Happy Halloween!

Oh poppets, how I've missed you so! I have few excuses besides the same ole' same ole': renovations, work, and general fatigue. I must admit that after sitting at a computer all day every day, the last thing I want to do when I get home is blog.

I've also undertaken a more personal project that has absorbed the lot of my focus these days...ME! I've been trying as best as possible to eat right and exercise, building strength and pushing myself beyond my historical limits. I ran my first 5K on Sunday at the CIBC Run For the Cure in support of breast cancer research. On Saturday I will be running a 7K obstacle course called the Badass Dash with my friend Jen (this one is not charitable, but sounds like a metric buttload of fun). I've lost over 20 lbs over this past year and have kept them off, and am sleeping better, have less pain in my neck and shoulders, and am generally more well.

It has been, as always, very difficult to balance my love of baking and eating sweets with a healthier lifestyle, and I've definitely not always been successful at it! However it has occurred to me recently that it has made me miserable to avoid doing something I love so much, and decided I'll just have to figure it out. But I digress.

This past weekend was Canada's Baking and Sweets Show, and it was so good that I've already got next year's show in my calendar. Beyond getting lots of fabulous free samples, there are some excellent deals on supplies, informative and entertaining demonstrations, and best of all...hands-on workshops with teachers from the Bonnie Gordon College of Confectionery Arts and other well-known chefs for only $60! I signed up for two, but I swear...if I had more time that weekend (Louis CK on Friday, Sweets Show all day Saturday, 5K run on Sunday PLUS building our deck--phew!) I would have been in back-to-back workshops all weekend long. I also spent waaaaaaaaaaay too much money on fondant, Disco Dust (edible glitter) and all kinds of other goodies.

Anyway, one of the workshops was making a Halloween-themed "cake" (it was a cake decorating class, so we covered styrofoam cake dummies with fondant) and I made Bubbling Cauldron:

I was so pleased to have gotten to do this, because most of my fondant work has been with wedding cakes (I find it incredibly strange that my cake-making career bypassed celebration cakes and jumped straight to weddings). I haven't had many paid opportunities to truly flex my fondant muscles. So while I was working away on this cake, I'm feeling all jazzed about doing elaborate cakes and putting out into the universe that I want to do more of these...and BAM! I get an email from a friend of a friend asking if I could make her son's birthday cake. It was a rush order for Saturday, but how could I say no?

Now, I don't know anything about Minecraft, but this kid loves it and wants a Minecraft cake...so like always I jump in the pool to learn how to swim!

I'll keep you posted...

Dropping a cake

Every time I make a cake--particularly a wedding cake--I have this anxiety-born vision of me dropping it. I imagine it's pretty common, especially since I've seen far too many YouTube videos of poor wedding cakes getting destroyed by some careless, drunken or accident-prone guest.

I saw this on my Reddit feed this morning and it made me chuckle in the same way that one laughs when they see old folks take a topple...it would be funny if it weren't so horribly awkward and sad.

Under Construction

Hey all!

As you may have noticed, the blog doesn't look the same as it did yesterday. That's because I'm a complete tool, and accidentally deleted the layout when I was trying to update it.

It works out anyway, because I have been redesigning the www.msadventuresinbaking.com website to upgrade it from Flash to HTML 5, so I'll be tweaking the blog to match the new site better. For now, it looks a little...um..."rustic" but I will re-lauch with its fancy-pants makeover soon!

In the meantime, I hope to be baking and blogging much more often, so stay tuned!

A real (long) post? Get outta town...

Holy cats it's been a long time since I've posted!

I'd like to say that I'm free to bake as much as I want because the renovations are all finished, but alas, that is not the case. I've merely made time to bake the important things, like Cake Pops for my best friend's bridal shower (a post on that later) or a wedding cake for a friend of a friend or, you know, emergency myuteruswantschocolate muffins.

Ms. Adventures in Baking proudly presents to you...emergency myuteruswantschocolate muffins! Just kidding. It's MY THIRD WEDDING CAKE!

My friend-and-fellow-Pavlov's Dog Victoria referred her friend to me when she needed a wedding cake, and of course I jumped at the opportunity to do it, excited to flex my (sadly underused) baking muscles. The bride-to-be (henceforth known as B2B, live long and prosper) was super-dee-duper easygoing, but she had some specific requests...

1. Use Betty Crocker's Rainbow Bit cake mix.
2. Top "messy buttercream" with Green and Black's Organic White Chocolate shavings.

