Dad's Birthday

Dad's Birthday
June 2009

Our family and friends descended on Washington, DC to celebrate my Dad's birthday in June. After a day sailing the Chesapeake Bay on the Schooner Woodwind (a must do if you visit Annapolis) we gathered together to watch a photo show celebrating his life.

My sister Karen discovered a new trick from M&Ms. You can order personalized chocolates with words AND photos. Crazy fun! Our colors were green and yellow, a nod to my father's distinguished career designing tennis facilities, along with blue for the ocean and platinum to honor to occasion. The first photo is from his actual childhood album, and the second was taken last month in Disney and shows that he is still a kid at heart!

Boxed M&M Party Favors

Close-up of the M&M Photos

To continue the dot theme I surrounded the cake with green and blue chocolate wafers tinted to match the candies. The cake was a light vanilla with lemon curd filling.

Happy Birthday Dad!


The Cake

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PARTY: PART TWO

To ensure that everyone coould party, there was a separate gathering in Florida. Since it had a beachy-Floridian theme I sent down cookies packaged as party favors for the guests. Lesson of the day-- just because the USPS marks it fragile, does not mean that they will stop the herd of elephants from trampling it during the overnight mailing process. Apparently no amount of foam or bubble wrap could protect them from whatever crushed the box. Oh well!

Before

After

Oh nuts, it's birthday time!

Oh Nuts, it's my Birthday!
June 2009

I've always loved cupcakes and there is photographic evidence to prove it.


However, if I had to limit myself to one dessert for the rest of my life, it would definitely be the pignoli cookie. So before heading to the beach for a little birthday break I whipped up a batch for my friends.


I used this recipe from AllRecipes for the cookies. I didn't even change much, though I have a few notes since several folks asked for the recipe.

#1- Watch your almond paste! This is the main ingredient in the cookie so shop with care. My preference if for the Solo Almond Paste in the can. Note that this is NOT the same as the almond pie filling and that you should not substitute marzipan. The recipe calls for 12 oz of almond paste, which is a can and a half.

#2- Don't make the cookie too big. These are going to spread out quite a bit, so don't get too excited.

#3- Toast the nuts. When the cookies are done make sure the nuts are brown on top. Otherwise move the oven rack up a notch 2/3 through the cooking time.

Enjoy!

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I'd also like to give a shout out to my friends who whipped up a WONDERFUL strawberry shortcake with sweet biscuits and berries from the local farmers market. This is what summer tastes like. Yum!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter

April 2009

I love spiced linzer cookies. These were yummy filled with raspberry, apricot, and nutella. Yumm! The perfect ending to a fantastic meal with "the family". :-)

Linzers are really fun to put together. It took a while to get the powdered sugar to coat the spice cookies just right, but once you pop 'em together they are delicious.

Details:

Cookie: I pulled the recipe for spiced linzer cookies off of a website, but now I can't find the exact one! There are lots of good ones out there though.

Filling: Raspberry jam, apricot preserves, nutella

Baby Onesie Cookies

Baby Onesie Cookies

August 2008

Wow- what a baby boom! I am so excited for all of the new babies this week that I mixed up a large batch of onesie cookies to bring to hospitals, showers, and gatherings. Some are even heading into the mail.

These adorable onesies are made with cutter kits from Country Kitchen, which some CASANOVA (that would be the Cake and Sugar Artists of NOrthern Virginia) members discovered at the ICES convention and demo'ed for us last month. I think they are adorable!

Here is a wedding cake I am playing with as well. I do love the food color-markers.

UPDATE: Packaged cookies- ready for delivery.

Twilight / Breaking Dawn Cookies

Twilight / Breaking Dawn Cookies

August 2008

OK, I admit that I am addicted to the Twilight books. Some combination of the romance-suspense-thriller plot, the crazy cast of characters and the "bizarrely moral vampires" (what's not to love?) I am hooked. It is also possible that the ink used to print them emits an alluringly addictive substance that captures the mind into a euphoric trance. But maybe that's just me...

Or not. Because I keep reading stories like this one from the MTV movies site, and almost all of the TwilightMoms (all over 25, both married and single), who are perfectly rational adults swept away to rainy little Forks, WA to keep company with the "vegetarian" vampires in the Cullen family.


These are not short books, and reading the 700+ pager, Breaking Dawn, at its midnight release required both caffeine and appropriate snacks.

Lemon shortbread apples provided all of the "temptation" of Twilight's cover. This batch is sweetened up with rolled buttercream icing and red shimmer dust. Because it MUST dazzle in the sunlight. A few bites and I feel a lot better about being human.

Christmas Treats

Christmas Treats: Rumballs and Chocolate Pretzels

December 2007

The return of winter is also the return of rumballs! Cookies are festive, and pretty, and nice, but I'll take a rumball any day. Chocolate, cookies, walnuts, and coconut rum, all wrapped up in sparkly sugar... yes, please.

Since rb's are a tad "strong" (I apparently mix my treats like I mix my drinks) they pair well with chocolate covered pretzels.

Recipe:
Brilliantly simple to make, these are assembled by placing a Hershey kiss on top of a pretzel, letting it get "smooshy" for 2-3 minutes in a 350 degree oven, and then squishing down the points with a festive m&m. The kiss holds just enough chocolate to fill in all of the nooks and crannies.

This year m&m got extra creative with their flavor combinations: cherry cordial, mint truffle, special dark, hot chocolate truffle, etc. The traditional mint kiss was the real winner, but after some careful experimentation I endorse traditional chocolate and mint truffle (after a zap in the freezer).

This batch was expertly constructed by Erin using special dark and mint truffle kisses with dark chocolate m&m's. Aren't her co-workers lucky?



