butterfly cookies!

I ordered some new fun butterfly cookie cutters after deciding the one I had was a bit boring. Don't these just look fun?

In the same order, I also got the kitchenaid beaterblade that has the spatula-like edges so that it scrapes the sides of the bowl and the bottom as it beats. I love it! I spent so much less time scraping the bowl. It formed a lip of dough/icing above where the blade hits the bowl that I would have to scrape off, but that I could basically do while it was going. I think I'm going to end up being quite grateful that I made the decision to get it.

Alright, here are the butterfly cookies I made with my fun new cookie cutters.

The blue one in the upper left corner was inspired by AliBee's blue butterfly cookie that you can see here. My Green icing wasn't at the right consistency and I can totally tell. Seriously, getting the right consistency is really important and not easy.

More Sugar Cookies!

I have more sugar cookies to share! I made more last week and tried a number of different ideas, so I have quite a few pics to show :) I'm going to split them up into separate posts though to make it easier...so if you like what you see, make sure to come back every couple days for more pics.

My first (and quite possibly my favorites from this batch)- cherry blossoms! These reminded me of the time I went to Washington D.C. right during cherry blossom season. It was sooo beautiful!

 I tried a couple different methods of doing the cherry blossoms. What you see above is definitely my favorite. This next picture, you can see on the 2 bottom ones where I tried the wet on wet technique. I didn't like it nearly as much. (it also didn't help that my icing wasn't the right consistency-which makes all the difference in the world when working with royal icing.

Royal Icing Sugar Cookies!

Earlier last week, I stumbled upon a blog called Sweetopia and was in heaven. I spent waaay too much time browsing it only to end up later on another amazing blog called bake at 350 for waaaay too long also. What are these blogs about? cookie decorating! I was so inspired I had to make some of these cookies.
Here's my first try at these- The designs are somewhat sporadic since I wanted to try out a bunch of different ones.

petit fail...oh wait...petit fours

ok, truthfully, these weren't actually fail, but I REALLY thought they were going to be for a while while making them. For a few reasons, they turned out less like true petit fours What made mine different?

no marzipan layer-couldn't find the stuff to make it or buy it pre-made
buttercream filling instead of a jelly-my personal choice, cause it sounded yummier
a box cake mix instead of the true sponge mix i should have used-all the blog describing this recipe has tons of comments about how difficult these were, so I figured I'd make at least one step easier on myself.

What ARE they? Basically, tiny 2 layer cakes with a buttercream filling covered in a chocolate ganache coating. The flowers on top were made from royal icing.

I adore tiny desserts-not that I've made many, I just always gravitate towards the pictures. After all, who doesn't like a bite size dessert that they can just pop in their mouth when they want something sweet?

Well, these made me almost give up-mostly cause it was a process that went better over a few days-however, those few days gave me time to lose steam and motivation. I brought some to a friend after I made them and as a fellow person who enjoys baking, she asked if I would do them again (best question to ask ever!) I told her they weren't worth it and I probably wouldn't make them again. However, I think I've changed my mind. Why? 1) They tasted REALLY good. 2) My husband really seemed to enjoy them. and 3) I think I've come up with a few methods/tools to make it a bit easier.

In case you didn't know, baking is generally a bit of messy endeavour.  Considering I'm pretty good at getting messy all on my own, me + baking = disastrously messy

These are definitely at the top of the messiest things I've ever made-they even beat out cake pops. In case you don't believe me, here's the proof...