More Cookies!

I promised you all the rest of the cookies I made alongside my contest cookies and I'm here to show them to you. These were to bring to my family while we were spending a week on the beach, so they are just a bunch of fun cookies.

Cookie Olympics!

In my last post, I mentioned I was entering a cookie contest. I have been waiting to find out the results before telling you more about it and showing you my cookie entries. The results showed up on facebook earlier today, so I'm ready to share the details and my cookies with you! I don't want to keep you in too much suspense, so I'll tell you I did win some awards! Keep reading and you'll find out what.
 bought some pretty cute cookie cutters from them myself a few months ago.

The Contest was called the cookie Olympics (and coincided with the Olympic games) and was put on by The Cookie Cutter Company (can you guess what they sell?). For the cookie Olympics, you could enter at the professional or amateur level, based on what you consider yourself. I consider myself an amateur, so that's what I entered as. Within each level there were awards best use of Olympic theme, best technique, and most creative. Each person could submit up to 3 cookie pictures (you just submitted pictures of your cookies, not the actual cookies).

I'm about to show you my cookies and tell you how they did, but if you want to see them on the facebook page where they announce the winners, here's the link.

My Olympic Stadium fireworkds cookies took home the Gold in Best use of the Olympic Theme, Silver in most creative, and Gold in best technique!



My Florida beach scene cookies took home Gold in most creative and Bronze in Best technique! (I know it's Florida because that's where I grew up and because of the cute little alligator)



These cookies didn't win any prizes, but that's alright. I knew they wouldn't win any awards, but I couldn't just not submit a 3rd entry and I didn't have any time or energy left to bust out another cool cookie collection! I still think they are pretty cute though :)

So there you have it, I may not be able to do crazy flips off a 4 inch wide beam like little Gabby Douglas (Don't you love her?) or swim faster than the speed of light like Phelps, but I can medal in cookie decorating!

Next Post I will show you the other cookies I brought to Florida with me when I visited family last week.

Chocolate covered sweets!

I've been so focused on my most recent cookie project that I completely forgot I had other yummy sweets to post! I just finished some cookies over the weekend that I'm really excited about! I'm actually entering some of them in a contest :) I'm not posting them yet, but be on the look out for them!

For today's post, I was asked to make some chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels for a friend's bridal shower and it was fun to do something a little different! I started dipping the pretzels in the normal fashion and then remembered after about 3 pretzels how old (aka tiring) that process gets. So I came up with a different way. I spread a layer of pretzels onto wax paper, put my chocolate into an icing bag and covered the entire layer back and forth. I put it in the freezer to help it harden, pulled it out, flipped the layer over and did the other side. Then I broke them apart. It came out looking different, but kind of neat. I really wish I had taken a picture before I broke the pretzels apart. The sheet of iced pretzels looked really cool.

More Bridal Shower Cookies!

Not too long ago, I was asked to make some cookies for another bridal shower. I was really looking forward to making some more wedding type cookies. I also had a new cookie cutter and some new ideas to try out! The wedding colors were gray, yellow, and orange. I really wish my gray had come out lighter, but I did not realize just how dark it would end up being.
Working with royal icing is a bit tricky for few reasons. You can make the icing thinner or thicker depending on how you will be using it and it can be a little tricky to know if you have it at the right thickness until you actual start decorating a cookie. Getting the right color is also tricky. This icing deepens in color for about 24 hrs after you make it. I'm still learning just how much a color will deepen and how to leave it lighter than I actually want it so when it darkens I still like it. Alas, it makes it hard to get the exact color you want and sometimes I end up with something darker than I hoped for :( Of course, the obvious solution is to make my icing ahead of time, however that involved planning farther ahead.Then you run into the icing needing to be well covered so it doesn't dry.
Despite color issues, I really liked how these ones came out. The longer gown cookies might be my favorite. I think that cookie cutter is my current favorite, though I have an alligator cookie cutter I have yet to use that I'm looking forward to!