LilaLoa

Saltwater Buttercream Cookies

2012-02-13T20:04:00.003-07:00

If you weren't with me this time last year....I revealed a super big secret on Valentine's Day. And I'm not going to repeat myself, so you're just going to have to scroll back through the last year and...okay, I'm just kidding. On basically every account. You can click here for the post. But honestly, I just rambled on for kind of a while and showed super weird pictures of cookies decorated with butter cream that did not look at all appetizing unless you were 3 years old. Oh, and my whole point was that my mom always made butter cream Valentine's Day cookies. And they were nearly as big as my head. Or the state of Indiana. So, you know pretty much the same size either way.

And I feel it is important that my own children get to experience this Valentine tradition. Without it, they could totally grow up to be responsible broccoli eating citizens, never knowing how their stark, sprinkle free lives could be different. I can't take that risk. And then I was thinking that maybe YOU shouldn't be taking that risk either. So I'm also including my recipe for Saltwater Butter Cream.

Saltwater Butter Cream

printer version

1 Tablespoon warm water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter (room temperature if at all possible)
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 cups powdered sugar

Dissolve the salt in the water and set aside. Cream butter and 4 cups of powdered sugar together in a mixing bowl until they are well blended. Add the saltwater and vanilla and mix well. Add the remaining powdered sugar and whip on high speed for 2-3 minutes.

***You can make this frosting thinner or stiffer by leaving out some powdered sugar, or adding more.

***This is a crusting butter cream.

***You CAN make this with butter straight from the fridge. I do it all the time. Just be aware that your frosting will soften about 20 minutes after you make it if you use cold butter. So make it a little stiffer than you want it to end up.

*** For the BEST chocolate butter cream you have ever tasted -- substitute 1/2 cup of cocoa powder for the same amount of powdered sugar. (And if you want your frosting darker mix it with the saltwater first.)

PS -- If you're worried about making ugly cookies like mine last year -- don't be. I'm pretty much already the champion of weirdy Valentine's Day cookies that no one but a child would ever even think about eating. Plus, you don't even HAVE to make butter cream cookies that look like butter cream cookies.

Feel free to make them your own style.

And as long as we're talking about your own style of butter cream you all should REALLY be checking out Kim's cookies!!

Wild Thing Valentine Cookies

2012-02-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

I spend a lot of time awake between the hours of midnight and 5am these days. I wouldn't really call it quality awake time, but to be honest, I don't mind it so much. I can reload my facebook page endlessly -- while hoping that THIS TIME someone has left me a message -- to my heart's content. And I can eat ice cream straight from the container with the freezer door open and everything. Also, hypothetically, if I wanted to, I could do a work out video without anyone judging my complete lack of coordination. Sometimes I just stare at the wall though. And dream about sleeping. Its actually kind of disturbing to think about how often I choose that option.

Anyway last night while NOT working out at 3 am, I had this great idea. And let me just tell you, that I've had enough "good" ideas at 3am over the past couple of months to know by now that I need to just leave it alone until morning. But last night I threw caution to the wind and just went with it.

I made you some cookie bag toppers! (Click on the image for the pdf file.) At 3am. In my pajamas. What are you going to do? It seemed like a good idea.

And then when I woke up and saw what I had done, it was too late. I had only one choice. I had to make the cookies as well. Strangely though, all that purpose and direction from the early hours had disappeared with the sunlight. And I was left with only a hazy memory of the cookie that could have been. I tried to re-create the quickly vanishing ideal from my memories, but ... whoa. Nearly fell asleep on you there. I guess I'm not really all that interesting to myself. Hmm. That's certainly something to think about.

What do you think? Fuzzy or smooth? Mouth or no mouth?

Oh, PS --

XOXO striped cookies

2012-02-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

I am in LOVE (Like-love. Not love-love.) with make ahead royal icing details right now! As if you couldn't tell by the Fuzzy Heart eyeballs or the Tiled Hearts or ALL the eyeball creations coming 'round my blog this week. Oh! And the heart cookies yesterday. (Seriously, I may need an intervention soon. Please keep that in mind my dear Sugar Sisters.)

Well, these cookies are no exception. I made the Xs, the Os, and the hearts the day before. Or two days before. I lose track of time often. Especially when I have really cool things to do. Like taking a nap.

And then I just whipped up some cookies and stuck them on top. It was easier than...umm...doing something else that is really easy. So, you know, on a scale of easy to hard I would put it right next to eating cotton candy off a stick. Not the kind in the bag. Cotton candy on a stick and cotton candy in a bag are two very different things. Please don't be confused.

Oooh, I have the BEST idea ever. I'm totally going to make these in pink, white, and blue and add cotton candy flavoring to my icing. And THEN when that doesn't satisfy my desire to eat cotton candy...I will buy myself a cotton candy machine. See? All great ideas. You really can't go wrong with make-ahead royal icing details.

A love (cookie) story.

2012-02-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

It's still the season of love and candy, right? I'm going to tell you a love story. And I'm not even going to pretend that its not mine. And its totally going to embarrass someone. And that person might be me.

There was this girl that was a river guide.

And this guy who was also a river guide.

And they had a really cool job that they loved every single minute of. Except the minute where they got up before the sun so they could load life jackets into a bin. But every other minute was like a dream come true. And the girl kind of liked the guy. Like, a lot. But it was totally awkward because he saw her in a swim-suit nearly every day of their lives. And they rafted all day long in the hot Wyoming sun for days and days and weeks and weeks. And then the sun started to not be so hot and the two river guides knew that the best summer of their lives was ending. But one of the river guides was kind of pushy. And she basically forced the boy river guide to transfer schools so he could hang out with all the other river guides (but mostly her) at a different university. And sometimes she would skip out of her last class of the day a few minutes early so she could pretend that she just happened to be walking by the front door of his last class just as he came out.

And they did stuff together sometimes. (A lot.) And then one day he said he didn't want to do things with her ever again. And she cried and cried. And then a week later he said he was just kidding. And just like that, they were spending their days and days and weeks and weeks together again. And then she told him that she loved him and he said, "okay." And she was all, "No seriously, I like LOVE you." And then it was kind of weird. But then one night they were lying on the ground looking at the stars and he said, "How will this work....if this whole thing goes down?" And she said, "Yes." Because really, he was asking her if she wanted to get married.

And she did. Because she LOVED him. Like LOVE-love, not like LIKE-love. You know? And 3 kids, a half a world, and one bus-van later they are still living happily ever after.

Show Me Your Icing Colors

2012-02-03T04:57:00.001-07:00

Okay you guys. I need some advice. I don't know what to do with my bottles of food coloring.

See, I like to think of my food coloring as a family. In the beginning there was just the Wilton family. (They discolored themselves. I didn't do that.)

They were a loving, tight knit group that over time welcomed the occasional strangers into their home. (We're talking some legitimate vintage strangers here. They are like heirlooms...passed down from one generation to the next.)

And THEN the Americolor group came in and they were all scary and intimidating and really cool at the same time. And it was like guys on opposite sides of the track being forced to go to school together and they hate each other and don't want to play on the same basketball team, but they have to because someone is going to make a movie about them and no one wants to go watch a movie about people that just hate. That's no good. No one loves a hater.

But its okay, because they really were friends. And they were all real, real happy together for a long time. They thought that was it. Their family was complete. And THEN one day they got a letter in the mail and it said that they had a grandpa and maybe some aunts and an uncle or something that they had never heard about. And THEN they all lived happily ever after. For real this time.

Except that I'm getting some more icing colors soon. As in...they are in my virtual shopping basket. Here's my problem. (THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN.) I spend more time thinking about how to get my icing colors to get along and win that super big basketball tournament that the entire school will be talking about for years and if royal blue does a good enough job and stops hating, then electric purple is totally going to go to the prom with him. This is important stuff. Anyway....my point is that I'm making up stories about food colors and I'm totally weird. And I don't know what to do with my new, bigger bottles of icing.

This is where all my food coloring lives right now. Their home used to be a box of chocolates. (Yes, I know. I'm supercool.) Now it is just a mess. And its too short for my little Americolor bottles to stand up in. I think that's partially why it is such a mess.

And my bigger bottles just stand up behind that box. Again -- mess. So PLEASE would you show me where or how you store your bottles of food color? Please? My little Americolor icing bottles are begging you to free them! (Or at least to show them that they are normal.)

Reluctant Romantics

2012-02-02T00:48:00.000-07:00

Sooo, February is like the season of romantic movies. All the love and angst and desperation and passion you could ever need right inside your own home. Its almost a requirement of Valentine's Day to watch some kind of awkward scenario playing out before your eyes while you are powerless to help or stop the impending train wreck that is their very relationship.

Romantic movies make me nervous. I'm just not any good at watching them. There is always this sense of awkwardness -- not that I feel like I'm intruding on a private and personal relationship. I don't mind that part. Its not even the weirdness that happens when you can't decide if you love or hate the person that keeps messing up their own relationship. That doesn't bother me. I'm a way good relationship judger.

Its the KISSING.

I literally cover my eyes every time people kiss. Sometimes, if I'm watching it with my husband, I pretend like I'm just scratching my forehead for a really long time. My husband pretends not to laugh at me. He's a champ like that. So the least I can do is make him some cookies. But not these cookies. These cookies are for me to eat while watching yet another unsettling romantic film. I can't stop myself. Any suggestions?

Hearts are one of those elusive shapes for me. I ALWAYS draw them lopsided. So...I get help and trace a cutter on my cookies.

Fill in the heart and let it dry for ages. Or like a couple of hours. You know, whatever works for you.

Then add the white background. And let that dry even longer. (Its important to me that you notice that every single one of these cookies pictures is askew.)

At this point you could just let it go. Call it a day. Go back to watching your romantic Valentine's Day movies. Or...you could watch that movie and finish your cookies at the same time. Winners all around.

Add a face and some legs. When I make eyeballs, I use 15 second icing. I pipe the white circles first and then wait 20 seconds so it can settle out and then add the rest of the color. It works for me. And for the legs and arms, you could just use a marker if you are too tired from all that awkward movie watching to make some black icing.

PS -- If you make these. Give them KNEES. Trust me. You won't regret it.

For the Love of Red Icing

2012-01-30T17:58:00.001-07:00

I've always loved red icing. For a long time, I just kind of admired it from a distance. I knew it was gorgeous, and it made me question myself. Could I DO that? Would that true, deep red understand me and accept me for who I am? Would I have to change? Would it bring the satisfaction I desperately hoped for? I bought flowers and threw them away. I was too shy to just go up and introduce myself. I stuck with some weirdy shade of pink icing that I tried to convince myself was just as good as the real thing. But I never stopped thinking about the real red icing. The kind of red icing that seems to go deeper than the cookie it is placed upon. The red that wakes you up at night and won't let you go to sleep until you promise that THIS TIME you are not going to take "no" for an answer. The kind of icing that won't let you walk away, won't let you accept defeat, and most importantly, won't be confused with PINK.

It took me a while, my friends. Sigh. Looking back, all I can see is the wasted time, the empty afternoons that could have been filled with deep red icing cookies, the happiness slipping down the drain like some forgotten, crusted over icing doomed for the dishwasher. I see a past that could have been....

But enough about me. Let's focus on you. On YOUR FUTURE. Don't make my mistakes. Don't settle for pink when what you really want is crimson...or ruby....or carmine. Don't be a fool. Don't tell yourself it couldn't happen. IT CAN HAPPEN. And it can happen TODAY!!

Seriously, I'm not kidding here. Don't walk away. Don't shake your head. Oh wait, are you shaking in laughter? Okay, this is a little awkward here. I'll just umm, I'll just pretend I didn't see that and get kind of quiet and maybe trail off for a minute or....

Oh, HEY! I didn't see you there! Guess what I'm doing today? I'm making red icing. Come on over.

I start with regular ol' white icing.

Then I add red until its that weirdy shade of almost red, but really just still kind of pink. (Okay, maybe it really is red, and I'm just biased because I like dark red.)

Then I add brown. I use either chocolate brown, or cocoa powder. They both give about the same result -- a deeper red. Usually, I use cocoa because it makes the end result taste much better. You know, like...chocolate instead of red lake 40. (Okay, PS -- WHY do they name food coloring after a LAKE? I do NOT want to know where those dyes come from.) (I'm lying. I totally do.)

Sometimes I add too much brown.

So then I add a little bit of Wilton burgundy (which, for the record, is WAY closer to magenta or fuschia than burgundy. Someone should pay me to name colors. I could think of way better things to name it after than a LAKE.) to brighten it up again.

**If you need your red to be really dark, you can also add a little bit of black and then play around with the amounts of brown and burgundy needed to even it out again.

That's it. Don't be afraid. Fall in love with your own shade of deep, dark red today.

I'm linking up to --

Tiled Heart Cookies

2012-01-27T19:28:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time there was a young girl. And she had a crush on a certain Valentine's candy. Who am I kidding? She was in love with that candy. She thought about it all year. She saved up every cent she could find or earn. And when the stores started turning pink in the winter, she would anxiously count that money and walk very slowly to the neighborhood store with her brothers, being very careful not to drop any of it. And while her brothers were looking at things that made loud noises or some kind of electrical something that they would invariably take apart upon reaching their home, she scanned the candy aisles. She started at the front, knowing full well that the bag she was looking for was at the back, on the left, at the very top. She would grab a bag and run for the counter and buy it before her brothers saw.

And she would take it home and hide it in the space behind the loose paneling in the wall. And she would ration it out, eating 3 pieces a day for like, a week, until she couldn't handle it anymore and then she would eat every last sugar crumb from the bag while everyone was gone for the afternoon. And even in my her sick, sugar induced stomache, she would lie on the couch plotting how she could procure another 79 cents to purchase more of said candy.

