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

Chocolate Bunny Cookies

Has your house been overrun with bunnies yet?

We certainly have but these chocolatey goodies

didn't stay around long.

(Ok, there is one vanilla one hiding in with

it's siblings!)

I have been working on writing my dad's history

and one thing he would laugh about was that

he would always bite the ears off his sister's

chocolate bunny that she was trying to save.

So when I brought this platter of cute bunnies

to my grandkids and my son immediately picked

one up and said he was going to bite the ears

off, it reminded me of my dad.  

I made them both in chocolate and vanilla and

I have to say I am in love with the chocolate sugar

cookies.

This time I made my sugar cookies with a cake mix

using Betty Crocker's Triple Chocolate Chip Cake Mix.

I didn't know if the chocolate chips would be a problem

in a rolled sugar cookie, but they were fine and the

flavor is so chocolatey.  Combine that with a little

almond flavoring in the royal frosting and this is

a super yummy cookie.  I like the cake mix cookies when

I do royal frosting because they are so sweet and the

frosting is not so it balances out to a great tasting,

not just beautiful looking cookie.  

You can imagine they were a hit with the kiddies.  They

liked the candy eggs too.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

1 box Chocolate Cake Mix

1 large egg

1/2 C. butter melted

Mix the above ingredients together with the

paddle attachment until thoroughly mixed.  Let

the batter cool about 10 minutes since the butter

was melted.

Roll cookies out on parchment paper and transfer

to a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  You don't have

to use any flour to roll it out on parchment paper and

it peels off easily by lifting the paper from the corner.

Bake at 350 for 8 minutes or until the tops look

dry.  I don't like my sugar cookies brown.  Let cool

on the pan until you can easily handle them.

Royal Frosting

1 C. water

5 T. meringue powder

Mix this together in a large mixing bowl until no lumps are there.

Add

2 tsp. almond flavoring

1 tsp. cream of tartar

2 lb. powdered sugar (sift if lumpy)

With the paddle attachment, start on low mixing this together

and turn up to medium speed and mix for 10 minutes.  Yes,

10 minutes.  It will thicken and look like marshmallow. 

You may have to thin this to make it flow.  Add 1 T. water at

a time.  When you draw a spoon through the frosting, the line should

disappear in about 10 seconds.  If not, add the water and stir.

Place in small bowls and color if desired.  I prefer the bottles for

the cookies and bags for adding detail like the nose.  The eyes

were dragees.

decorating bag or decorating bottle.  

Flood with royal frosting by outlining the cookie and

then filling in with the frosting.  Let harden or place

in a food dehydrator for about one hour to harden 

enough to write on with an edible marker.  I used

Americolor's black marker.

(I start with a little more water than normal

so I don't have to thin it so much and it works 

well.)

These come together so quickly and are

so fun to make.

They will be hopping over to

Foodie Friday

Pink Saturday

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

Nutcracker Sweets Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

The elves are out everywhere at

Purple Chocolat Home

now that Christmas preparations

have started. 

This is Leonard and he is the head chef in the

kitchen here at Purple Chocolat Home (you can kind

of tell because he dresses all in white).

He would like to invite you into the kitchen to

make the Nutcracker Sweet cookies that were

featured in our tablescape yesterday.

He and the other kitchen elves (along with Jessica

and Lindsay) cooked up some gorgeous

sugar cookies.

They have made a lot for you to try.  There should

even be enough to take some home with you.

The elves picked out the bright Christmas reds and

greens.  I think they did a fabulous job.

Hearts and candy canes, swirls and initials,

... it is going to be hard to choose.

I am going to choose this one.  I love the little flourish at

the center of the heart and the dots almost look like

red hots.

Leonard hopes you enjoyed your sweets today and

invites you to come back for more all through

December (boy are we going to put on weight!)

Why is he so thin?

(We made these the night before with our Young Women.)

Make a batch of these and add a little joy to your season.

These cookies were featured in a previous post.

Click here for step by step instructions.

I will include the basic recipes here.

Super Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe

1 box Betty Crocker's French Vanilla cake mix

1 large egg

1/2 C. butter, softened, almost melted

3 T. flour

Mix all of the above until it forms a ball.  If it won't mix

into a ball, add a few sprinkles of water and mix again.

You do not have to chill to roll these out.  Roll out on

parchment paper (if desired) on the cookie sheet.  This

way you don't have to use any extra flour, or very

little and it makes re-rolling the scraps easy. 

Bake the cookies at 350 for 8 minutes.  (The original

recipe said 375 for 7, but I like the 350 better.)

Do not overbake.  You want the cookies to just

look dry on the top and not be brown.  Let cool.

Make 12-18 depending on the size of cookie.

Royal Frosting

2 1/2 T. meringue powder or powdered egg white

4 1/2 C. powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

3/4 C. water

Beat the above for about 10 minutes.  ( I have cut the

frosting recipe in half from the original.  This should

still frost 2 batches of the cookies.)

Color as desired.  Place in squeeze bottles to apply.

The original post gives step by step instructions

on how to achieve the designs on the cookies.

Surprisingly easy and very delicious!

Click here for a printable recipe.

Oh, I have to mention I won a beautiful

silver spoon from Johanna.  Thanks

Johanna.  I can't believe she is sending

it all the way from Germany!  What

a treat to own one of her spoons.  Visit

her lovely blog, you can even get the

German translated. 

Posting with

Foodie Fridays, 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies,

Just Something I Whipped Up Mondays

A Princess Pool Party

                Every Princess needs a princess party!

My little granddaughter London turned 3.

Her mother Audra put on this unbelievable

pool party for the family to celebrate.

I just had to share her tablescape with you.

It is everything beautiful and yummy and

wonderful!.

They had a princess theme with cookie crowns.

Can you believe these gorgeous cookies and they

tasted better than they looked!

Everything was set up poolside with this adorable tablecloth.

Cube cupcakes with adorable toppers,

Artfully displayed treats and candies,

Refreshing drinks in a darling pink cooler,

A chicken and grape with poppy seed dressing salad with rolls

and of course

a cute cake.

Audra made everything.  For the cake, she purchased a cake

and then added the frosting clouds for the ponies and

treasure chest to perch on.

Everyone could enjoy the pool before and after dinner

at their condo.

This is one of the poolside cabanas I designed for the cluhouse.

The sparklers scared the birthday girl, just a little!

But she sure loved the cookies.

Dash also had a birthday the same day, but he had celebrated

his a few days earlier, pirate style.

Here's Audra and Tyson and Adele.  What fun to have

married kids and grandkids. 

Everything Audra did for the Princess Pool Party was

exquisite.  She is so talented and we are glad she

wowed us with all of her talent.

I was so impressed, I asked her to come show me  

how to make the cookies, so I could show you.

Today Audra came over and taught me how to make

her fancy sugar cookies.  I will be posting those on

Foodie Fridays

and

Pink Saturday.

Have a wonderful Tablescape Thursday

with

Susan

at

Between Naps on the Porch.