...that presented me with some challenges (or, as I like to call them, learning opportunities!).

In which our Pastry Princess discusses box mixes, but this time doesn't rant.
Now, you all know that I'm pretty firm in my stance on making things from scratch, but even I've had to be flexible* on this issue for the sake of my sanity. Case in point: being asked the night before an event to make 3 dozen cupcakes = Do it the easy way or say no. AS IF I'll say no. Pfft.

So when B2B told me she wanted a box mix, I did feel out whether she'd let me bake it from scratch. At the end of the day, however, she was familiar with the BCRB mix, liked the flavour, and hey--she's the bride to be. AS IF I'll say no. Pfft!

In which our Pastry Princess says fon-don't with Buttercream.
Our B2B did not want fondant on her cake, which I was more than happy to oblige. You know, because reasons.

Natalie Slater understands why I make my own fondant. Now with 23% more ass sweat!

If despair had a flavour, it would taste like commercially-produced fondant. This is not to say that I'm going all "Duff Goldman" on it; fondant makes for really pretty, and flawlessly smooth cakes. Plus, homemade fondant can taste really yummy. It's just that--buy it or make it--fondant adds, like, a metric buttload of work. And sometimes, just sometimes, more work sucks [insert adult temper tantrum].

B2B not only didn't want fondant, but she wanted "messy buttercream". Wait, what? You mean, you're a bride who doesn't want a perfectly smooth-looking cake? You don't want fondant and you don't want me to spend an hour painstakingly applying buttercream and running my spatula over and over it again and again to make it as perfectly bump-free as possible? How attached are you to your groom and would you marry me instead?

Dear diary: I've hit the easy wedding cake JACKPOT.

In which our Pastry Princess learns how to beef-up a box mix, but using chicken instead of beef.
Haha, I totally grossed you out just now.

If you've ever made cake from a box mix you have shamed yourself you would know how light and fluffy those cakes turn out. Sounds delightful, non? Yeaaaahhhhh...

So, how do you use a box mix to make a wedding cake that will be dense enough to support the weight of tiers and buttercream? TO THE GOOGLES!

Turns out all you do is add an extra egg, reduce the amount of oil and milk, and add a package of appropriately-flavoured Jell-O pudding mix. Sounds easy-peasy, right?

In which our Pastry Princess learns baking large quantities of box mix is NOT "easy-peasy" and swears an awful lot.
Ugh. I have never thrown out so much cake in my LIFE.

8" Cake # 1: The 8" cake I baked for taste-testing turned out fantastically; 1 box of mix, 1 box of Jell-O, 4 eggs, 1/3 cup oil, 1/2 cup whole milk. Mixy-mixy and voila...thick, goopy cake batter that perfectly fills the pan to its required 2/3 fullness. It baked up within a reasonable amount of time, and after I cooled it fully I cut into it (and luckily B2B had dropped by to give me the cake topper stuff, so she got to taste and she approved). Great!

12" Cake # 1: Then I mixed up two box mixes for the 12" cake, and that only filled the pan juuuuusssssssst halfway. Hrm. Logic dictates that I mix up another box and add it to the pan so that the pan is 2/3 full. So I did that. It took forever to bake, but in the end my cake tester came out clean and the cake was a nice golden colour so I cooled it in the pan for 10 minutes then turned it out onto a rack to fully cool. Great!

8" Cake #2: Mixy-mixy, bakey-bakey, and hooray for perfect cake. Great!

12" Cake #2: This is when my life got flipped turned upside-down. I'd like to take a minute--just sit right there--I'll tell you how I became the girl who had to throw away 8 fucking boxes of cake mix and pudding due to a series of cake-tastrophes.

The second 12" cake baked golden and tested clean so I pulled it out to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. I accidentally slammed it down, and BAM! the cake fell. This is a real pisser, but it's not the end of the world; it just means these layers aren't going to be as thick. Then I racked it to cool. When I leveled it I discovered the cake was really really under-baked. It had tested clean, so what the fudge?

And there it was, staring me in the face. My heating core. Sitting on the table. Perfectly clean, because I'd forgotten to put said heating core (which helps to evenly cook the middle of cakes larger than 10"). HOT FUDGE SUNDAES, that was dumb! Into the food waste bin with you, giant pile of gooey cake.