Until one year...when she got to the back of the aisle, and she realized IT WASN'T THERE. That precious pink and white bag of candy had been replaced with heart shaped marshmallows. The injustice. Why would a candy company stop making a candy that everyone loves to eat? Don't they WANT my 79 cents? Don't they LOVE me? It's Valentine's Day. Share the love, you know? BRING BACK THE CANDY!!

Anyway, so those candies were the Runts Valentine hearts. And I never got over it. And I still dream about them every year. And even as an adult living in a foreign country with 3 children of my own, I still think about them so much I make cookies in their honor.

If they still made that candy, these cookies would be INSANELY easy to make. And delicious. And I would buy TWO bags every year. And I would keep one in the cupboard, and the other one hidden from my husband. That way, when I eat the entire bag while he is gone for the afternoon, there will be no judging eyes upon his return. I totally do that with Cadbury mini eggs at Easter time. My goodness, if they ever get rid of those, the world may stop.

Fuzzy Valentine Cookies

2012-01-24T17:31:00.002-07:00

Let's all just admit it together. This guy is cute. And fuzzy. (Although, I'm not really sure yet whether fuzzy goes on the positive or negative side, so maybe we should just leave it at that.) I think I will call him Bob. And let him come to the store with me. I bet he'd be real nice and probably wouldn't scream or bang his head on the floor in a show of solidarity for the box of fruit snacks I just returned to the shelf. I wouldn't have to pin him down with my knees while singing a song and acting out a finger puppet play just so I could get him buckled back into his carseat. Probably, he would even let me buy something real nice for myself. He would want me to do it. It would make him happy to see me so happy. I mean, I would have to say yes. How could you say "no" to a face like that?

This guy is SO EASY to make. But you need to plan ahead just a little bit. First, pipe some eyeballs onto a piece of wax paper. *** Let those dry for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Then, you need a cookie, some thick icing and a #233 tip. The real secret to the fuzziness is to never let the tip touch the cookie. Start squeezing a bit while lowering the tip toward the cookie. Stop squeezing and pull up quick so that the strings of icing break off. The faster you go, the easier it is. Try it on some wax paper first if you are nervous. (Then scrape that icing back into the piping bag so nothing is wasted.) Do the edges first and then methodically....okay, you know what? Go ahead and get a little crazy with it. Just make sure you do the edges first.

As soon as you are done adding all that fuzzy goodness to your cookies, drop on some eyeballs. Wait 10 minutes and then draw a little mouth through the icing with a toothpick. Done and done.

*** Not actual eyeball colors. Eyeball colors have been changed to protect the innocent.

Little Baby Mermaid Cookies

2012-01-22T14:00:00.001-07:00

Happy New Year!

No, seriously -- Happy New Year! It's the Lunar New Year. Which is kind of a BIG DEAL here in Korea. You know, the country in which I live. Koreans really know how to celebrate a holiday. It's not just one day and an "Eve" beforehand. We're talking 3 whole days of full-blown gridlock traffic, rice cake soup eating, dinner partying, year older getting, and free carnival rides for everyone. Except, not the carnival rides part. Also... its kind of a tradition for older members of a family to give money to the younger people in exchange for well wishes in the upcoming year.

So, with that in mind, I would just like to make sure you know that I consider you all family. But not the kind of family where I have to help you move and clean all your bathrooms and stuff. Just the kind of family where we play board games and eat snacks late at night. Oooh, and go on fun vacations in the summer time. And maybe my kids can play with your kids in the backyard while we lean against the fence and talk about how weird it is that the guy across the street orders pizza every Thursday, but we never see him throw away the boxes. Or - wait - that one might be neighbors. I'm cool with that too. I consider you all neighbors. But again, not the bathroom cleaning kind.

Since I am a foreigner in this country, and I have absolutely no extended family to celebrate with, and I maybe wouldn't go anywhere anyway because I just HATE traffic...I have decided that the best way to celebrate would be to recreate a popular children's movie in sugar form.

Actually, Anne from the Flour Box Bakery had this great idea to do a cooperative group project thing where a bunch of really cool people made some cookies with a fairy tale baby shower theme. She made a big list of fairy tale type stories and pulled them each out of a hat to match them up with a decorator. She never did tell me what kind of hat it was.

And Yadira from One Sweet Party designed tags and toppers for the cookies. Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Self, I should probably get some orange juice before I go any further on this post. Orange juice is healthy and super tasty. And its one of the main ingredients in an Orange Julius. I like Orange Juliuses. Gosh, how do you pluralize Orange Julius? Orange Juli? Juliuses? Juliuseseses? Oh yeah, reading a blog. Did Georganne actually contribute anything at all to this post?" And to that I would say -- I think its juliuses. Oh, and PS -- I made the cookies.

Want to see all the other amazing cookies in the project? Of course you do.

Little Red Riding Hood -- Oh, Sugar! Events

Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz -- The Painted Cookie

Aladdin -- Life's a Batch

Rapunzel -- Color Me Cookie

Alice in Wonderland -- Mt. Lookout Sweets

Prince Charming of Cinderella -- The Red Cooky

Jack and the Beanstalk -- Laura's Cookies

The Princess and the Pea -- Flour Box Bakery

Pinocchio -- The Hungry Hippopotamus

Peter Pan -- SweetArt Sweets

The Frog Prince -- Sweet Hope Cookies

Jasmine -- Sweet Creations

Little Bo Peep -- Lorraine's Cookies

Tinkerbell -- Cupookie

Cinderella -- The Cookie Countess

Hercules -- Songbird Sweets

Sleeping Beauty -- Palestine Painted Cookie

Goldilocks -- Arty McGoo

Robin Hood -- Sweet-T-CakeS

Thumbelina -- The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle

Mulan -- Cookies with Character

Snowman Party Finale

2012-01-21T02:36:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness -- I LOVE YOU ALL! I really, really wanted a Snowman Celebration (as evidenced by my shameless pleading) and you all totally came through for me! I mean, I just threw the invitation out there and then huddled in a corner hoping that I wouldn't be sitting all alone eating the chips by myself because no one wanted to hang out and celebrate with me.

94.

That's the number of links on the Snowman Celebration link-up party. 94. As in Ninety-Four. That's way more than I expected. I should probably have gotten more chips. And maybe rented a bouncy house or something.

I wanted to make a whole bunch of snowmen cookies as a grand finale sort-of giant fireworks in the sky thing. But I didn't. Because you all made such FUN cookies that I couldn't help sharing some of them. (And also partially because I spent an inordinate amount of time online ogling snowmen cookies this week. But let's stick with the positive, shall we?)

This was actually the last entry and I am SO GLAD you linked up Sugary Flower! I love the bulbous bottom circle. Like, the squishing kind of love. Which sounds totally weird when you are talking about the bottom end of a snowman, but I can assure you its the entire cookie I want to squish.

And as far as squishing goes...THESE snowmen from Pam at Cookie Crazie are next in line. I just ADORE her patterns and colors!

Aren't these FUN? I love all the colors and the sparkle and the happiness. You don't see the happiness? Look close. It's there. (What Kristina? It's called "glitter?" Eh. Same thing.)

I don't know how Jen from JP Creatibles does it. I mean, she takes an idea like giant chunks of ice stacked on top of each other and makes it all warm and cuddly. And beautiful. And...I kind of really want to own that hat.

I love that Callye from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle linked up this snowman cookie. As it turns out, this very post was my first introduction into the world of cookie bloggers. I had no idea you all existed before this cookie.

Ohhh these cookies!! I just can't get over how ADORABLE their little faces are! (PS-- Naomi also makes some beautiful cakes, too!)

Marian of Sweetopia makes the CUTEST little snowmen! Okay, let's be honest -- she makes the cutest little everythings. I love this guy. (And as an added bonus, if you click on the little snow guy, you will also get to see her royal icing consistency video!)

These guys may not be cookies, but they are a super fun, safe, clever, CUTE craft project from The Party Wagon. LIGHT UP SNOWMEN!! I love it!

And you. Have I mentioned today that I love you all? Go ahead and eat the rest of the chips while browsing through all the other snowman creations at the Snowman Celebration!

Snowboarding Snowman -- Guest Post from Haniela's

2012-01-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

Ohhhh -- you all are in for a super big fun surprise today and you don't even know it. Unless, of course, you read the post title. And then you would know that my dear friend Hani from Haniela's is here today! But what you don't know is that she created a super big fun surprise snowman cookie for us all. Okay, fine, if you read the post title you already knew that as well. (My goodness, you are ruining all my super big fun surprises today.)

So ... Haniela. Love her. Adore her. Sweetest woman on the planet with some pretty amazing things on her very beautiful blog of superbigfunsurprises. She makes delicious food, takes incredible pictures, and somehow managed to grow a tomato the size of my head. Okay, maybe not quite the last one, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be true. AND... she makes the most fantastic cookies with a ziplock bag.

~SNOWBOARDING SNOWMAN by Haniela~

Blogging is amazing. I found another friend! One year ago, just around this time in January, I was holding a cookie decorating contest over at my blog, Haniela's and that is how I found Georganne - via the contest. Sweet, heartfelt, funny, witty, creative and absolutely beautiful in and out Georganne.

Georganne emailed me several weeks ago about her idea of a Snowman Series on her blog and wanted to see if I would have time to stop by and share a snowman or two, and even though I've only made one snowman cookie in my life I said YES.

I made you a Snowboarding Snowman, with a snowboard and all and who, btw, is deeply in love. I'm sure you'll notice the mittens with little red hearts.

Prepare cookie dough and royal icing. Color royal icing with desired colors. Fill piping bags with outline consistency and flood consisteny icing for each color you are using.
Make a template for the snowboard and the snowman. (It is not entirely necessary if you have a proper size cookie cutter for the snowman. I have either small or large cutter so I decided to make a template that would work for my project. )
I cut my cookie slightly larger than my template. Once baked and cooled, I used a yellow food coloring pen and outlined my template directly onto the cookie. See the yellow lines?
I piped outlines on the Snowman and the Snowboard.
Flood both cookies with royal icing, let dry completely.
Using Food Coloring Pens add details onto the snowman cookie.
Attach the snowman to the snowboard using a medium to stiff consistency royal icing.
Support the snowman from several sides and let dry for several hours until he stands on his own.
Enjoy.

Snowboarding Snowman

I hope you all like my Snowboarding Snowman; it would make my day if you dropped by over at Haniela's. I'm always baking, whipping and decorating something over there.

See you at Haniela's soon.

