Happy St. Patrick's Day: Shamrock Mini Cookies

My mom remembered that she had these mini cookie cutters.  When she showed them to me, I told her that I would store them for her and make sure they were put to use. 

When I saw the shamrock, I knew I had to make some St. Patrick's Day cookies.

Originally, I was going to make cupcakes and use these as cupcake toppers.  I came down with a cold this weekend and decided to stick with just the cookies. 

I used green royal icing and then sprinkled light and dark green sanding sugar on them.  It's a pretty easy way to decorate the cookies, but I love the way they look.

We had my family over for dinner.  My niece and step dad loved them.  I sent a few home with them and the plate was left with crumbs.

Happy Birthday You Say Tomato: Writing on Cookies

A friend of mine celebrated the one year anniversary of her at home cooking classes.  I wanted to do something special for her, so of course I made some cookies.

I took their logo and put it on the cookie.  I wanted to make sure that I got the font right, so I went to my friend Google and found a tutorial on how to trace images/letters on cookies.

Through Sweet Sugar Belle, I found this at SweetAmbs.  She said to use tracing paper and foodwriter markers.  I started to get a little frustrated because the ink didn't go through the tracing paper.  Then I decided to try tissue paper and voila...it worked! Sorry for the not great photos...it was dark when I was working on them:(

 

First, I traced the image using an edible ink marker.

                             

Then, placed it on the cookie and traced over it again.

The ink bled right through and left an image on the cookie.

I was able to pipe on the design, so I got it to look exactly how I wanted.

 

She was so surprised when I gave them to her.  I'm glad that I could give a special, one of a kind gift.  

Their cooking classes are really fun.  You can find out more information about the cooking classes at their website You Say Tomato.

Snowflake cookies

Most people are starting to think about spring.  We just had our "ski" week and I spent four days in Tahoe, so I'm still thinking about snow. 

Uncle Kevin left for Tahoe on Sunday, but I drove up on Wednesday with my sister.  I spent Sunday on the couch, catching up on The Bachelor and reading cookie blogs.  There are so many ideas and techniques that I want to try after all of my reading.

I decided to start with sanding sugar and made some snowflake cookies.

I don't have a snowflake cookie cutter, so I used a flower and piped on the snowflake.

They were pretty big and I wanted to make some smaller cookies too.  I saw these little round "snowballs" at Glorious Treats and thought they'd looked great with my snowflakes.

I was happy with how they turned out and I definitely see myself using sugar to decorate more often in the future.