8" Cake #3: Mixy-mixy, set the timer for 38 minutes, and while I waited for it to bake I made white chocolate curls with an episode of 30 Rock playing in the background. After it was over I peeked at the timer, which still read 0:38:00. What the heck? I realized I'd hit the MOTHER EFFING PAUSE button instead of the start button, and the cake had been baking for ???? Sonofa...

Panicking, I start calculating: I'd watched one episode 30 Rock, so that's 30 minutes...so it should be almost done, right? Give it 8 more minutes and that should be good. The cake looks golden, so I take it out and cool it. Crisis averted, yeah? I unmold what appears to be a perfectly baked 8" cake, when suddenly the whole thing collapses into a giant pile of goo all over the place. This thing was epically underbaked. ARE YOU FRIGGIN' KIDDING ME?! Then it hits me: 30 Rock is a 30 minute show when it airs on television, but it's only 22 minutes long when you download it, AND I'd already started that show before I put the cake in the oven. AND in my panic, I forgot to test it.

I fight back tears of utter failure.

12" Cake #1: Nope, this is not a typo, because by now Cake #1 (remember Cake #1? How it was such a dream to make? How it looked so beautiful and tested so perfectly clean?) has cooled enough for me to level it. I gently trim off the top crust, and pull back this skin to discover...this cake is under-baked too. ARGLE BARGLE! Luckily for me it's only a tad under-baked, so level the cake, scrape out the goo and patch it up with bits from the first 8" test cake, and no one will be any the wiser, heh heh. Until now, when they read this blog. Aw crap.

12" Cake #3: This time, after two severely under-baked horrorshows (*sob*) and one kind-of under-baked near-fiasco, I'm not going to take any chances. I mix up 3 mixes, carefully insert the heating core, make double-sure the timer is set correctly, remember that the last 12" cake baked for 55 minutes and was under-baked, so I set the timer for 1 hour and 5 minutes. I'm a genius!

Well, when the timer went off and I opened that door, I'd discovered that a devious chocolate cake had somehow broke into my house, crept into my oven without me noticing, murdered my vanilla cake and disposed of its body, then assumed its identity. At least, that was the only explanation for why there was a DARK BROWN monstrosity staring out at me. That, or the extra 10 minutes I set on the timer were enough to thoroughly over-bake this cake. It was right around this time that the migraine set in.

8" Cake #4: Mixy-mixy, bakey-bakey, and hooray for another fabulously perfect 8" cake. All I needed was two, so now they were ready to be leveled and iced. My luck had finally changed.

12" Cake #4: I'm *this* close to demanding that Bulk Barn refund my money for this 12" pan because it's clearly defective, but I realize that the 12" cake is half done, and if I could just bake 2 more layers I will be completely finished with the baking stage. So this time I mix only two boxes of mix because I don't need as much cake, and lo! Behold! The cake bakes perfectly. Rises perfectly. Fills up the whole pan perfectly. I should have been using only 2 mixes this whole time, because apparently 3 mixes had made the pan too full and the batter too heavy to bake properly. Lessons learned for next time, I guess. Arg!

So there you have it. 8 cakes made in total, most of which were thrown out (though I did manage to salvage some of parts of the underbaked cakes that were fine to use for Cake Pops later).

The rest of the process went rather swimmingly. The Italian Meringue Buttercream came out beautifully, the cake was easy to assemble, and the white chocolate shavings were messy but easy. Transporting the cake to the venue was a fresh slice of hell, but in the end it turned out lovely and the bride and groom were happy. I got compliments, I handed out business cards, and after the reception my friends Chris and Victoria (who also were in attendance) invited me back to their place for copious amounts of beer, which were very much appreciated, and needed.

I'll let the slideshow fill in the blanks:

The ordeal is over, and I'm a better baker for having experienced it. Thank you to Victoria for referring the B2B to me and helping me transport the cake, and to Aurora for being an easygoing bride and dream client!








*I'll use box mix if I HAVE to, but I refuse to use mixes that have icky trans-fats. On this I will not bend.

Whine

My chiropractor (hi Michelle!) got on my case the other day about not having blogged in a while, so here a quick post to say...

...I miss baking! WAHHHHHHHHH!


We haven't started renovating the kitchen yet, but the renovations in the rest of the house having taken over every space, and it's just not logistically possible at this point to bake anything. I've had to turn down a wedding gig--which I don't ever want to do--and I'm missing it so much. I keep thinking of amazing flavour combinations that I want to try, and coming across recipes that I have to bookmark rather than run home and whip together immediately.