Snowman Teacups -- Guest Post from Sweet Sugarbelle

2012-01-15T18:26:00.003-07:00

If I was stuck on a deserted island, and I could only take one thing with me, I would choose Callye from The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle. She's really, really creative and has a way of looking at things from a surprising angle. So you know, she could probably find a way to turn sand and leaves into a sailboat and we would be out of there in a couple of days. But just in case it took a few weeks, she also makes the best cookies EVER...so we'd be set. Plus, she's super nice. She'd probably agree to do a guest post or something for me while.....wait a minute -- she already has! She's HERE. Today. Guest posting. Go ahead. Just say hi to her!

~~~~~*~~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~*~~~~~

Howdy y’all. Don’t panic. I don’t really talk that way all the time, only when I’m in a new place trying to subtly tell people that this blog has been hijacked by a Texan.

So, here I am. The cookie baking Texan. Nice to meet y’all. By the way, I don’t say howdy much, but I do say y’all all the time.

Anywhoo …Texans are kind of known for being friendly. As a matter of fact, the name Texas comes from the Caddo Indian word meaning “friend”. There’s your history lesson for the day.

I’ll admit, after a few years in Virginia, I developed a few non-Texan traits. But when it comes to friendliness, I’m all Texan. I like making new friends almost as much as I like baking cookies.

A couple of weeks ago Georganne asked me if I’d like to swing by her bloggy-o and share a snowman cookie. She said she wasn’t quite ready to let winter pass us by, I had to agree. So, even though I live in the desert, and know zero about real life snow, I had an idea.

And wouldn’t you know, after I made these, we had the snowstorm of all snowstorms! It couldn’t have worked out better if I planned it.

To begin you’ll need to piece together the cookies. This will require a snowman and teacup cookie cutter. It doesn’t really matter if they’re exactly the same as mine. As long as they’re close, it’ll work.

Cut out snowmen cookies and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Be sure to leave a little room for the teacup additions. Next, use the teacup cutter to trim the snowman as I did below. Place a teacup cookie into the space you made.

Make sure they are touching and bake. My recipe works well for pieced cookies, but if you have one you love, use it. The general rule is the larger surface area that’s touching; the less likely they are to break. Also, make sure they are completely cool before moving them. Warm cookies are super fragile.

Now to decorate. Choose the color scheme you’d like to use for the cookies. I’ve done a pastel version before, but this time I was in the mood for rich “Christmas-y” colors. Anyone else feel like they missed Christmas?

Anyway, outline the cookie. Except don’t do the little inside the cup thing I did. I planned to make it look like the snowman was sitting in hot chocolate, but it just ended up an unnecessary step.

By the way, it wasn’t until I started explaining this that I realized that if Frosty were REALLY sitting in a boiling hot cup of cocoa, he’d be writhing in pain. So, I’m glad I skipped it. It was really for the best.

Next fill the spaces in alternating sections. At this point they will need to dry completely, so this would be a good time to call it a night.

The next day, add the details. I used a stencil for the snowflake, outlined the cup, and added a hatband.

Soon after came the brim, face, and a cute little scarf.

Finally, you’re finished. Cute, huh!

Now that the snow is melted, this is probably the closest I will be to a snowman until next year.

Hope y’all like these and aren’t stuck with the melting snowman image from earlier.

Remember I said I like new friends? Well I was telling the truth. Feel free to hop on over to my place, The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle and say hello. I’ll be waiting for you!

Ombre Snowmen

2012-01-13T21:56:00.001-07:00

Do you ever have those days where NOTHING seems to go right? -- Your garbage bag breaks while you are taking it out and the garbage juice gets all over the kitchen floor and worse...leaves a trail on the carpet to the door because you are running late for work and didn't notice the rip until you got to the sidewalk but you couldn't possibly hold off emptying it until later because it's already kind of (a lot) overflowing. The shirt you need is in the dryer and you forgot to turn it on. Someone asks you if you are pregnant. (You're not.) Your shoe breaks. Your water bottle tips over. You run out of gas. Dinner starts on fire. Your children go to bed with toothpaste in their hair. And then, at the very end of the day, you realize ANOTHER DAY IS COMING. And then a meteor hits your house and the roof caves in. -- Me too (except the meteor part.)

Let me ask you another question. Do you ever NOT have those days?

Yeah, me either.

My misfortunes are probably a result of bad karma for secretly judging the guy who has a rooster living in the back of his pick-up truck in the parking lot. You all probably don't have the same excuse. (But if you do, you BETTER be telling me. )

So when you are waiting for sleep in the darkness and the doubt monster comes...let me just say -- You are not that slow. You are not really incapable. Not everyone is judging you. It's not even possible to gain 10 pounds just by watching a cooking show. Your cookies are beautiful. And in the words of my favorite new email friend --

Share the love.

Parade of Snowmen -- Guest Post from Cristin's Cookies

2012-01-12T06:48:00.000-07:00

What? Another guest post? I know what you are thinking -- Will the fun never end? Don't worry. It's for real. This is really happening friends. It's not going to go away when you close your eyes.

Today's guest post is brought to you by the number 38 and Cristin from Cristin's Cookies. When I met Cristin, she was trying to decide if she should get a 6qt mixer or a smaller, PINK mixer. I said big, she chose pink. It was like destiny brought us together. We are practically the same person. She rides her bike a jillion miles a day -- I sometimes go up the stairs if the elevator is broken. She's met Lance Armstrong -- I once did a running test that people say he was really good at. She uses glaze -- I use royal icing. We couldn't be more alike. Anyway...she was super nice to agree to guest post. AND, she even let me go over to her blog today as well! What she doesn't know is that when she's not looking, I'm totally going to peak in her cupboards to see if she is secretly hoarding any left over Halloween candy in there. We ran out of sour patch kids last week and I just don't think I can wait another 9 months for them to come 'round again.

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When I received an email from the infamous LilaLoa asking me if I would be interested in guest posting for her blog, I about cried – or peed in my pants (can you say that on a food blog?) or both! What an incredible honor! I have drooled over Georganne’s gorgeous cookies and incredible creativity this past year as I’ve gotten to know her better through my new obsession with cookie decorating. In addition to sharing her wisdom and creativity, she is also FUNNY. Not just funny. Hilarious! Like side-splitting, pee in your pants (yes, I said it again) that kind of funny. She promised me that I don’t have to attempt to be funny or witty (not even slightly possible) and I could just provide you with a tutorial because I love to do tutorials on my blog: www.cristinscookies.com

So here we go. LilaLoa asked me to make snowmen cookies. Okay, I can do that. I have LOTS of snowmen and for LilaLoa’s fans that don’t know me… I tend to do things big. Big cookies and lots of them, so Georganne’s theme of snowmen worked out great for me. I made just a few ;-)

I have about 10 snowmen cookie cutters, so I decided to make them all.

I started by baking all the cookies. I was going to use LilaLoa’s DELICIOUS chocolate cookie recipe (which people that don’t even like chocolate still get up in the middle of the night to sneak a chocolate cookie from this recipe), but I’ve been wanting to try out Sugarbelle’s brown sugar cookie recipe, so this seemed like a good opportunity for that.

Next I outlined all the snowmen cookies. Since I don’t use Royal Icing and instead use Glaze Icing, I often outline my cookies since glaze doesn’t get the dimension that RI does.

Next I filled the white on all the snowmen. I call this the base coat or bottom layer. This is also when you want to add candy pearls and eyes to your snowmen. I used black candy beads on most of them.

Next I filled the hats and scarves with colored icing. IF you decide to use sanding sugar, this is the time. Make sure all of the white sections are fully dry first. I decided not to use sanding sugar on my snowmen this time. Hubby loves sanding sugar, so I use it a lot, but with this new recipe, I decided not.

Now is the time to add some rosy cheeks to our snowmen. I love rosy cheeks. I used Cranberry Luster Dust since it’s a nice deep color.

To apply the luster dust, just make sure that the area is dry and use a cotton swab dipped in a bit of luster dust and swirl for rosy cheeks. Easy-peasy right?

Next I added eye-lashes for the girls and eyebrows for the boys. Sometimes I use edible markers for this and sometimes I use icing. Today I used edible markers from Americolor.

Next you want to add whatever extra detail you’d like. I added snow swirls at the bottom of the snowmen and I added some extra detail to their hats and scarves.

The last step was to add the carrot noses and their cute smiles and they’re all done. Then you show them to your friend, tell her how incredibly grateful you are to be invited to guest post on their blog and your son says over your shoulder – tell her how yummy they are and she’s missing out by being all the way in Korea! ;-)

Thank you for this honor Georganne!

Aerial of a Snowman

2012-01-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to make these snowmen ever since I saw an overhead view of a snowman somewhere on the internet while doing "research." Seriously, if you don't have a blog, you should get one. Because then you can totally justify spending hours looking at glitter balloons and discovering 37 ways to do your hair with a headband and trying to find the best price on beautiful glass jars for your pantry (you know, because this year you are for-real-I'm-not-kidding-this-time going to clean that thing up and organize it and keep it that way.)

You know what I love about these cookies? They are E.A.S.Y. You just cut them out and ice them up. Cut and ice. The hardest part is making the circles stay circles. I used my graduated circle cutters, but you could use anything at all. Before I got these cutters, I used to use the lids off my spice jars for circles. They come in all sorts of sizes. (And don't you be bothered by the weird cracks in these cookies. I messed up my first picture and had to retake it. Which means I had to re-bake some cookies. And all I had left was the weirdy cookie dough that I was about to throw away.)

Ice the cookies in white. Sometimes, when I am lazy or not paying attention, I ice all the way to the edge and almost over, and then I run a toothpick along the edge to scrape off the stray icing. That way the entire cookie gets piped and its not lopsided. At least its mostly not lopsided. (Someone please invent a way to make perfect circles every time.)

Let them dry overnight. Then add a face on the smallest circle. Try to do a cute one, because if you make a scary one then you will probably have to eat it. And eating heads is a little weird.

Use thick icing to stick these guys together. But don't use too much because you don't want it to squish out. You can choose to either center the cookies on top of each other, or line them up against the back. I think I like the ones that are lined up against the back. They seem less...squatty somehow.

Arms. This is the point where I changed my mind. I was going to use icing. But I got tired and didn't want to make any. I was tuckered out from all that research. (You know how it is.) So I used a brown food marker instead. AND THEN... I got this great idea.

I should have been using food markers the whole time.

If you use a knife to spread the white icing on these guys, you wouldn't have to pipe a thing. Then you could use the time you would have spent filling icing bags/bottles to do some more research.

Snowman 101 -- Sweet Hope Cookies Guest Post

2012-01-10T14:10:00.002-07:00

I would like to introduce you to my ~~enabler~~ FRIEND. I meant to say friend. Her name is Anita. She makes cookies. Just like me. That's why we are friends. And because she's funny. And because she's really nice to me for reasons that I will never understand. And because Anita makes cookies with love, for the love, and because of love. See, she never sees a penny for any of her cookies. Literally, people give that money straight to the ALS Association and then she makes their cookies. It's a cause she believes in. What a doll, huh? I invited her over here from Sweet Hope Cookies because I like her. And I think you might like her too.

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It was only a year ago I stumbled across a new blog and saw this . . .

I loved absolutely everything about what I saw! The deep chocolate colored cookie dough, the color palette of the icing, the different sized iced panels, the pure design. Who knew a simple rectangle cookie could woo me but woo me it did and for the next hour I binged on LilaLoa cookies and cakes. Oh, and let's not even get into her completely adorable and hysterical style of writing and storytelling. You're already here following her blog so you know. Georgeanne and her cookies wooed you too.

And so when Georganne, who happens to be my friend and yes, I'm gloating when I tell you that, asked me to do a guest post on snowman cookies I was totally over the moon delighted. I should probably tell you the reason for my enthusiastic response was that I was being given the chance to do something for my new and wonderful friend. That would make me sound so sweet, wouldn't it? But no. The real reason for my delight in a guest blogging gig was in hopes that by association with Georganne some of the admiration and love that flows her way from all of you would land on me. There. I said it and I'm ashamed. But enough about my emotional neediness. Let's talk cookies.

Since snowman cookies are generally white, unless they're yellow which is never a good thing since as any child knows you never eat yellow snowman cookies, I wanted to go with a contrasting cookie color and by that I can only mean one thing. Make your snowman cookies with LilaLoa's The End-All for Chocolate Cookie Recipe. Oh, who am I kidding. Whether you're going to bake snowman cookies or elephant cookies or just pop raw balls of cookie dough into your mouth (I'm not suggesting that any of you do!), make them with LilaLoa's The End-All for Chocolate Cookie Recipe.

This is the chocolate cookie recipe I use exclusively and as long as people continue to rave about them, I'm not looking anywhere else. Just so you know in case you even care, I follow Georganne's recipe as it appears with two minor exceptions. I replace the 1/4 cup shortening with another 1/4 cup of butter because shortening grosses me out on principle and I always make a double batch because there is always, and I mean always, a couple sheets of chocolate cookie dough in my freezer for emergency cookies, as in "Emergency! Emergency! I need a cookie stat!"

If you look real close at the ball of cookie dough above you'll notice little white and pink specks because during the holidays I added one bag of Candy Cane Kisses to each double batch. I just tossed the bag (minus the cellophane bag and foil wrappers) into a food processor and pulsed the blade until they were finely ground, and threw them into the cookie dough along with the flour which added an amazing peppermint candy flavor. I recommend pulsing the candies in short bursts to avoid the blade from heating and melting the chocolate but be sure to not stop until it's finely ground so it doesn't create bumps and lumps on the finished cookie. Do you know how many flavors of Hershey Kisses there are in the world today? Now stop and marvel for a moment at all the incredible flavors you can add to this incredible chocolate cookie recipe. Go ahead. I'll wait.

(Please note: This guest blogger has not accepted any financial compensation from either LilaLoa or Hershey Inc. for this enthusiastic endorsement. It's not that the guest blogger wouldn't accept compensation. She just hasn't been offered any.)

I have a ridiculously obscene number of cookie cutters. Less than a million but more than a thousand, and that includes about a dozen snowman cookie cutters. Maybe you don't spend your money on cookie cutters. Maybe you flitter your cash away on new shoes for your three year old, paying the mortgage, or supporting the local soup kitchen. We all choose our priorities and knowing this I opted to make my snowmen all the same using 3 circle cutters and 1 mini top hat. If you don't have circle cookie cutters or biscuit cutters then open a few kitchen drawers and cabinets and think creatively. Better get, duct tape the loose sole on your little guy's shoe and buy some biscuit cutters. Everyone needs a set of round biscuit cutters and if your shoeless son starts whining just give him the biscuit cutters and some playdoh and that will take care of that. If you don't have a top hat cookie cutter then DIY them with a knife. You can do it. I believe in you.

In case you're wondering, those are pretzel sticks, not actual twigs. You can use twigs on inedible yellow snowmen but otherwise I suggest pretzel sticks. Chocolatey, salty goodness. Only sugary icing could make it better and that's coming. Hold on.

