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There’s so much going on friends! First and foremost, thanks to any and everyone who voted for us in the Foodbuzz Blog Awards. It’s great that you guys think we’re the bloggers you’d want to see open a restaurant. Was it the Canelé experience that led you in that direction? Either way, we hope you’ll vote! We’ll be in San Fran for the Foodbuzz Festival, and it would rock our striped socks off if we came back to LA with a golden baguette…or whatever the award will be! There are some great folks up for awards, so get your votes in. We already did!
Recently, two near and dear friends were engaged, and in their honor, we made cookies for the party. Here is one thing you should know about us: we occasionally bite off more than we can chew. Neither one of us has any experience really decorating cookies or cakes, unless you want to count those gingerbread men from back in the day. There is a small chance you may not, but if you are so kind as to do so, we will love you forever. Cookie decorating may not be quite the same as decking out a cake, but it takes patience pr of practice. If at first you don’t succeed…
Earlier this year, we ventured to study the steps of leveling and frosting a cake. We never claimed to be experts, but we did figure out a few techniques along the way that will hopefully help with a few things we have on deck for this lovely month of October. We should’ve done the same for cookie decorating, but occasionally you just run out of time. That’s when you do something we fondly refer to as ‘winging it’. There will be more cakes in the future, and there will be more cookies as well, so we’ll have more time to perfect technique. Here’s how three days of preparation went down:
Thursday…Make the dough exactly to Wilton’s large batch roll-out sugar cookie recipe. Well, we did add the zest of one lemon and one orange and triple the vanilla, but those are just small changes. Little dough mounds were rolled into balls, flattened, wrapped and chilled over night.
Friday…Unwrapped and rolled dough into 1/8″ thick rectangles, made heart shapes with a 3″ cutter and baked 5 dozen cookies. Once they were cooled, they were packed in airtight containers for the next day.
Saturday morning…Whipped up Wilton’s egg white royal icing, dropped in a tiny bit of food coloring, spread a thin layer over the cookies, covered an edge with colored sprinkles, then let them dry. Once they dried completely, another batch of royal icing was used to pipe their initials.
Saturday evening…Into bags they go! Sealed up of course with a silver tie.
Wilton’s recipes for both the cookie worked perfectly. The icing is not quite the one we’d use again for a smooth finish, although we have no complaints taste-wise. In fact, we’ve found a great glacé icing that is really what we should’ve used the first time. It has the smooth, glossy finish that we wanted all along. Again, it’s all a learning process. This is just the beginning of a month full of treat worthy celebrations, including five birthdays (two of which belong to us), a dinner party, and potentially a Halloween party. Have any good cake and cookie decorating suggestions? The piping bag and tips are ready!
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Congrats on the nomination, will vote for you of course! The cookies are so beautifully decorated and packaged!
I voted for you!!!
Nice work with the frosting and good luck with the busyness!!
Congrats on the nomination. We voted for you! And those cookies are so pretty!!!!
Your comment on the golden baguette cracks me up. That would be an awesome trophy. I agree that decorating is definitely a different kind of skill, and one that I don’t really possess. I’ve been meaning to make a wilton class to learn. I also feel like royal icing takes a bit of practice. The best trick I found was to first pipe a border around the edges and then thin the icing so I could flood the inside. It did the best job of creating a perfectly smooth frosting layer.
voted!
I’m sure your friends loved the cookies.
oops…is the voting not open yet?
please ignore my earlier comment. it’s way too early.
You were my noms for “Have own Food Network Show!” but opening a restaurant would be even better – I would actually get to eat your cooking, not just watch (or read) it!
Congratulations on the nominations!
You’ve got my vote but if you wanted to, you can pretend to bribe me with some of these cookies – instead of J+C, can you make it TN? 8-P
Good luck for the nomination and voted for you!! Those cookies are so cute
Cheers!
Gera
Great frosting!
Beautiful and very artistic!
no tips here unfortunately… but great job with the nomination and the cookies look delicious
! Can’t wait to meet you both in less than a month!!
Congratz on your nomination! Can’t share any tips, I’ve never decorated a cake or cookie in my life… well, except gingerbread men when I was a kid. And you don’t want to know how those turned out. Heh.
Looks amazing and what a great package for your friends. Congrats on your well deserved nomination!
Congrats on the nomination!! Love those sweet lil cookie packages!! Have fun in SF!!
Congrats on the nomination. Definitely well deserved.
What a lovely gesture with the cookies. Cookies always puts a smile on my face. ;-D
The cookies are just beautiful!
Angie’s Recipes
Congratulations on the nomination. So exciting. Beautiful cookies.
how adorable are those cookies?! love them
I voted for you too! Fingers crossed!!!
Cookies look great – I can’t believe you went to all that trouble! I would have given up and called SusieCakes.
I am so so so so voting for you… cookies look wonderful, the packaging is lovely too!
Have you read Bake at 350? She always posts some amazingly decorated cookies and lots of tips.
http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/
Gosh, I’ve forgotten how much I love the recipes you guys post!! It’s been too long. I found the sweet potato squares recipe and am definitely going to using that sometime soon….except maybe subbing pumpkin into it!!
Hope you guys are doin’ well and CONGRATULATIONS on being nominated!! you guys TOTALLY deserve it.
Your cookies look great! And, my only cookie decorating suggestion is to give yourself way more time than you would think necessary to do it!
OMG, its the gesture that counts and the look amazing – love the indivudal wrap!
Your cookies are adorable!
oh wow!! congrats on the nomination you two!
those cookies looks pretty! 
Congrats fellow nominee…..oh, and save me a cookie
I ate the nastiest sugar cookie yesterday (didn’t think it was possible) but I know you’re stuff is on POINT! Voting for you, I am.
You got my vote, and thanks for posting this pic, it just gave me an idea for my anniversary dinner tonight! I would love to come eat at a place you two would open, probably move all the way across the country!
Great job on the nomination. And, impressed with your stamina on these.
They look so pur-tee!
I will be in SF for the festivl also! Look for me and coratulations on the nomination! GREG
What a lovely gift. You are being much too modest about these cookies. I think they look scrumptious.
You got my nomination AND my vote for the “open a restaurant” category! You did quite the job on those cookies!
If I can have these cookies, you can have my vote. Just kidding. Of course, I’m voting for you and I’ll you in November! xoxo
Congrats on the nomination!! Hoeray,…
The cookies look divine,…MMMMM!!!
The cookies look just perfect! And, congratulations on the nomination…you deserve it!
So cute! And good luck in SF — you deserve it.
Your cookies turned out so well! Congrats on your FoodBuzz nomination–it is well deserved!
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[...] icing. The pink things are the bottom are supposed to be balloons, and they are glacé icing with royal icing strings. No one’s quitting their day job to take up the pastry chef life, but one day [...]