This is particularly frustrating for me because PUMPKIN SEASON is upon us, and every fiber of my being loves pumpkin. I've never had a pumpkin-flavoured ANYTHING that I didn't like. Not being able to bake pumpkin goodies is like being stripped of a super-power!

That said, I am currently dieting, and perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.

My Second Wedding Cake

Baking the first wedding cake was an incredibly challenging and stressful msadventure but despite that, it went well and I learned so many invaluable lessons. I'm not saying that the second cake went without issue, but it went much more smoothly than the first, lemme tell you! And, thank goodness for that, because this cake was for my dear friend Laura.

I'm not arrogant enough in my novice wedding cake standing to assume I know all the ins and outs, but I will share a few knowledge nuggets to hopefully make your first wedding cake a smashing success.

Lesson #1: However much time you think you will need, tack on an extra day if at all possible. Life has this way of throwing you spectacularly-timed curve balls that will stress you out immensely if you let them interfere with your plan.

Lesson #2: If you're making home made marshmallow fondant like I did, dust your surface with cornstarch instead of icing/confectioner's sugar, as sugar makes your fondant a little too dry. That means when you cover your cake, the edges will crack slightly and not look as great as you'd like.

Lesson #3: If you're deciding to use a recipe that is unfamiliar to you, do a test bake WELL in advance. That will give you time to taste it to ensure that the recipe yields the taste, texture, colour, etc. that you were aiming for.

Lesson #4: Document, document, document! Take photos along the way, and make notes in your recipe books for things that you learn while baking, or adjustments that you make to the recipe. Trust me, you'll want this info later.

Lesson #5: Italian Meringue Buttercream is a real pain in the patoot, but it's SOOO worth the aggravation of learning how to do it correctly. You may think it has flopped, but if you keep throwing butter into it, it will come together and me the most amazing buttercream you've ever had. Personally, I have found that carton egg whites do not work for this recipe, so I only use fresh cracked whites, but others have claimed to use carton whites with success. All I know is, I have wasted dozens of eggs and several pounds of butter trying to master this IMBC, and will never use carton eggs for IMBC again.

Lesson #6: Be diligent about getting your stuff back! Even if your cake drum/pillars/stand/etc. are labeled, the kitchen is a bustling organism geared toward efficiency and will throw out things that aren't claimed by the end of the night.


Now for the cake!

A friend of the bride--a librarian by trade and thus a huge owl lover--gifted her a custom wedding cake topper from Etsy. It's made of Cloud Clay and weighs practically nothing, and was an amazingly cute topper for a whimsical yet elegant design.

Gum Paste Letters

With this spare few minutes I have at work, I thought I'd post the results of my cupcake blitz this weekend. My friend Monica referred a friend of hers to me, who wanted cupcakes made for a pre-wedding party. His only request was "Maybe a good flavour (not chocolate) with G & B's or something on them?"

That's when my brain kicked into creative overdrive. G and B? Gold and Blue! Lucky for me, blue was one of the wedding colours. What flavour would go with gold and blue? Why, Lemon and Blueberry, of course!

I had some Wilton Pre-Made gum paste on hand from the Gum Paste course that I've enrolled in but has been canceled twice (*shakes fist in the air*), so I dyed some gold and blue, and added some cocoa to the gum paste to make a truer black. Using the Fox Run Mini Alphabet cutters I picked up from Golda's Kitchen, my helpers and I cut out Bs and Gs, and little triangles to make bow ties. Then the letters were painted with a little vodka (some for us, some for the letters!) to make the sparkles stick.

Voila!

A HUGE thank you to Laura and Victoria--fellow Pavlov's Dogs--for the extra hands. These gals earned the heck out of their brunch of Blueberry Cream Cheese Bread Pudding and Mimosas!

My First Wedding Cake!

I really should have done this months ago, but with all the renos and selling the house I just couldn't.

However, I managed to post the few photos I was able to take, and here they are! Sorry for the poor photo quality; I was unable to locate my SLR amidst the renovation rubble, and all I had was my point and shoot camera that didn't handle the dim lighting in the venue very well.

Top Tier: White Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Italian Meringue Buttercream
Middle Tier: Vanilla Cake moistened with Maple Ice Wine syrup, with Maple IMBC
Bottom Tier: Dutch Chocolate cake moistened with Raspberry syrup, with Fresh Raspberry IMBC

All covered with home-made marshmallow fondant, and topped with a LEGO cake topper that I made for the Engineer newlyweds!