Since I'm writing with the new-to-cookie-decorating person in mind, let me encourage you to think simple. I know. We all want to decorate cookies like Georganne and Sugarbelle at our first cookie rodeo but it's not going to happen. Nor should it. Keep watching and learning from all the creative cookie decorators. Gather ideas. Get inspired. But don't get in the trap of comparing yours to theirs. Whether you intend to decorate cookies for family and friends or for funds don't forget to have fun. If you play with cookie decorating and practice some skills that lead to results you like, then you'll eventually find your style. Your cookies will be unique. Your cookies will be an expression of you. Your cookies will be amazing! Trust me on this. I know these things.

The three little snowman cookies above are as simple as cookies can be. Just a thin outline of icing, a few extra dabs for details or a sprinkling of cocoa and powdered sugar, but here's a little secret I'm going to let you in on. Lean in close because I'm only going to say it once. The simplest designed cookie will taste just as good as anyone elses' out there and my guess is no one in your family is going to complain about those first practice batches.

Now let's pull out the icing. Here you have a number of choices with variations of each. There's buttercream, royal icing, glaze, and fondant. In the beginning I had a relationship with royal icing that was doomed from the start but once I tried the corn syrup glaze recipe I found on Pam's blog at CookieCrazie, it was love at first squeeze.

You can outline your cookie with icing and then flood the entire surface but to add a little more detail and definition, I like to flood in sections. I outline the entire cookie (left), flood non-touching sections (middle), and in about 20 minutes when the flooded sections have developed a skin, I flood in the remaining areas (right). Now, let me show you my favorite new and easy way to decorate this basic white flooded cookie.

Outline the dried cookie with black icing. Let dry. Color with edible markers.
Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy.

Another quick, easy, fun, and cute way to decorate a cookie is with cookie bling that you apply when the icing is still wet. From left to right we have jimmies, non-pareils, coconut, and sanding sugar. Cookie bling is great for adding texture and a little crunch. You can still add some fun texture to cookies without the bling. Watch.

You can create texture with royal icing right out of the bag with different tips and a swoosh here and a swoosh there but glaze doesn't hold texture and instead dries flat and smooth. To add texture to glaze icing I let it dry for about 40 minutes until I can touch the top of the cookie without breaking the surface skin (the icing will still be wet underneath), and then I add bumps, divots, creases and holes using whatever I can find around the house that's food-safe and hygienic, meaning it's been carefully washed, dried and not dropped on the floor before use. In these examples I pinched the hat texture with a toothpick and created the round divots in the snowman with the round end of the cap from a ballpoint pen. I can't afford the fancy schmanzy decorating utensils made for this very purpose, what with all the expenses related to purchasing cookie cutters. As I said, we all have our priorities.

Texture on this snowguy was made by pinching the partially dried icing with tweezers.
The tweezers were purchased specifically with cookies in mind. They reside in the kitchen. They have never so much as seen a wood splinter or facial hair. I felt it was important to tell you that.

And here are some other snowfellas. Just look at them. I'll withhold any commentary because I'm fairly sure you're stopped reading my ramblings three photos ago, and truth be told, I don't blame you. I should never write a post after a double espresso.

So there you have it. A whole bunch of basic snowmen that anyone can do and if I do say so myself, they look dang near adorable when they're all stacked up together in a field of marshmallows.

And remember, the most important part of decorating cookies is to have fun.
And wash your hands. That's always good too.
And don't forget, and I paraphrase Shakespeare here, "a cookie by any other name (Georganne, Callye, Pam, Bridget or YOU) will taste just as sweet."

Including the broken ones.

Snowman Celebration

2012-01-09T19:51:00.001-07:00

There are two things you should know about me.

1-- I am REALLY good at eating M&Ms. I know because my husband told me. He said I was probably the best M&M eater he's ever met. And he knows at least like, 42 people.

2-- I like snowmen more than most people. By that I mean I like snowmen more than most people do, but by that I also mean that I like snowmen more than I like most people. (Homestar Runner anyone?)

I feel like snowmen kind of get all forgotten after Christmas. It's still winter people. (And when I say "people," I don't mean YOU of course. I mean other people. People that don't like snowmen. Or holidays. Or having fun ever. ) It's the season of snowmen. So I've decided to do something a little bit rash. (Which, is not new for me.) I'm going to have a SNOWMAN CELEBRATION!!! And you have to celebrate with me if you really love me. (Just for the record, I don't even feel guilty pulling that card. I WANT a celebration.)

So here's the deal. I've got some great snowman cookies coming up.

AND I've got some fantastic guest posts about snowman cookies coming up.

AND I'm having a link-up party.

A link-up party. I know, it's totally crazy. Just do it.

First - some cookies. These are super simple to make and clearly you could use any geometric shape you want. I like this shape. (Obviously.) Start with the hat brim. Just pipe a line across the middle and let it dry for an hour (or 3 if you are using a dark color. You know, so the color doesn't get all tired of being in the hat brim and decide to move on to a better, whiter place like the snowman face.)

After it's quite dry, and responsibly staying where you put it, go ahead and fill in the rest of the hat and the face. And then stop for awhile and go take care of some New Year's Resolution that is slowly withering away into a good idea you once had.

Come back after becoming a better you and put some dots on the face, add a nose, and you are done. Unless of course you want to add some pink little cheeks. Or a flower to the hat. Or disco dust. Because I'm pretty sure that you can add disco dust to any cookie you make. I have discovered that it is easiest to do the eyes first, then the mouth and the nose last. If I try to go from the top to the bottom, I can never figure out how curve the mouth around the nose without it getting wonky.

Are you ready for the link-up party?!

Sour Patch Cookies

2012-01-09T00:59:00.034-07:00

I had that totally creepy Marilyn Monroe voice singing "Happy Birthday Mr. President..." stuck in my head. So I decided to watch it on youtube. You know, fighting fire with creepy songs and all. (And seriously -- I know a lot of you are probably Marilyn Monroe fans...but don't even try to tell me it's not creepy.) I think that maybe it made my husband nervous though when he asked me what I was doing and I told him "research."

In other news, today is Kristan's, (Confessions of a Cookbook Queen) birthday. And I just wanted to say in a totally NOT creepy, NOT Marilyn Monroe voice--

Thank you for existing in the world. And for telling people how to text right. You make delicious looking treats that I want to eat right off my screen. And you say funny things that make people laugh because they think it is a joke, but actually they are true and that's what makes them really funny. I like that you aren't afraid to put kool-aid in cupcakes. And I love that you love your child fiercely. Happy Birthday!

In honor of Kristan's birthday, I made Sour Patch Kids cookies. For real. With actual sour patchy-ness and everything.

I scoured the internet for a sour patch kids cookie cutter. As it turns out, they aren't really what you would consider a hot item. You know what IS though? There is this thing called "Pinterest." Have you heard of it? It's kind of like a water balloon fight except that there aren't any water balloons and they have pictures of umm, stuff instead. Okay, actually now that I think about it, its not really like a water balloon fight at all. But it IS popular. I'm pretty sure. But not sour patch kids cookie cutters. (Don't panic. I've got it all figured out.)

Start with your favorite vanilla cookie recipe. If it comes from the refrigerated section of the grocery store, that's cool. The shape isn't what you would call an "exact science." And it's okay if it spreads a bit. You know what, actually, you should start by eating an entire bag of sour patch kids, just so you can get a feel for the shape. Or at least part of the bag. If you eat all of them, your tongue will get all weird and then you will just want to sit down and drink water and maybe watch some reality TV to make yourself feel better about your own life choices and not want to do anything else like making these fun cookies. It's a talent really, to know the exact moment to stop eating them. If there were some kind of trophy for that, I would probably not have one.

Cut out some ovals. Take a web/wreath cutter and cut into both sides. Pick it up from the top and let it stretch just a bit as you transfer it to the cookie sheet so that it will be somewhat ~~deformed~~ taller and thinner. If you don't have an oval and a wreath cutter, you could maybe use the piece-of-candy cutter or a neck tie cutter.

Ice the cookies and immediately cover in SPECIAL SUGAR. (I found some lemon and lime crystals in my pantry and mixed it with some granulated sugar. I mixed about 1 Tbsp crystal with 1/4 c of sugar. It tastes just like the sugar at the bottom of the bag of Sour Patch Kids.) Since these cookies will be covered in sugar, don't spend too much time making the icing pretty. Go ahead and spread it with a fork if you want.

Shake off the excess sugar and EAT THEM ALL RIGHT AWAY. Or you know, let the icing dry and EAT THEM ALL LATER. Or you could share them. (What? Who does that?)

WAIT!! The party doesn't end here. It's like New Year's Eve where you and your friends skip around to a whole bunch of places hoping that the next one will be cooler than the one you are at. So, go ahead and start skipping around... (But promise you'll come back here later today. I have more fun planned!)

Cookies and Cups

The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle

Photo Editing for Cookie Makers (not photographers)

2012-01-05T08:24:00.001-07:00

Here is my January confession -- I edit my photos. Compulsively. Even the ones I take of my children playing with paper cups and marbles on the living room floor. Especially those ones because my living room has the worst light ever. It makes SUCH a difference in my end photos.

Every time I see someone posting photos of gorgeous cookies that you can't quite make out because the shadow monster came and ate the afternoon sunshine, I want to write to them and tell them how easy it is to change that. I want the whole world to appreciate their cookie goodness at a glance. But I don't, because I feel totally awkward about it. I mean, maybe they like their photos that way. Who am I to judge the shadow monster?

AND because I feel like there is this pressure to be an amazing photo-taker-person and if you admit to editing, then no one will like you because you are totally cheating and maybe you didn't even make those cookies in the first place. Maybe you just spent years learning the coolest photo-shop skills EVER and are now just a big tricker trying to fool people into thinking that you know big words like "royal icing" and "outline consistency." But MAYBE the simple truth is that even though you would LOVE to be some kind of amazing at photography, the simple fact is that you like making cookies a lot more than you like learning about aperture and focal length. (Fingers pointing at me.)

Goodness, we all know that there are some flat-out incredible people who do both. Chances are...I will never be one of them. So I edit. Except that I have decided to call it "processing." It sounds so much nicer and less cheater-ish. It's probably going to take the world by storm, so go ahead and start using that phrase. (What? People already call it that? Gah. I guess I won't be on the list of top 10 word-maker-uppers this year either.) (And I thought 2012 was going to be my year.)

Back to photos. I AM NOT AN EXPERT. Just want to make that clear. I am going to tell you how this one girl in South Korea processes her photos. So, you know...don't hate on me if I say something that is totally weirdy or different from how you do it. Or how it is supposed to be done.

You might already have a favorite photo processing program. Use what you love. If you don't have one and you need one, check out Paint.NET. It's free and has lots of fun options. Not that you need a jillion tools. There are only a few things I do to my photos. (Weird. I just thought "LET" and typed "THEY." What was THAT all about?) Let me define them for you real super quick and then show you how I use them on a photo.

Cropping -- Cutting around the edges of the image until it shows only what you want to see.
Brightness -- How much light is in your photo. I know, it's a real tricky one to figure out.
Contrast -- The difference between the light and the dark.
Saturation -- How much of a color there is.
Tone Curves -- The tint of the photo. You know how sometimes you take a photo at night and everything is kind of like a different color in your photo than it really should be? That's where tone curves come in.
Watermark -- I write on my photos. I put my blog name on there because I'm conceited. Or careful. Depends on how you look at it.

Okay, let's do this.

Here is my beginning photo. (Love these cookies.) I'm using Paint.NET here.

The first thing I do is crop or trim the photo. In Paint.NET, you select the part you like with the rectangle thing in the top left of the Tools box and then select Crop to Selection in the Image menu. I like squarish images. But that's totally my own thing.

After cropping, I increase the brightness. The shadow monster basically lives at my house. On the balcony. On Paint.NET, you can find the brightness tool under the "Adjustments" menu. Almost everything you need is in that menu.

Contrast is in the same box, which is excellent, because I usually adjust those two things together every time. It just makes sense to me in some weird photo altering way. Its like in another parallel universe, they were my best friends and we always went to the mall together. And one of them would tell me how great those jeans looked and the other would tell me how much I needed to buy them right away. See? They go together.

If you have to lighten the photo a lot, then your deep reds will turn into pinks and you will need to add some of the color back in to the photo with the saturation option. You probably can't tell the difference with this photo. I probably can't either, but that doesn't stop me.

And then you get to play with the tone curves. I avoided these at first because I didn't understand them. I still don't understand them, but I've decided to approach them with reckless abandon anyway. Generally, I use white icing on my cookies or have some white in the background of the photo. I focus on that. If it is pinkish, I move the red curve down. If it has a yellow undertone, I move the blue curve up. Also I find that my camera picks up on the main color and kind of tints the whole picture that color. So if I made a cookie that is almost all green, I usually have to move the green curve down just a bit.

The very last thing I do is adding the watermark. My favorite part of this program is that you can adjust the transparency of the text so that you can still see your photo behind it.

And that is it. It seems complicated, but that's only because I use a lot of words to describe nothing at all. In reality, it takes me anywhere from 60 seconds to 5 minutes to edit a photo.

Tell me -- What are YOUR photo processing tips?

2011 -- It's What's For Dinner.

2012-01-02T06:33:00.000-07:00

I don't send Christmas cards. I don't write letters. I can't even email my mother back in a timely manner. I pretend I will, but I never do. (Seriously Mom -- sorry about that.) But I do have a blog.

I've been blogging for like 364 days now. Exciting, right? Maybe not like fireworks-and-free-money exciting, but at least like finding-your-favorite-jeans-in-the-back-of-the-closet-and-putting-them-on-to-discover-$5-in-the-pocket kind of exciting. And to celebrate, I'm going to force you to endure a review of the last 12 months of my blogging life. Kind of like how on your birthday you get to choose all your favorite foods and everyone else has to eat popcorn shrimp and licorice for dinner. Consider yourselves lucky that I don't make home videos.

January. I started blogging. And did a lot of experimenting with royal icing vs. fondant for cookie designs. And in the end...I decided that I couldn't decide. Really? How can you choose one of these weirdy guys over the other? I also did that one post about how to make your own cookie cutters starring that one bracket square cutter shaped thing.

February. I made some really ugly cookies. Goodness, that was kind of like my blog going through puberty. (Can I say that on a sugar blog? Is that weird for anyone?) Oh, and I also made a cake with a fish that was thinking about Wesley. And I met Haniela. What a great month. Except for the turning 30 part. And only getting a brownie. That I had to buy for myself. At a bake sale. In South Korea.

March. I made some shamrock cookies that ended up on Cakewrecks. And a lot of cookies with an egg cutter and most of them weren't even egg cookies. I bought some Ateco couplers (which you should TOTALLY do if you haven't already.) And made some sparkly cookies that I shipped to America. Oh, and I did some royal icing stenciling for the first time ever.

