Embroidery Pattern Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing - Cat and Knitting

I've been decorating cookies lately, trying to replicate embroidery. You can see the others here.

This time, I decided to use embroidery patterns, but pipe outlines instead of stitching lines.

These are Sublime Stitching patterns.

A very fashionable cat . . .

And cookies for a knitter . . .

That KopyKake is quite a fabulous piece of equipment.  The possibilities are just endless with it!

Baking Cookie Dough with Small Points - Tip Tuesday

Welcome to Tuesday's Tips - where I share just a little tidbit with you that I hope you'll find useful.

Do you ever bake cookie shapes that have small points like these tulips and houses?  Do those little pointy bits get over-browned?

I have a few tips for you.

The first is to know your oven. I know that the perimeter of my oven is cooler than the center. I make that work for me when baking these kinds of cookies.

I place them on the sheets with their little protrusions pointing toward the outside.  The parts of the dough with the largest area to bake are closer to the center of the oven.  (Just like the photo above - except spaced farther apart.  I moved them all in closer to snap a photo.)

If you're baking larger cookies, you'll obviously be baking them longer.  In that case, be prepared with small pieces of aluminum foil.  Place the cookies on the baking sheets the same way I just explained, but fewer of them.  After about six minutes, cover the pointy bits that are already baked through with the foil pieces.

I hope you'll give this tip a go the next time you're baking those hard to control shapes!

Happy Tuesday!

Embroidered Baby Flower Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

I embroidered these quite some time ago . . .

What?  You find them odd?  What's odd about a sweet baby face as the center of a flower?  Ha!  My husband finds them creepy.  They're from a vintage embroidery pattern. I think they're hilariously adorable and classic crazy vintage. 

I decided to replicate the pattern on sugar cookies with royal icing using the KopyKake . . .

What do you think? Sweet or creepy?

New House Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Can you guess why I made these cookies?

No, I didn't buy or sell a house.

No, I don't have new neighbors.

Nope, I don't know anyone that has moved or is moving any time soon.

These were cookies for my Mom for . . . Mother's Day!  A tad unconventional, huh?

She was a realtor when I was a kid.  She recently renewed her license and just sold her first house this second time around.  I'm so proud of her.  The last time she worked in realty, there were no cell phones.  There was no internet.  I don't think they even had fax machines then.

She had to learn a lot of technical stuff to get this house sold, like editing documents and getting them signed online, then forwarding them to people.  I'm no techie, but definitely more techie than my Mom, and I don't know if I could have figured this stuff out.

One funny thing that she learned and shared with me was the phrase "copy you".  Her client told her that she'd "copy her" on an email.  Or maybe she wanted my Mom to "copy her".  Whatever it was, it was a revelation to good old Mom.

I hope that when I'm her age, I'm able to somewhat keep up with whatever crazy advances are happening.

So here is my "I'm proud of you", "Happy Mother's Day" present for Mom. Sugar cookies decorated with royal icing . . .

Moving trucks and keys.

Sold signs.

Cute houses and mini houses.

I had so much fun with these.  It was hard to stop.  I thought about adding siding lines to the houses, tiles to the roofs, a trellis around the doors. 




Bake at 350 was the inspiration behind these designs.





And unfortunately now . . .

Keepin' it Real . . .

This is the section in my posts to show you the cookies that I'd really rather not. The cookies that didn't quite live up to the dream.

Do you have any idea what these were supposed to be?

No, not a green flag of some imaginary country.

They were meant to be astro turf door mats!  Ha ha!

I saw some over at Cookie Crazie.  Aren't hers adorably hilarious?  It looks like she used green sanding sugar.  I decided to make mine using a #233 icing tip.  You know the one with a bunch of little holes?  I thought that it would make fabulous astro turf.  Well, it probably would if I had thicker consistency icing. 

The welcome mat cookies were the last ones I made of this batch.  It was 11 pm, the night before Mother's Day.  When the grass affect didn't work, I had a few choices . . . 1. thicken up the icing and try the #233 again, 2. make some green sanding sugar, 3. spread the icing around a bit and call it a night.

Obviously I chose #3.  I ate one and gave the other to my son.

The next time I have the occasion to make "new house" cookies, I'm going to try that 233 again with thicker icing!

Oh, and did you notice that all of the cookie designs are mirror images?  Yeah, baby.  You can read about that tip here.

Mirror Image Sugar Cookie Designs - Tuesday Tip

Welcome to Tuesday's Tips - where I share just a little tidbit with you that I hope you'll find useful.

Have you ever made sugar cookies and wished that you could achieve mirror images?

I have.  Many times.  Like with these chicks.  Why do they all have to face the same direction?

And the pink and orange bunnies below. They're headed in the same direction as the chicks.

Where's everyone going?  What's over there?

I like things symmetrical.  Always have.  Whatever's happening on the left, the opposite should be happening on the right.  Right?  Kinda like this . . .

Aaaahhhhh.  That's more like it. Symmetry.  Reverse image cookies.  I feel better.

Asymmetry just doesn't sit right with me.

To get mirror image cookies. . .

You want to just flip the cutter over, but most have that seam for strength on one edge.

You could decorate the bottoms of the baked cookies, but they're not as smooth as the tops and the edges square off differently.

So how do you create mirror images?

Cut out your shapes as usual with the sharp edge of the cutter.  Then . . . . . flip half of the dough shapes over and put them on the baking sheet and into the oven.

Doh!  Seriously, why didn't I figure that out sooner?

Am I the last one to know?

Happy Tuesday!

Chocolate Coca Cola Cake

Pinterest.  *sigh*

I've been resisting the whole Pinterest craze.  I knew.  Just knew that I'd lose hours and hours of my life to it if I gave in.

Well, I gave in a few days ago and yes, I've already lost hours and hours of my life to it.

But I've gained a few things too like cleaning and organization tips and new recipes.

I thought that I'd use it to pin and organize recipes and maybe some crafty stuff that I already had bookmarked.  I started out pinning cookie recipes - some I've used and some I haven't yet tried.  But then I got lost.  Lost within Pinterest.  One thing just leads to another and another and another.

I saw a recipe there for Chocolate Coca Cola Cake.  I'd heard of it before.  I knew that it was a Southern classic but that's it.  It reminds me of Texas Sheet Cake - one of my very favorites!

Give me a recipe that has cinnamon and chocolate together and I'm there.

This recipe is so easy and delicious.  The Coke makes it kinda fun.

After the chocolate glaze sets, it's like a layer of fudgy deliciousness.

Here's the recipe that I repinned.

Here I am on Pinterest.  Join me there!

Garden of Flowers Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

An assortment of sugar cookie flowers for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day.

My mom-in-law is an incredible gardener.  Her gardens should be featured in magazines.  She's truly that good.

I sure got lucky getting this lady as my second Mom.

These are all new cutters so they were really fun to try out.

Huge tulips and cute little leaves.

Gorgeous dogwoods.  One of my favorites.

Happy sunflowers.




Happy Mother's Day!