting fall onto the cookie

rather than dragging the tip along the

edge of the cookie.  Don't get discouraged.  It

all takes a little practice.  I had them practice

on parchment paper first.

Soon my Easter Basket was full of

pretty and delicious cookies.

I will be posting with

Metamorphosis Monday

The Scoop

Cookie Con 2014

Hey Everyone,

Joni (Red Couch Recipes) and I and my

oldest daughter Jessica,

went to Cookie Con (Convention)

this week and although none of us

are experts at Royal Icing Frosted cookies,

we wanted to learn more.

This was the winning set of

cookies in the fairy tale type

category - Once Upon A Time.

There were 450 attendees from 14 countries and 44 states and only 2 of them were men.

These are artists!  

This won a teacher's choice award

and it was one of our token men attendees!

It was one of my choices too.

This was another of my choices.  

How could you choose a favorite?

Anyone who wanted to enter the Sugar Show

could.  We are novices so of course we

didn't enter, but the skill level of

these "cookiers" as they called themselves

was amazing.

The first full day was spent in classes

where we learned and had a lot of

fun.  We decided there isn't a happier

group than cookiers - all filled

with sugar and spice and everything

nice.

By the end of the day we were

craving a cookie - but not a cookie

to be had.

(These and the Where The Wild Things Are

cookies were made by the two great gals at

Sugar Bliss.  Check them out - amazing!  Hope 

they teach a class next year on airbrushing!  Everything they

touched was out of this world!!)

The final day we spent all day

in a hands on lab where we

could try out every fun idea

we had been presented from

air brushing, to hand painting,

to using a Kopy Kake machine

that transfers the design onto

your cookie so you can copy

the exact design and also rice

paper transfers, stencils and fondant.

(One of mine - fondant.)

(One of mine - rice paper and rice paper butterfly.)

The days were filled with fun 

giveaways from a beautiful Purple

Kitchenaid (no I didn't win it!) to 

4 air brush guns (which Jessica

did win), tons of cookie cutters and

other fun things. 

(These were the winners at our table - Jessica on the left

and Libby from Spokane and Kelsey from Helena.)

 I did win a sprinkle

filled bracelet which retails for $50 -

and Joni, Jessica and I all won one

or two things each.  How lucky were we?

We left for lunch on Saturday to meet

one of our blogging friends from Salt Lake

for the first time 

Bonnie

from City Home, Country Home.

Ryan and Brad were there posing for

pictures, so they couldn't make it to

lunch with us.

(Bonnie, Ryan, Joni, Brad and myself - 

left to right!)

We also had the cookie icon

Arty McGoo there as our keynote

speaker.  She and her husband 

were so much fun, wanting to

turn all the networks into cookie

related shows - such talent.

A mystery shape cookie was given

out on Saturday and people could 

create whatever they wanted.

It was a quotation bubble and

we were amazed at what people 

came up with.

The last one was the winner.  We

all got to vote.

These are the cookies I created

on Saturday.  

Quite a step up from

what I have made in the past.  I

tried to use every technique they

taught us.

What a blast we had.  

We sure hope to be able to

attend next year.

Thanks to Sue from

Munchin Munchies who

told us about it although she

ended up not being able to attend.

I know these little ones will be

wanting to make and eat

more cookies!!!

(Done with Waterlogue App on Iphone)

I will be posting this with

Foodie Friday

and 

Pink Saturday

Come With Me To An Ice Castle

I am going to take you to one of the

few ice castles in the United States

and since you are going to be royalty

for a day I made you some royal slippers 

and a crown to celebrate.

There are only three ice castles in

the United States and we have one right

here in Utah just up the canyon in Midway.

The ice castles are made by hand and contain

over 20,000,000 pounds of ice.

We went on a warm sunny day

with my favorite royalty,

Hannah, Miss Utah County

and Kylie, Little Miss Utah County.

They dressed in their icy blue

and capes and naturally

they were mistaken for Elsa

our favorite queen from Frozen,

Disney's new movie.

Who happened to just come along

with us for the photo shoot

and we also found

our favorite snowman, Olaf there!

Actually, we brought that Olaf with

 us for baby sister to hold but we

did find this huge Olaf there.

It was a beautiful sunny day there

and the majesty of the ice is

just unimaginable.

There are arches and tunnels

and mazes to explore.

You don't want to wear your princess 

slippers as you are walking

through quite a bit of snow but

I just had to make some

royal cookies to celebrate our adventure.

For complete instructions on

making cookies like these

click here.

How appropriate as they use

ROYAL ICING!

I made these and brought them over

to Hannah as she had come down

with a cold.

These ice figures remind you of 

the top of a castle.

It was definitely a fun event to go

to, a fabulous place to take

photos, and it was really fun to 

be there with ROYALTY!

Hannah and her mother had

given me both of these

cookie cutters so it was

fun to give a little something back.

I will be posting with

Oh, The Places I've Been

Foodie Friday

Seasonal Sunday