April. I made a cake with a dolphin that was a super-hero. And some cookies that LOOK like expensive cameo jewelry to send to my mother for Mother's Day. And continued on in my chicky-cookie craze. And I got sick. Like every day of my life sick. And I thought it was because I was training for a marathon. But it wasn't.

May. I made some owls out of ghosts and some people out of fish. And I had to stop making chocolate cookies for a while. Because chocolate was seriously starting to gross me out. And I finally learned how to edit my photos. And I did NOT run the marathon.

June. I went to the beach. Like, an actual beach with sand and seashells and everything. And then I made some seashell cookies. And my daughter got older. And I made her a cake that was a total mess. And Sesame Street came to South Korea, but it was more terrifying than exciting. Oooh, and I bought a bus. Okay, its actually a van, but all the schools in Korea paint them yellow and call them a bus. And that's what I bought. And I drive my family around in it. (But its not yellow, in case that information is important to you.)

July. I made some cookies and talked about the 4th of July in the US and someone hated me for it. And I went to a barbecue and there was this big ol' confrontation at the grill. But then there was lots of baseball and water guns and everything turned out okay. AND...I finally told everyone that I was growing a child inside of me. You know, with cookies. Confessions are always better with cookies.

August. I set some kind of new record for making Halloween cookies early. And I added black food coloring to my chocolate cookie dough for some super easy, great tasting black cookies. And I put mustaches on apples. Because that seemed like a good idea to me.

September. I continued making more Halloween cookies than I ever thought possible, including some weird ones that should have been snowmen, but turned out to be pumpkin witches. I also participated in my first cookie exchange ever. And I gained like 20 pounds and drove all over Korea in my bus-van.

October. I dressed my cookies up in costumes and told you all my most embarrassing secrets. I made some "scarier" cookies because my sweet little boy decided he was going to go and get all grown up on me all of a sudden. And I talked about all the mean things people say to you when you are pregnant, except that they don't know they are being mean, and they are probably just trying to make awkward conversation. And I finished all my Christmas shopping.

November. I had a child. In a foreign country. And used eyeballs on 50% of my cookies. But mostly, this month was filled with the new child.

December. I made some shiny aluminum Christmas trees. And I can't remember anything else. What is that saying? Any year that you can't remember is a good year. What? That's NOT how it goes? Eh. See you tomorrow.

Cookie Crackers and a White Chocolate Cheesecake Ball

2011-12-29T21:31:00.003-07:00

I have a confession. Sometimes, I throw food away. Like, in the garbage can. Don't tell anyone, because actually, I think it might be illegal in Korea. (You have to recycle it.) (I'm not kidding.) Usually I do recycle it. (Like, into my mouth.) You know, just doing my part to make the world a better place and all. But SOMETIMES when that basket of home baked goodness has been staring you in the face for days on end and you cannot possibly will yourself to walk away and stop eating it... there is only one option. Look, all I'm saying here is -- don't be afraid to get rid of all those left over Christmas goodies so that you can make room for these delicious New Year's Eve treats.

FOR THE "CRACKERS" --

Find some type of squiggly edged cutter and using your favorite vanilla sugar cookie dough, cut out a bunch of cookies. Then poke holes in them with a fork. In case you are wondering, we have forks with only 3 tines. THREE TINES. I hate them. My husband loves them. I tell him that they are called FOURks for a reason. He says that that's NOT why they are called forks. We're kind of at an impasse here.

After you cut out the cookies and before you bake them, mix some yellow food coloring with some water and just a tiny, tiny bit of brown to make a gold-ish color. Or, you know, use gold food coloring if you have it.

This is my high-tech ultra expensive cookie decorating tool. I just got it for Christmas. I've been wanting one for YEARS. Its called ... a paper towel.

Fold it up and use it to paint the food coloring on the tops of the cookies. Get enough on there that it actually changes the color of the cookie, but make sure you don't leave any puddles. (That sounded kind of weird when I wrote that, but I actually can't think of another way to say it. Don't think any less of me.)

And then sprinkle some big old chunks of sugar on top. Not like super huge sugar cubes or anything, just some salt size sprinkling sugar. (WHAT IS THAT CALLED ANITA?)

Then bake your cookies. And done. In a matter of literally minutes you have made a giant pile of cookies that look just like crackers. Because on New Year's Eve, even the cookies want to dress up and party.

WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE BALL

printer friendly version

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

2 Tablespoons butter

1 cup white chocolate chips

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup mini chocolate chips

2 graham crackers

Place the butter and white chocolate chips together in a medium size microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each interval. (White chocolate chips burn really easily, so be careful not to microwave for too long.) As soon as they are melted, add the cream cheese and salt and blend with a hand mixer. Add the powdered sugar, stirring by hand if necessary. Place in the freezer for 15-20 minutes or until firm enough to shape into a ball. While the mixture is hardening, crush up the graham crackers and place on a plate with the mini chocolate chips. After shaping the cream cheese into a ball, gently roll in the grahams and the chocolate chips. And then definitely eat that right away. Or refrigerate until you do.

Where are you December? (Sleighs)

2011-12-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and saw that according to all the "x"s on the calendar, it is now the END of December. WHAT?! How did that happen? I mean, I have some hazy memories of spending HOURS trying to decide what fun treats to make for my neighbors, but I don't actually have any memories of making any of those treats. I remember my child singing, "...jingle all the way...oh what fun it is to shoot yourself out of a cannon and into the house through a window..." (He's 4. What can I say? Oh, and you know what else? He got a pretend shaving kit for Christmas and the first thing he said was, "GAH! But the hairs don't come out of my face!") And there were some empty chocolate candy displays at the store and maybe a leaning shack of gingerbread in there somewhere.

But where were the carolers? And the MITTENS? AND THE SNOW? And... I don't know about you, but I certainly haven't had my fill of hot cocoa and soft lights and pretty music.

In fact, the only proof I have that December REALLY happened at all is this picture. And one of my daughter with a stuffed dog that is bigger than she is. But, you don't get to see that because actually she's terrified and its NOT a happy picture. Like, at all. The poor child. Ooh, and I guess I have these chocolate cookie sleighs. But, they are totally going to have to be eaten if they are to be believed. I mean, they could be a mirage or something, right?

Has anyone else's December turned up missing? Or is it just me? I mean, if this is big enough, we could probably report it to someone. You know, get a task force down here and maybe some cameras or something.

P.S. Yes, I am fully aware that the lower half of my Christmas tree is bereft of all ornaments. It was not intentional. We have an 18 month old, and it just kind of happened over time. Like, over at least a 20 minute period of time.

I made a cake.

2011-12-21T20:20:00.001-07:00

I know its hard to believe that I have a life outside of cookies. I totally do though.

I also make cakes.

(Sometimes.)

I used to make cakes a lot. And I used to post them here a lot. In fact, when I started this blog...I only made cakes. Cakes are a lot harder to give away to your neighbors or send with your husband to work though. And then I moved to South Korea. And now I am the proud owner of the smallest oven in the history of ever. Except that, I actually don't even own the oven. It just came with the apartment I am renting. So, I guess that makes me the proud renter of the smallest oven in the history of ever. So now, I mostly make cookies. Except that there was this one event in my husband's life for which he recently desired a cake. A big ol' cake, actually. And he said that if I loved him, I would make him a cake. And if I REALLY loved him, I would put it on my blog.

So I said yes. You know, because I aim to please and all that. Can't say no. Except that, I actually can. For some reason, I got really good at it this year. So, you know, I can now cross that New Year's Resolution off my list from 1997. And before you ask...here's my method for everyone else out there that feels overwhelmed because they can't tell people "no" even when they have three children and are working full time and their mother is sick and they have to paint the entire set for "Oklahoma!" by 3pm today -- RUN AWAY. Seriously, just shout "no" over your shoulder while heading the other direction. Works like a charm. They never have a chance to guilt you in to changing your mind. And then stop answering your phone and logging on to facebook for like 3 weeks, and you will have successfully dodged that bullet.

Candy Canes

2011-12-20T00:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, so a few days ago, I had the BEST dream. You know the kind of dream where you wake up and immediately you try to go back to sleep so you can have it again, except it never works that way and if you try to force it, weird things end up happening in your next dream and they totally negate the goodness of the first dream? Yeah, it was that kind of dream.

In my dream, I was funny. Like, really funny. Seriously, I was SO FUNNY that even super famous and attractive movie star type people wanted to hang out with me. (For the record, I don't usually dream about super famous and attractive movie star type people. So...that means I was really funny.) And in my dream it was the best day because everyone liked me and wanted to make me happy. And for some reason we were playing reindeer games, and...well, to be honest, things got kind of weird after that. And when I woke up, I had this un-explained NEED to make candy cane cookies. With sugar on them. So I did.

But I felt kind of weird about making just candy cane cookies. So I made some other cookies too. (Hmmm. I wonder what it is inside a person that makes them feel weird about making only candy cane cookies, but doesn't make them feel weird about sharing super odd dreams.)

Christmas Trees on the Traditional Side

2011-12-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

My only male child is the BEST at hide-and-seek. Well, I mean, as long as the rule "If I can't see you, then you can't see me" applies and as long as hiding in the same place over and over is considered skill, then he's like a super hero of hide-and seek. World Champion even. A few days ago he was hiding behind the bassinet, under the Christmas tree while I was mopping the kitchen floor. (See what I did there? See how I managed to ever so casually mention that I was ACTUALLY cleaning my house? And then I made it seem like something that happens all the time and not something that was happening for the first time in a week...or three.) He talks to me all the time while he's hiding. As long as there is no visual contact, he's happy to be "hiding" out for a while.

We were talking about all sorts of important life things.

Male Child -- Mom, why are you cleaning?
Me-- Because its good for our house to be clean. It keeps us healthy and makes us happier.
Male Child -- Oh.

Male Child -- Mom, did you want to ask ME a question?
Me -- Umm, yeah, I sure did.
Male Child -- Okay. You can ask me a question.
Me -- Why do you like lying under the Christmas tree?
Male Child -- Because I like to look at all the colors of Christmas.

And contrary to what you might think after the pink trees and the blue snow cookies...my tree is actually decorated a very traditional red, silver, brown and green. Pretend there are pine cones on this tree...and its like you are sitting in my living room. We're practically neighbors now.

I LOVE making these trees. They are really easy to make and even better -- OH SO VERY FORGIVING. Nothing needs to be perfect. At all. Not even a little bit perfect.

You need a #233 (grass) tip for these cookies and some real thick icing. Like, thicker than outline icing. As a reference, it should be able to hold a peak until it dries. And it should crust over in about 30 seconds. Oh yeah -- and you might want some thinner brown icing. Which is totally not in this picture. But I'm not about to re-take a picture just so you can see what thinner brown icing looks like.

Pipe on your tree trunk first. And let it dry a bit. Or not, actually. It really doesn't matter as long as it is on there first.

You want to start from the bottom of the tree and work your way toward the top, making branches as you go.

The key to having individual pine segments is to keep the tip from touching the cookie. Hover over the cookie and squeeze until the icing hits the cookie, squeeze for just a moment longer, and then pull away in a downward direction until all the icing strands have broken. It sounds complicated, but its really, really not.

Finish making clumps of branches all the way to the top of the tree. The less careful you are, the better. If you stress out about perfection, you're going to ruin everything. Unless, of course, you're really good at perfection, and then, you know, do your thing. (Clearly, I am NOT on the "good at perfection" team. That's why I LOVE these cookies.) 30 seconds. Done.

Oh, and you can make wreaths the same way. And just think about all the possible decorations you could add to these trees...sprinkles and sugar pearls and shiny stuff and...you know... more stuff. But if you are going to add some kind of beautiful and creative decorations, you should do it IMMEDIATELY after piping all the branches. Trust me on that one.

Giveaway Winners!

2011-12-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I do a giveaway, I feel like I need to let the winner reveal take as much time as possible. But then I realize that its totally annoying when I click through to see the winner and I can't find who it is right away. And I get all excited, because somehow the longer it takes to find the winner, the better chance I feel like I have. Probably because it would be just my luck to win a giveaway and to have made a mistake typing my own email address and then never be able to find out that I was the winner... Actually, as a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I've won a kitchen aid and no one told me and then they gave it away to someone else...So if any of YOU have it...you are welcome.

Gahh--- look what you've made me do. I'm all distracted and taking up your time and totally annoying at least, like, 7 of you. Okay, okay, here are the winners--- (PS -- Did you hear that Copper Gifts wants to give away two additional cutters?!? THREE winners!) (PPS -- You are distracting me again...)

Winner #1

Michelle -- who said -- "I came up with the best reason of all: I should win the cookie cutter because: 'DITTO all the comments above!' "

Winner #2

Cheryl (Grandma Coco)

Winner #3

Babsmike -- who has a youngest daughter (Just like me -I have one of those too!) who is graduating and in need of cookies.

I am going to email you all, but if you don't hear from me because your email has determined that it hates me and re-routes all my loving and giving emails to your SPAM box, then go ahead and send me an email. You know, to my email address. The email address that is right over there --------> on the right side bar.

If you didn't win and you still want a fancy square plaque cutter anyway...you can get one from Copper Gifts by clicking HERE.

Pink Christmas Trees

2011-12-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

I made you some Korean Christmas trees. Ha ha ha. I'm kidding. I kid. Ahhh, I'm so funny. Actually, I really am. My son told me so. He said, (and these are his EXACT words) "Oh Mom, you're so funny. You're the only funniest person in the whole world." So...there's your proof. I'm totally funny.

I guess, it's not really funny unless you live in Korea though. See, here in Korea, Christmas is more like Valentine's Day. You celebrate it with a significant other instead of your whole family. (Or hide at work all day hoping someone will send you flowers and then act all surprised when the flowers you ordered for yourself come with some cryptic "secret admirer" note.) (Hypothetically.) And kids generally only get a small gift from their parents, and usually only until they are about 8 years old. So you know...pink like Valentine's Day, trees like Christmas...Korean Christmas trees...I swear I'm funny.

In case you want to make these...here is how I cut them out. I used a candy corn cutter from my Halloween pile and cut the trunk out with a square cutter. Then I squished them taller and leaning. --I'm kind of a squisher. It's what I do.-- But as I was cutting these out, I realized that an ice cream cone cutter would be like a jillion times easier because there would be no squishing involved.

I have to confess though...I felt a little weird making these big, shiny ALUMINUM Christmas trees. I'm probably going to have to make some Charlie Brown Christmas trees now to make up for it.

Winter Squares and a Giveaway

2011-12-08T01:34:00.000-07:00