Then the pretzels and rumballs get bagged up in cello with extra m&ms (which need to vacate my home a.s.a.p.) and are ready for gifting to hostesses, co-workers, and others to whom you wish holiday cheer.

Happy Holidays!

Gingerbread Christmas Cookies

Gingerbread Christmas Cookies

December 2007

At NCC this advent Pastor Mark has been focused on JOY. Specifically Matthew 2:10 where the wise men see the start and "they rejoiced with exceeding great joy."

In keeping with the message series I am trying to do something each week that reconnects the traditions of Christmas to the worship of God and a deeper connection with people. Last week's joy came in the form of cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

On Wednesday I baked and decorated with the NCL Fellows in preparation for our Christmas party which celebrates our year together with the mentors, board members, alumni, friends, and family. Thursday night brought more cookie madness because Annie, Erica, and I hosted a little cookie decoration gathering. "Crazy flying sprinkles" all around. But the end result was that friends celebrated together, people got tasty treats to enjoy, and we had a heck of a good time using our creative gifts, singing carols, and spritzing each other with icing. Ooops.

Here are a few pictures of the finished product. We even managed to make a few cookies that said "Joy".

I realize that blue is not a traditional Christmas color. But I like it!

The cookies themselves are gingerbread and orange shortbread. I had never thought to decorate shortbread but I hope to never have a Christmas without Annie's butter-less orange zest and chocolate chip shortbread cookies. While I had planned to use this gingerbread recipe, I went with the slice and bake because of sheer volume.

As a Christmas treat, Erica and her co-workers even made some red, white and blue tree and "liberty bell" cookies for a friend who just got his US residency. Sweet!

Merry Christmas!

Smashbox Cookies

Nordstrom Cosmetics Fall Trendshow

September 2007

I love other things besides baking. For instance, shoes and make-up. The fall trendshow at Nordstrom is like the Superbowl for make-up junkies. They let you in the store before it opens for an entertaining and informative runway show of the seasons latest products (on models conveniently wearing Nordy's fashion and shoes). It feels kind of like being an extra in Zoolander, but there are lots of free samples as each line presents its new products and national artist teams. Smashbox cosmetics have been my favorite for a few years running and their artists are definitely the most fun. Since I was dragging a few friends to the show who are new to the line I knew it would be a taxing morning for the artists and decided to make cookies showcasing my favorite products as a little thank you gift. It was also a yummy snack for us as we waited in lines to try various products.

I can't have smashbox without Photo Finish Primer,

and some great brushes,

and a touch of lip gloss (Always remember ladies: Lashes, Liner, Lips!),

And a bit of color in signature pots...

It was quite a tasty collection for sure. I used the basic sugar cookie recipe that worked well back at Christmas, but used less cinnamon and more lemoncello. They were a bit dry/crispy for my taste, but I think that might have had more to do with the thickness than the recipe.

Christmas Cookies: My "Gift"

Christmas Cookies

December 2006

This year I participated in a fellowship with the National Center for Leadership. For Christmas we had a party for our mentors and other friends of the Center where we each shared a "gift" from our personal store of talents. Clearly I chose baking! Here is a tray of my holiday favorites from 2006.

Peanut Butter Dough Wrapped Snickers Cookies (my downfall!)
Polenta & Lemon Cookies
Rum Balls (with dark Caribbean coconut spiced rum)
Eggnog Spritz Cookies

Here are a few of the recipes:

Polenta & Lemon Cookies- from Martha Stewart . com

Ingredients (Makes about 2 1/2 dozen)

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Italian polenta, or yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest, (1 lemon)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees;. Whisk together flour, polenta, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Put butter, sugar, and lemon zest in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; beat on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

2. Add egg and egg yolk, 1 at a time, beating after each addition to combine. Mix in vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, and beat until just combined. Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a -inch star tip (such as Ateco #825).

3. Pipe S shapes about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide, spaced 1 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake cookies until edges are golden, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer cookies on parchment to wire racks; let cool about 10 minutes. Remove cookies from parchment, and transfer to racks to cool completely.

Peanut Butter Dough Wrapped Snickers Cookies

These are totally Suzanne's fault. But sometimes I cheat and use sugar cookie dough from the store. At the holidays there is usually a fresh batch in the fridge or freezer.

1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 13-ounce package Snickers Miniatures (about 60 candies) Note: You will use 1 bag and approximately half the other bag.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combinethe butter, peanut butter and sugars using a mixer on a medium to low speed until light and fluffy. Slowly add eggs and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Then mix in flour, salt and baking soda. Cover and chill dough for 2 to 3 hours.

Unwrap all Snickers. Remove dough from refrigerator. Shape about 1 tablespoon of dough around each candy. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cookies cool on baking rack. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Caution: Lock these up so you don't eat them all before the party. They are that good.

Let it snow.

December 2006

Snowflake Cookies

Nothing says Christmas like COOKIES! Put on some carols, bake and frost some cookies and watch the snow fall. Winter doesn't get better than that.

Sarah saw these blue frosted snowflake cookies on the cover of some catalog and asked me to make them for a holiday party. I love requests because it challenges me to try something new. It was my first shot at royal icing and icing fill, but it wasn't so bad! I think I could have been a little faster at the outlining, but I was so nervous about the piping. Practice makes perfect. It was a blast to decorate each cookie with sanding sugar, snowflake sprinkles and silver drages.

The cookies dough recipe is from Martha Stewart Living and it is basically a sugar cookie kicked up with lemon zest. I added a dash of lemoncello to both the cookies and the icing and it really gave it a citrus zing. Yummy.

Sarah loved them and they were a big hit at the party. An empty plate is a good sign.

Wedding Cookies

Wedding Cookies

Look like little wedding cakes