~~~~~ GIVEAWAY CLOSED ~~~~~

Once upon a time in a land far, far away called South Korea, there lived a little bracket square cutter. And this little bracket square cutter was so sweet and beautiful that every loved it and wanted the cutter to come live with them and be their best friend forever. But this little bracket square cutter already had a best friend in the whole world, and wasn't looking for another best friend. Except that secretly, this cutter really did want another new best friend because her other best friend wouldn't take her to the mall or buy her chocolates or anything. And the cutter cried herself to sleep every night for at least like 3 days or something.

And then her fairy godmother, Beth (at Copper Gifts) took pity on the poor cutter and sent her not just one, but TWO new best friends. And they stayed up all night long talking and talking and giggling even though they promised they would go to bed by 10. And then they realized that three really is a crowd. And that one of them needed to go be someone else's new best friend forever...Okay, actually, this story is getting kind of weird.

Look, I'm just going to come right out and say this. Beth sent me an extra cutter to give away to one of you all. So...leave me a comment telling me what occasion or design you would use this cutter for and random.org will happily choose a winner. Giveaway ends at midnight Pacific Time on Wednesday, December 14, 2011.

~~~~~ GIVEAWAY CLOSED ~~~~~

Baby Faces and Blankets

2011-12-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

Remember that one time that you went to see the doctor and he started talking to you and you just stared at him blankly because even though there were actual words coming out of his mouth you couldn't understand them at all and for like a whole 27 seconds you found yourself wondering if you were still in the same country and if he was really speaking English? But then you started to pay attention and realized that you could understand the little words like "if" and "the?" Why do they do that? I mean, I get that there are medical words that are just medical. You know, like "hemoglobin." But why do they use REALLY big, important medical terms for super normal easy to say phrases? For instance... every single time I've had a baby I hear this question --

"Have you been ambulating?"

And I'm thinking, "Are you kidding me? I don't even talk to my husband about stuff like that....oh wait...you mean WALKING? Why yes, yes I have. Thank you for asking."

I can honestly say that now I am grateful for all those medical terminology lessons. Because I had a baby in South Korea. And "medical terminology" was our common language. Who knew that all this time those fancy talking doctors in America were simply looking out for my future welfare and trying to impart a very important language lesson? So, you know, maybe you should pay attention next time you go to the doctor. You never know when you will end up in South Korea having a baby.

P.S. No innocent baby was neglected in the making of these cookies. Daddies need tiny baby cuddle time too.

P.P.S. Please try to overlook the weirdy-ness of the pictures. I took them kind of quick. Mommies need LOTS of tiny baby cuddle time.

simplest turkey cookies ever

2011-11-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

You know how sometimes you spend hours and hours and HOURS doing something super special for someone you love and you go to 7 different stores on 3 different days to find exactly the right thing and you give up sleep and maybe get glue-gun burns and then they pay attention for 2.7 seconds and don't even say "thank you?" I hate that.

And then you whip something up super quick just to use some left-over pieces of whatnot and you put no thought or time in to it and this same person falls all over themselves saying how you are the greatest, smartest, most talented, beautiful and awesome person in the world? And then they shower you with love and candy? Yeah....I don't mind those days so much.

These cookies are kind of like that. (The second type. Not the first.) My young son is OBSESSED with these cookies. He just looks at them and starts giggling. He likes holding them and touching the eyeballs. (He IS after all, a BOY.) He says they are his very favorite chicken cookies. (We'll work on that whole chicken/turkey thing another day.)

They are incredibly simple to make, and I just used left over whatnots from the turkey-hand cookies.

Step 1. Bake a cookie. I used letters, but you could use squares or houses or flowers or....whatever. Really, don't stress yourself out so close to the holidays. Just reach in that bin of eternal despair where you have all the cutters you are pretending you're going to put back where they belong and grab one out. Then flood the cookie with brown icing.

Step 2. Immediately drop on some of those left-over eyeballs and beak/gobblers whatnots. That's it. Done. You are loved and showered with candy. So easy.

Turkey Hands

2011-11-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

Has this conversation ever happened to anyone else?

Friend -- "Hello my dearest friend in the entire world, would you like to come over to my house for Thanksgiving dinner? I'll cook amazing wonderful food and I will fill my house with people that love and adore you. And there will be gifts."

Me-- "Yes!"

Supposed Friend -- "Great! Come over at THREE -- IN THE AFTERNOON."

It sounds great on the surface. They draw you in with promises of love and food and gifts. (Probably I'm making up the gifts part.) But THEN... then they drop it on you. THREE O'CLOCK. IN THE AFTERNOON. What are you supposed to do? Do you eat lunch? I mean, we're talking Thanksgiving dinner here. You are supposed to be hungry. So that you can eat a lot. But what if you don't eat lunch, and then you get there and they expect you to just mingle for two hours?! I don't know about you all, but I'm not a nice person when I'm starving. I don't want to "mingle." I don't want to "talk" and "enjoy myself." I want to figure out a way to distract the hostess long enough so that I can snatch some of that delicious smelling food coming from that room of temptation she is calling a "kitchen." Either that, or I'm going to start gnawing on the sofa.

I'm not saying that you can't invite people over for Thanksgiving dinner and offer them gifts. By all means -- go ahead and put my name on that guest list if you like. And I'm not saying you can't ask them to come at 3pm. Just, for the sake of their sanity and your sofa, be clear about the time you will actually be eating. ESPECIALLY if there are children involved.

Or you could just make these cookies with those children. And then let them eat them. Before dinner. It's a holiday. Dessert before dinner is totally cool on holidays, right?

Start out by tracing the child's hand. On paper. And then cut it out and use it as a template to cut out your cookies. Just to be on the safe side here, I'm going to mention that skipping a step and trying to cut out the cookie around the child's actual hand is NOT okay.

Flood the cookie with white icing and let it dry for a really long time. (4-8 hours)

While you are waiting, make some eyeballs and some beaks and gobblers. (Yes, I am well aware that the red turkey thing is called a "wattle," but if "true dat" is an acceptable phrase, then I can call it a gobbler if I want to.)

Help your child wash their hands really well. Maybe wash them twice, just to be sure.

Spread some colored icing on their cute little hands. I used thick icing for this, so it didn't run off his fingers before he could get it on the cookie. I would say, if it is thick enough to hold a peak, that's about where you want it.

Oh, and PS -- this is the point where he said to me, "You said this might be a little weirdy. And you were right. This is super weirdy, Mom."

Help them press down ever so gently on top of the cookie. Hold the cookie down while they lift their hand up.

Drop an eyeball and a beak and gobbler onto the wet icing and call it a day.

OR...you could let it all dry for an hour or so and pipe some names on....and THEN call it a day.

Pumpkin Name Card Cookies

2011-11-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

Remember how I posted Halloween cookies in August? That was crazy. And now everyone is going all out on Christmas cookies in November. And I have to say -- I'm a little jealous. Because I can't do that. Not that I don't want to. The thing is, I just can't cheat a holiday like that. I mean, I can't pretend like Thanksgiving isn't there just because Christmas is so much more appealing right now and then on November 24th be all "Oh hey, Thanksgiving let's be best friends and stay at each other's houses and eat mashed potatoes and pie all day long." Because Thanksgiving would be SO MAD. And let's be honest, I just can't handle that kind of hating. Even from a generally overlooked holiday. I NEED to be loved. So...I made some name card cookies. You know, so when people come over to eat your super healthy Thanksgiving dinner that is chock full of all those tasty vegetables and lean protein, they can have a cookie first. Just to take the edge off.

Start with some rectangle cookies. I just used a pizza wheel and a ruler. But, by all means if you have a rectangle cutter then that would be easier. Then draw a picture of a pumpkin (or trace one, or print one from the internet) and cut it out. I used a food marker to trace around the pumpkin template. I think you could do it by scratching the cookie with a toothpick too. Or hey, skip this step altogether and freehand pipe the thing when the time comes.

I used a #3 tip and piped two straight lines next to each other to make a wider border. You could probably just use a bigger tip, and not worry about making two straight lines right next to each other, but that's entirely up to you. Anyway, I left some of the frame empty because I didn't want to trap my poor pumpkin. (You know, like those scary Halloween movies where someone gets left in a mirror.) (Great, now everyone is totally creeped out after reading a Thanksgiving post.) (At least I am. I can basically never look at this post again.)

After letting the frame dry for about 20 minutes, (or two days -- seriously, don't ask) I filled in the outer sections of the pumpkin. You can certainly outline and fill if that's your thing. I just do it all in one step because its what I do.

Let those sections dry for 20 minutes, or until you can see that the shine is gone and then fill in the middle section and give it a stem. I always try to make my stems cute, but they just never work out that way. I guess I'm just cute stem incapable. That's okay. I'll get that worked out someday.

Flood the remainder of the cookie with white icing and let it dry for a real, real long time. Like hours. Oh, and I use a toothpick to drag some of the white into those tiny little corners near the bottom between the pumpkin and the border.

Add on some pumpkin vines, put a name on there and you are DONE. I have this weird thing where I actually really like writing with icing, but a food marker would get the name on there just as nicely. So, don't stress out about the whole "piping letters thing." Plus, if you use food markers, it would be super easy to add some names at the last minute. You know, if you had extra cookies just lying around and some extra people came to dinner, then it would be a perfect match. And you'd be like a hero or something.

Friends of the First Thanksgiving

2011-11-02T18:36:00.000-06:00

So this one time, I made Thanksgiving cookies. But before that, I obsessed about them for days. I dreamed about them for nights. And I even made a new cutter just for those cookies. And then after I made the cutter, my 4 year old walked into the room and saw it and said, "Oh, a bowling stick thing." And by that he means that I could have saved myself jillions of seconds of labor and just used a bowling pin cutter.

And...in other news... I'm really not as hating on myself as it may sound right now, but I don't think I've ever felt so ignorant while making cookies. I mean, I know the history behind the first Thanksgiving in the United States, but I don't know any of the details. And I know that other countries have harvest type holidays as well and some even have their very own Thanksgiving. But why? I couldn't stop thinking about it. So then, I was all, "I'm totally going to spend hours researching and studying and then I'll share that very useful and priceless information on my blog tomorrow." And THEN, there was this other voice that said, "No, you won't." And I was all, "Yes, I will." And that other voice was very convincing and told me I should sleep instead. So I did. I mean, I can't ALWAYS pick the first voice. I don't want them to think that I'm playing favorites or anything. But if YOU wanted to tell me about the harvest holidays or Thanksgivings in your country... I don't think I'd mind.

What I've Learned About Cookies

2011-10-30T19:10:00.000-06:00

Well, since I showed you what I look like pregnant and then posted those cookies a few days ago, we're basically best friends forever now, right? I mean, I can totally stay in my pajamas when you come over at 2 in the afternoon. And we can eat ice cream together for no reason at all. And I can tell you my secrets and you won't hate me or save it up inside until some day when I bug you and then you go and tell everyone, including my mom and that kid I had a crush on in 9th grade. You wouldn't do that to me now, would you? Because for the record, I don't think that kid cares anymore.

Seriously, though there is something I have been trying to decide if I should tell you for kind of a while now. In an effort to "keep it real" (because that is something COOL people do and I desperately want to feel cool one last time before my kids get old enough to tell me that I'm really, really not.) I've decided to tell you.

You may know that I started this blog in January of this year. But here is the lion under the rug-- (elephant in the room? How do you say that?) before that time, I had really only decorated maybe 10 sets of cookies. I never wanted to tell you this because I was afraid as soon as I said it that you would all go searching back through the archives of my cake making days to find those "special" sets of cookies and then stop coming round for visits. And I didn't want you to. I was ashamed of them. I wanted to delete them. And then I realized THOSE COOKIES ARE ME. I made them. They made me the cookie decorator that I am today. Well, probably not today because I have big plans to do nothing at all today. But definitely the cookie decorator that I am going to be tomorrow. And the one I was last Thursday as well. All those awful cookie photos are just chinks on my learning chain. And to save you the effort of searching back through the archives for them...I've decided to post them right here. And hopefully save you some of my own ~~life~~ cookie lessons

ON COLOR --

These are my very first royal icing cookies. Ever. Like, in my whole life. I learned something really important with these cookies. COLOR MATTERS. Don't be afraid to use a little more food coloring to get a shade of icing that is actually appetizing and/or appealing.

At the same time...don't do it one drop at a time. The more you mix your royal icing...the more air gets into it. I mixed and mixed and mixed this brown icing. It was so light and airy. It took a weirdly long time to dry. And after it was dry, if you tried to break the cookie in half, the icing came off all at once and shattered. (Not ideal.)

If you don't like the icing colors before you make your cookies -- you're not going to like the cookies after they are made. I have found that it is best to choose the shades of icing before I ever start mixing them. I use markers but I know some people use paint samples or wedding planning websites for good color combinations.

Dark colors don't happen right away. They take time. When I make black or brown, I add cocoa powder to the royal icing first. It gives me a tasty base that is darker to begin with. For black, I add the food coloring until it is a dark gray and for brown, I also stop 2 shades lighter than I need. They get much darker over night. When I make a deep red... I start with red food coloring until it turns dark pink and won't go redder. Then I add some brown and a tiny bit of black. And in the morning....I have a beautiful deep, dark crimson red. (Here's a hint though. If you accidentally add too much brown...you can get it more red again by countering it with a bit of Wilton burgundy.) See these cookies? I should have stopped long before I did. They dried SO DARK! And let's not even talk about how NOT smooth they are.

ON ICING --

Okay, actually, maybe we should talk about that. Take the time to get the consistency right before you ever put your icing into a bag or bottle. Its worth it. If the icing is too thick you will have points on your edges and weirdy not smooth icing.

If your icing is too thin, it will run over the edge. And if your cookie is more than one color of icing, it will pull your designs right off the edge. And you will cry. And cookies are not for crying. (For the record, this cookie was made by my son. But I've done plenty like this. I just don't take pictures of them. You know, too much crying and all.)

ON PHOTOS --

Don't underestimate the beauty of photo editing -- I'm not talking about creating cookies entirely from pixels here. But some days...it rains all day long. For months. And I just can't get the light I want. So I edit.

Some cookies look better than others. Only photograph your favorite cookies. Pick out your very favoritest of all your favorites and put those on top. Hide the ones you don't like so much. I would never take a picture of myself pregnant and without make up and put it on the internet...oh wait, that was a bad analogy. What I'm saying is that people know you are choosing what you present to them. So, make a choice you are happy with. (I hate that my dots all ran together on the egg cookies. So I hid them.)

There is NOTHING wrong with photographing your cookies on a plate every time. But if you want be different, take different pictures. Take photos of your cookies in the way that is most comfortable for you (like on the plate) and then try arranging them just one other way. You may be surprised at what you find.

IN GENERAL --

Don't be afraid to do something TOTALLY different once in a while. Also though...don't be afraid to not post those super weirdy cookies if they turn out to be something that really should never have happened. :)

Make cookies that taste good. Try not to burn them. And if you don't want to eat them, find a different recipe. I actually don't like regular sugar cookies. So I make chocolate ones. And that works for me. And it makes me happy.

Sometimes you hate your cookies. Take pictures anyway. Because sometimes you don't hate those cookies a week later.

Sometimes though, cookies just don't turn out very well for all your planning and trying and mixing and piping. And you DO still hate them a week later. And you know what? It's just a cookie.

And THIS my friends, is officially THE LONGEST post in the history of my entire cookie blogging life. I think I'll go have some ice cream now. In my pajamas. And...you may as well know it....there are still some dishes in the sink that need washing. Whew. There. It's all out. No more secrets.

A Cookie Story

2011-10-27T17:40:00.000-06:00

These cookies are the product of a story that I'm sure all of us know all too well. Glorious, wonderful, exciting and perfect cookie idea. It's basically brilliant and beautiful mixed together. You can't sleep because these cookies have to be made. You make the cookie dough with those little flutters of excitement in your stomach. (Well its that or you're hungry. So you eat some cookie dough just to be sure.) You roll out the cookie dough. Its so tempting to rush through cutting, but you take your time because these cookies have to be perfect. You mix up the icing. You eat some ice cream. (Because again, you have to make sure you keep up your strength.)

Then you start decorating the cookies. And slowly, slowly, you start to realize that something is a little wrong. And then a little more wrong. And then a lot wrong. And the cookies look NOTHING like that sparkly dancing vision in your head. And then you don't even want to finish the last of them because you hate them. And you just want to throw them in the garbage. But you don't because you are too upset to even touch them. (And because your husband would be super mad if he knew you threw away perfectly good tasting cookies for no reason other than the emotional turmoil they were causing inside you.) And you cry yourself to sleep on the couch. And then in the morning, completely beyond your control, your hands take a picture of them and show them to dozens of unmet friends on the internet. Its an all too common tale, I'm afraid.

Right now I'm on book two of the series. It's where I vow to myself that I WILL make these cookies again and the next time they will look exactly like I imagined they would, except even better. Has anyone read this one? I'm anxious to know how it ends.

Pumpkins in Costumes

2011-10-25T18:08:00.000-06:00

Okay, so Halloween is in just a couple of days. (Which means if you want to buy candy corn before it is gone again for 11 1/2 months -- you need to go NOW.) I have two children and still have exactly two costumes to make. I would feel all bad inside at this considering I make all sorts of decorated cookies on a daily basis and still haven't managed to set aside an hour or two to make costumes for my own children whom I love more than sugar and chocolate and the internet. But the truth is...in the last 12 days alone, my son has FINALLY, ULTIMATELY, this-is-the-last-time-I'm-changing-my-mind-I-swear decided on being a bat, a rocket, a monkey, and a car. So, really, I'm doing him a favor by waiting. The way I see it, if I can just hold out until Friday, he will probably still want the costume I make him. Probably.

My cookies on the other hand just love their costumes. They told me. They said that these are the best costumes they've ever, ever had. And they love me forever and want to give me large sums of money if they ever win the lottery. So, I'm guessing that's a good thing.

More Leaves...this time with dots

2011-10-21T19:59:00.000-06:00

When I was a little girl (way back before I was even in my twenties,) I really wanted cool roller skates. Okay, let's just get this out there right at the beginning -- roller blades hadn't been invented yet. Go ahead and let that sink in, all you people that are much younger than me.

Anyway, there was this girl I knew that had purple and pink and silver sparkly roller skates. They were the kind that fit your feet. You take your shoes off, and put those skates on and lace them up so perfectly and they molded to your foot and ankle so that you could be the best little roller skater girl in the entire world. EVEN THE LACES WERE SPARKLY. I wanted them. I practically needed them. My parents instead got me some weirdy metal skates that you strap to the bottom of your shoes. And they adjust to all sorts of sizes with a wing-nut that doesn't always stay tight. (Much like the skates my son now owns....ahhh, the irony. Except his are totally cool.) As it turns out...they worked EXACTLY same as the sparkly skates. Who would have known?!

I loved roller skating. I would skate around my neighborhood forever. And then my favorite part was when I took my skates off and sat in a chair, my legs would be all wobbly and kind of buzzing from the uneven pavement and it would feel like I was still skating and I'd kind of have a hard time walking normal for another hour. Umm, I don't exactly know why I liked that. It would totally drive me crazy right now. But my point is that these cookies are like that. Not in a weirdy-metal-wing-nut way. But after making these cookies, I tried to go to sleep. And I felt like I was still putting little dots all over these leaves for hours. And it totally drove me crazy. But at least some of the dots were sparkly. So that probably makes me the best little dot putter-onner in the whole world.

Pumpkins on Leaves

2011-10-18T19:13:00.000-06:00

I'm going to give you some advice today. Free of charge. First, let me say that it has nothing to do with cookies or Halloween or anything at all that you probably care about. And second -- don't be offended. This is for my own good. And it comes with lots of love and candy. (Except not the candy part.)

Okay, so, sometimes a female person gets pregnant and she grows another living person inside her own body. Its not exactly the same thing as going to the spa for 9 months. And, I don't know about anyone else, but as of yet, I have not figured out how to do this without getting...well...much bigger in the midsection. Here comes your advice though... Do NOT say to a pregnant woman ANY of the following things --

"My goodness, that baby must be ready to come out any day now, huh?" People started saying this to me around 28 weeks. Which, for the record is a solid 3 MONTHS before this baby was due. It doesn't make me feel good about myself. And it should be everyone's goal in life to make me feel good about myself.

"You just keep getting bigger every time I see you." Again, I haven't figured out how to grow a child inside of me without getting bigger. If I could stop getting bigger every time I saw you, I would. Maybe I should just stop seeing you. (But I mean this in the nicest way possible with loving in my heart and everything.)

"WHOA -- You're HUGE!" It may be true, okay, it's definitely true, but I don't want you to tell me that. Especially if I don't know you. And you are like 10 years younger than me. And look fantastic. And we are at the grocery store and you have nothing but vegetables in your cart.

To be fair though, I mean, I do look like this. (Don't judge my ponytail.) Whoa. That kind of looks like a cookie I made one time. Except that I have a weirdy pony tail. And I don't wear nearly as stylish of clothes. (But someday I might.)

What I want to know is how you tricked me into showing you what I look like pregnant. You're totally taking advantage of the fact that I feel bad because someone called me huge. Great, now I'm going to have to go make some off-centered pumpkins on black leaf cookies to feel better about myself as a person. Oh wait, I already did that. Never mind. I'm good.

PS -- Don't forget to not be offended.

Little Leaf Faces

2011-10-13T18:53:00.000-06:00

The last few days have been kind of rough around here. There has been way too much "scary" and "creepy" and "pumpkins eating other pumpkins." I'm afraid to go to bed at night because I will dream about being chased by pumpkins that want to eat me. And my legs never work. (WHY can I never run in my dreams?!) And then I stay awake all night doing internet research on "what to do when pumpkins attack." I've taken to eating inordinate amounts of ice cream right before bed, hoping desperately to fall into a sugar coma and not awaken until morning. Something had to change.

After I saw Meaghan's cookies at The Decorated Cookie, I knew these had to be made. I had no choice. I was running out of ice cream. Plus, how cute are these little guys? They are totally friends. Friends that don't eat each other. Ever. Not even for pretend.

And this little guy? Definitely my favorite. He's so cute. And happy. And kind of crooked in a way that makes me want to squish him and be friends with him forever. And also, judging solely on looks, he's not likely to want to eat me. (Which, for the record, is a definite PLUS on the plus/minus scale.)

And they are so easy to make. I could make myself a whole little army. Obviously, a NICE little leaf army that would only attack if threatened by pumpkins that eat other pumpkins.

Giveaway Extravaganza Winners!!!

2011-10-13T04:52:00.000-06:00

I can't tell you how hard it has been for me to wait this long to find out who wins the GIVEAWAY EXTRAVAGANZA!!! Okay, maybe I can. It's been REAL hard. Not like running 100 miles hard, but maybe at least running 11 miles hard. Especially because I can't wait to find out if there is going to be a Facebook Showdown!

So...let's get on with it, shall we?

Winner #1 --

who said --

I would like box #3!

is Keri from Sweet Dreams! Congratulations winner #1!

Winner #2

who said --

I'd like to win box #2 please. That's my favorite #. I'd love to win the apron or the cookbook, but my husband would be much happier with the matchbox car (he's a nerd & collects toys)

is Heidi Tilton (Heidi Campbell)! Congratulations winner #2!

Winner #3

who said--

so can I say that it doesn't matter which box I want to win since I don't know what's in them?? ;)

If I have to absolutely pick one then I'll go with #2.

Thank you for being fabulous!!

is Kimberly Armstrong from Yo Mama's Bakery! Congratulations winner #3! (For the record, random.org really did pick her. I'm not playing favorites just because she thinks I'm fabulous. Although, maybe random.org really does take those things into account. You know, just something to think about for next time.)

Okay, so Keri picked box number 3. Let's tell her what she's won! It's...

..the purple group!! Congratulations Keri!

Heidi and Kimberly both picked box #2. What was in that box?

Was it the green group?

Or the blue group?

I'm not going to tell you -- YET. Since they both picked the same box, we have to have our Facebook Showdown! Kimberly and Heidi -- are you paying attention? At 3pm Central Time on Friday, October 14th I will post one question on my Facebook wall. The first person with the correct answer gets to pick the remaining box of their choice. And then everyone gets to find out what they won! (PS -- Do you realize that I am totally going to get up at 5 IN THE MORNING for you all? That's real love and dedication right there.)

UPDATE ~~ UPDATE ~~ UPDATE ~~ UPDATE

Kimberly and Heidi are now pretty much best friends forever. And they can't bare the thought of one of them "losing" on the showdown. They've spent endless hours coming up with possible win-win scenarios and they've finally found a solution that works for both of them. Heidi will take box #2 and Kimberly will take box #3.

SO....WHAT IS IN BOX #2?!! Over HALF of you chose this one! (This may not be exactly true. I mean...I didn't count or anything. But I'm pretty sure if I did it would have been about half.) Heidi will be taking home...

...wait for it....

the BLUE group!! Apparently, many of you need a brand new car.

And that means that Kimberly has won...

...the green prize package!

Don't forget to send me your addresses!!

Scarier Jack-O-Lantern Cookies

2011-10-10T04:46:00.000-06:00

Just LOOK at this. THIS is what I get for trying to compromise a little. I go COMPLETELY out of my comfort box and try to make something just a BIT more on the SLIGHTLY scarier side of Halloween...and I end up with my sweet little boy LIKING THEM. And asking me to make more.

I hope all of you are happy. Because I am fully prepared to blame everyone except me on this one.

In case you are wondering, this is his very favorite cookie of all. He laughed and laughed when he saw it. He said it was the funniest cookie he'd ever seen. He said it was funny because the pumpkin was eating another pumpkin. He thought THAT was funny. Next thing you know, he's going to start saying "insects" instead of "buggies" and riding motorcycles and growing a mustache and telling me that my jokes aren't funny and eating frozen meals instead of peanut butter and jam sandwiches and it's all because I made jack-o-lantern cookies for Halloween.

Clearly, I am going to need more ice cream for this.

How to Make Those Jack-O-Lantern Cookies

2011-10-07T03:54:00.000-06:00

These cookies are the most perfect last minute Halloween cookies ever. Seriously, I think they are going to be in Wikipedia some day under "most perfect last minute Halloween cookies ever." Probably, you should give it a couple of days and then you can look it up yourself. You won't have to take my word for it anymore. Okay, sure, the cats are slightly quicker, but I like these better. (Just promise me you won't tell the cats. It's not like we are really getting along that well right now anyway, and I certainly don't need one more reason for them to hate me.)

The key is to start with a black cookie dough. I used my chocolate cookie recipe and added a little big of black food coloring right before adding the flour. Roll out your cookie dough and cut out some pumpkins. Then use the same pumpkin cutter to add the curvy pumpkin lines to the cookie before baking it. (This is a HUGE reason why I love my chocolate cookie recipe.You can add details like this and they don't bake out because there is zero spread. And because it tastes good.)

Using orange icing, add eyes in whatever shape you feel is best for your Jack-O-Lantern. I usually go for the oh-so-traditional triangle eyes, but I thought I'd throw caution to the wind this time and go for a slightly more menacing shape.

You need to add the yellow "glow" to the eyes immediately. I'm kind of a toothpick gal. (As in, I use toothpicks for everything except making my bed in the morning.) I just dip a toothpick in some yellow icing and draw along the edge of the eye. But you could definitely pipe the yellow icing on there as well.

You can choose where you want the glow to be. On these eyes, I added the yellow to the bottom and outer edges. On the other faces, I added the glow to the top and outer edges. Do what you want.

Let me explain something -- I do NOT like washing icing bags. I avoid it at all costs. Clearly. For the eyes, I put a bit of black icing into a #1 tip, and pushed it out with my very clean and highly washed finger. You don't even have to add black eye dots. You can just skip this step and use that extra 4-5 seconds to contemplate life as we know it. I'll meet you on the mouth step.

Hey -- welcome back. It's the mouth step already. Pipe on some sort of vague mouth shape with your orange icing.

And then using that toothpick again, (or bag/bottle of icing) draw the yellow around the edges where you feel it is appropriate. I basically went for all outer-type edges on the mouth. (I'm sure that clears things RIGHT up.)

This last step is real, real important. You have to stand back after a good hard, 20 seconds of decorating and just admire your cookies. If you don't take this time to appreciate the good things in life (like these cookies) you're never going to find happiness. And that would be sad. And I don't like sad things. Or creepy things. Not that YOU are creepy. That's not what I'm trying to say. Unless you ARE creepy. And if you're cool with that, then that's totally fine with me. Don't change on my account. Just don't come round my house at night or anything like that. Because...see....there are these ninjas....

Jack-O-Lantern Cookies

2011-10-05T23:12:00.000-06:00

This is might be a bit of a surprise to you all, but I'm not really in love with Halloween. I know -- this is coming from the girl who started posting Halloween cookies in AUGUST. Here's the thing-- I adore all the CUTE and FUN aspects of Halloween. But there is so much on the scary/creepy/plain-old-gross end to keep me from falling for this holiday. I'm a pretty lucky girl, because so far, the two boys in my house agree. I mean, my 4 year old still has nightmares from watching the Halloween special of "The Chipmunks." Or maybe that's me. I get confused.

These are my compromise for all of you who like "the other" side of Halloween. They are kind of, a little bit, scary. Maybe look at them in the middle of the night or something. Ooh, and the best part is that they are super easy to make. I'll show you how to do it tomorrow. Or some other day that is not today. Because right now, I have to go play with teddy bears and rainbows and other non-creepy things. Actually, now that I think about it, those things are kind of creeping me out too. Maybe I'll just hide in my closet for a bit. With the lights on. And some ice cream.

1156 Facebook Fans Giveaway Extravaganza

2011-10-04T04:13:00.000-06:00

~~~~~ GIVEAWAY CLOSED ~~~~~

I've been working on the technology to make balloons drop from your ceiling when you open this post. There have been some late nights. And quite a bit of cookie eating. And in the end, I figured that it would be better to skip the balloons. You know, for the sake of all of you who might read this post at work. I wouldn't want your co-workers to get all jealous or anything. See? I'm always looking out for you like that.

So...a giveaway.... don't mind if I do.

I have 3 groups of fantastic prizes to give away to 3 of you. Let's just get right down to it.

In the purple group, I have a Hello Kitty sandwich cutter and press. (You cut out the sandwich and then use the press to .... you know... press the face into the sandwich.) And I am giving away my very favorite Korean cookbook. It's in English, in case you were nervous or anything. And it has a list of substitute ingredients because you probably don't live in Korea. (Because seriously -- if you live in Korea and you like me, and you haven't told me you live here -- just come over already!)

In the green group, I have a Hello Kitty sandwich cutter/press AND a beautiful green Asian type apron and some chopsticks for like 6 people. Even though I purchased this apron here in Korea, I can't guarantee it is Korean. This is a small peninsula that has been occupied by more than one country in its very long history. But it might be Korean, and it looks real nice either way.

And in the blue group, I am again giving away a Hello Kitty sandwich cutter/press and....

A BRAND NEW CAR!!!!

Ummm....a matchbox car that is.

Look, I know it's going to be an all out fight for that little pink car, so I've decided to mask its identity. I have randomly placed each of these groups of items into 3 different shipping boxes. (And by random, I mean, I let my 4 year old do it.) And then I labeled them. With pink sticky notes. Because that is what I had in my drawer. And also because I didn't really think that it matters how I labeled them. The point is that I labeled them.

I know what you are thinking right now -- SO HOW IN THE WORLD DO I WIN SOMETHING??

I'll tell you. Leave me a comment by midnight on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 telling me which box you want to win. And no, I won't tell you which group is in which box. And you can't judge it by size. See? It's FUN. That's why I get to call it an EXTRAVAGANZA.

My good friend random.org is going to help me pick out 3 comments. And in the event that the 3 winners have NOT chosen different boxes, there will be a showdown on Facebook. But that's all I'm going to say about that.

~~~~~ GIVEAWAY CLOSED ~~~~~

Bugs -- but not in a gross way

2011-09-29T20:20:00.000-06:00

You know how when some people are expecting a child they don't want to know the gender of the baby until it comes? And sometimes they don't even pick out a name until they see the baby? They love the excitement and adventure of not knowing. I am not that person. I NEED to know. I have to plan things. Like...you know...THINGS.

So, I'm going to have a baby in about 8 weeks. And after 4 (Yes, FOUR) ultrasounds, the doctor still couldn't tell me the gender. This is a long and complicated story that involves many interpreters and green linoleum and dry toast ( I told you it was complicated) and ends in me getting a new doctor that told me in 2.5 seconds the gender of my next child.

We are going to have another little lady around our house!

And it seems like there is no better way to celebrate girl-ness than with scalloped cutters. (Well, that and a potential apartment fire, right?)

Okay, so as a recap, I just put BUGS on scalloped cookies to celebrate the anticipated birth of a baby girl. And I don't have to go to the hospital with the green floor anymore.

Pumpkin Medallions

2011-09-27T21:55:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, a firetruck pulled up to my apartment complex with lights flashing. 3 firemen jumped out and ran toward the building. My 4 year old was completely enchanted with this up-close excitement and practically glued himself to our window. (Yes, I know -- I need to get this kid more excitement in his little life.) I was slightly less interested. That is, until 3 minutes later when they came knocking at MY DOOR. They don't speak English and I don't speak Korean so well. I wasn't sure what to do. I figured that if they were firemen, they had a pretty good reason for wanting to come in. (Unless of course, they had borrowed the uniforms and stolen a firetruck just so they could trick me into letting them in so they could eat my food and steal all my good stuff...) So I just opened my door. They went straight to the balcony and THEN---

one of them jumped over the edge.

I mean, sure he was attached to a rope and all. But he just walked into my house and jumped off my balcony! Just like that. The other two quickly packed up the rope and left. I just stood there. 3 minutes ago, I was a normal person trying to sneak my son's snacks without him noticing...and now-- my whole life had changed. Some stranger had come into my house and jumped off my balcony. And the worst part was that I don't even know WHY. Or where he was going. Or what he was going to do when he got there. Or how in the world I had managed to make cookies for so long without owning scalloped circle cutters.

Luckily, those kind of questions don't really keep me up at night. I'm happy that my apartment wasn't on fire -- especially without my knowledge -- and that I have a giant set of scalloped circle cutters that I can use any time I want to. But maybe I should work on that whole "learning Korean" thing.

Fall Tree Cookies

2011-09-24T00:18:00.000-06:00

You know what I wish? (Besides world peace and skinny jeans that fit and stuff...) I wish someone would invent some kind of sticky something that actually works just how it is supposed to. See, I live in a pretty nice apartment in Korea. It's beautiful. I love it. Except that holiday decorations are basically NOT going to happen because you can't hang anything on a marble wall. (Yes...I have marble walls. Hate me if you like.) I have tried every kind of self-stick, non-permanent wall hanging device I can find in this country. Oh sure, they CLAIM to be able to hold up to 7 pounds and stick for a year...but THEY LIE. And, where I come from, lying is bad. Like, the kind of bad where you go to your room to think about what you've done, but you have to stay there for so long that everyone forgets about you and THAT is why you have puzzles hidden under your bed. And maybe a juice box.

So...my point is...we tried to decorate for Halloween today and we ended up with some wooden pumpkins on the table and a Happy Halloween sign being used as a tiara. Not really what I would consider ideal. Especially since I was NOT the one with the tiara. But we DO have fun fall cookies. Well, we did. Then we ate them all during our non-decoratable marble wall pity party.

pumpkin witches

2011-09-20T17:23:00.000-06:00

I've been kind of "away" this week. My husband's family has come for a visit. To Korea. (That's across the ocean.) But they are only staying 8 days. :( {<--------sad face} So we have been very busy going everywhere and doing lots of really important things like taking flying cars to the top of mountains and eating kimchi. You know, the basics. And I have a teensy-tiny confession. -- I haven't made any cookies this week. Zero. We did make some rice krispie treats with sprinkles on them, but that is as close to cookies as I've come. So now you have to look at these cookies.

I didn't love them so much when I made them. And I wasn't even going to show them to you. But to be honest...I worked real hard making that tiny little hay bale out of rafia. I've never actually worked on a farm that had hay (or any farm at all for that matter) so I'm not sure how it compares to the actual thing, but I'm pretty sure it was almost as much work. AND, I had to do it on the balcony so a certain small child at my house wouldn't try to eat it, so it DID get kind of hot.... and after a couple of minutes, I got kind of tired of trying to make it work, but I kept going, because if I didn't do it, I knew nobody else would...so you know....that's what I'm willing to do for you all. Make hay bales out of rafia. And let you look at weird cookies while I go to the beach.

Pumpkins and Balloons

2011-09-17T01:07:00.000-06:00

So, I made these cookies because I wanted to. (As opposed to all the other cookies I make because I can't help it. Seriously, sometimes there are little cookies screaming to be made and I can't just walk away and pretend like I don't hear them. They KNOW better. And they would totally call me on it. And then it would be all awkward. And I would probably have to take them to the market and buy them a new outfit to make up for it. And I just don't have that kind of time.) And I liked these cookies. And then I showed them to my little boy. And he LAUGHED. A lot. Like, A LOT a lot. He thought they were VERY funny cookies. See, because the faces are on the balloons instead of the pumpkin. And I started to question who I am as a person. And I contemplated life without sugar. For at least 12 seconds. Well, probably at least like 3 or 4 anyway. And then I did some internet research on vats of ice cream...

And then I remembered this picture. Its a picture he drew for me. It's a picture of him washing the TV and he's messy because he just ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And then I felt a little more bad inside, because I totally laughed when he showed me his picture. BUT...I only laughed because it made me happy inside. And then I felt better because maybe HE laughed at MY cookie because it made him happy inside. So then I decided that maybe we are both just a little misunderstood. And we should probably eat cookies together. And then maybe look into those vats of ice cream after all.

Halloween Pinwheel Cookies -- on a stick

2011-09-14T05:52:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking about pinwheel cookies ever since I saw the cookies on a stick from Carolyn at Occasional Cookies on The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle. Carolyn's cookies are fabulous. They are like a special glammed up sparkly version of cookies my mother makes every year at Christmas. The secret benefit to my mother's cookies however is that they require much, much less effort. (Or so it seems. Because, to be honest, I haven't tried making Carolyn's beautiful cookies. I'm impatient. And my children would eat all the beautifully colored ropes of cookie dough before they were ever wound into the oh-so-impressive looking Lollypop Cookie. And then I would cry. And they would cry. And we would all be eating macaroni and cheese for dinner. And crying. And my husband would walk in the door and stare at all of us, and maybe wish he had some extra work he forgot about that he needed to go back to work and take care of. So... you know...I had to find an easier way.)

So I made pinwheel cookies. On a stick. Super easy. Make a batch of your favorite chocolate cookie dough. Or use mine. And before you add the flour, drop in some black food coloring. And then make a batch of your favorite vanilla cookie dough and add orange food coloring right before the flour. If you want, you can totally add some orange extract in there as well. But that's your call. I'm not here to tell you what to do.

Chill the dough. Even if you never chill dough. You want it to be real, real stiff. Then roll each dough out into its own rectangle. My mom rolls the dough out onto floured kitchen towels. I don't. It's okay though, we've worked through our differences, and I'm pretty sure my mother still loves me anyway. I have to tell you what I use though, because I think it might change your world. Well, maybe. Just a little bit. I use VINYL. Yep, clear vinyl that I purchased in the fabric department of a big box store back ever so long ago when I lived in a land that had big box stores. It was the best $2.37 I EVER spent. (I also use it for fondant cakes and pie crusts and ...you know....stuff.)

Okay, so you have your two different colors of dough rolled out into their two different rectangles on their two different floured dish towels (or pieces of vinyl.) Take the edges of one towel/vinyl and just flip the orange on top of the black. OR the other way around. I really don't care. And I promise not to tell my mom.

Then you are going to roll it all up together. Starting with one of the long sides of the rectangle, lift the edges of the towel and gently help the dough start rolling onto itself. Keep lifting the towel and the dough will just roll itself right up.

I didn't actually take a picture of this part....but it's not too complicated. Cut the dough roll into two pieces and wrap them each in clear plastic wrap. I only cut it in half because I have a little freezer, and because it's easier to carry that way. Then freeze the dough over night. Or for a couple of weeks. Whatever works for you.

When you are finally ready to bake your cookies, take your rolls out of the freezer and immediately start cutting off 1/2" chunks of dough and put them on a greased baking sheet. Yes, you can make them thinner. But I like them thick and puffy. And you want the dough to still be kind of frozen so that it stays rounded when you cut it, instead of all squishing down to the bottom and making some kind of weird ovalish NOT cute cookie.

You can leave them just as they are, or insert some sucker sticks before baking. (PS -- Do you SEE this tiny baking sheet? This is what fits in my little Korean oven.)

And then, you know...bake them. I baked mine at 350F for 15 minutes. You can leave them as they are, or wrap them up with plastic wrap and ribbons so they look like giant, oversize candies. Or...you could just eat them. Right away. And not tell anyone.