I'm baaaAAAAaaack....

The house has been renovated, and has even been sold. I have my life back, and more importantly, my kitchen!

As soon as I find the energy, I will start baking again. First though, I need to update this blog to include a major accomplishment; my first wedding cake.

It's been a long road folks. Hope I haven't lost too many of you along the way.

Early Radiohead + Baking = WIN!

Cup Size

Courtesy of ILoveDoodle.

Ms. Adventures in Renovating

The Manfella™ and I are renovating the house for sale. I've spent weeks with a torn-up disorganized labyrinthine kitchen (I'm pretty sure I had to ask the Minotaur to pass me the brown sugar this morning), and there really isn't any room anywhere to bake. Nor would I want to, unless sawdust muffins are your thing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totes concerned with your bowel movements and regularity (Gassy? Gassy? Is it gas? It's gas, isn't it?), but not to the point where I'd feed you baked goods covered in splinters.

The bad news? I can't bake. Anything. For a while. This makes me a sad Keanu.


The badder news? I have my first wedding cake coming up near the end of February. HOLY. FLAMING. SHITBALLS.


Um yeah. See that look in her eye? That right there ^ is stark-raving renovation-induced MADNESS wrapped in a frilly yellow apron (hey man, just because you're bat-shit crazy doesn't mean you can't look PRETTY). Chuck Norris wouldn't dare piss this woman off, because she looks like she's about to eat a mountain lion for breakfast. Me? I only have a slight eye twitch right now. Talk to me about my breakfast choices in FEBRUARY.

So, for the time being, not so much with the blog updates. Things might get a little ghost-towny 'round these parts. When I get my house back you can bet your sweet patoot I'll be baking LIKE A BOSS.

A Bug's Life

Cookie? Cookie.

The oven is cool these days...

...as I renovate my house in order to sell it. I've had several friends purchase their first home recently, and talk about the stress of it all; finding the perfect agent, locating an ideal home, the lawyers, the money, the closing, the moving, the OH-MY-GOD-WHEN-WILL-IT-ALL-BE-OVER?!

Well I'm here to tell you, friends, try doing that, PLUS selling off the house you currently own. Talk about YIKES. And, I don't even own the current house...the manfella does!

You know what though? I'm kind of in heaven. I love renovating; I'm a handy gal who owns her own set of power tools, and am no slouch when it comes to sprucing up the old homestead. Also, the point of this reno is to sell the house and buy a new one that is OURS. This excites me.

This requires sacrifice, however, and as such, my oven has been lonely since we started. No time for baking, no room to do it, and no energy. Sad, but true. *sniffle* Outlook....bleak...


I'm making one special exception this Sunday when I have my (volunteer) Little Sister over for a cookie baking activity; hopefully I will find some time to take and post photos.

Until then, when I'm up to my elbows in drywall putty I'll be pretending it's cake batter or bread dough and dreaming of the new kitchen I'll be baking in sometime in the new year...

Rollergettes End of the Year Bash Cookies + Home Made Cookie Cutter!

My friend Jill got heavily involved in Roller Derby this past year, and a while back suggested that I set up a vendor table at one of their events and sell my wares. Figuring it was a great way to make some desperately needed or Mastercard will come and break my thumbs pocket money and get my name out there, I obliged to this end and this end (and one other end that never got blogged). Since she's quite good at making up Derby names--she is Jillennium Falcon, after all--she dubbed me "Achey Bakey". It tickled.

Since the Rollergettes lose access to their arena during hockey season, they held an End of the Year Bash in October, and Jill commissioned me to make some special cookies to give as a surprise gift to the team. She gave me free rein on the design, and I decided it was finally time to make that roller skate cookie cutter* that I've been meaning to make.

Off to the Home Depot I went. I bought some tin and some tin snips, carrying myself like one of those empowered "don't call me a chick" chicks. I went home, whipped together a home-made metal cookie cutter in about an hour, and felt so high on the endorphins of accomplishment that I could OWN Martha Stewart in a mano-e-mano craft-off.

Yes, Martha Stewart speaks in 18pt. Vivaldi. I speak in MS Paint. True story!

ANYHOO, armed with my new MADE-BY-ME METAL ROLLER SKATE COOKIE CUTTER, I pounded out some sugar cookies, decorated them, and still had time to make some bonus Pumpkin Fudge! I rule at this game!

This slide show has been brought to you by the letter L for "laziness". It's easier to whip out a slide show than post all those photos individually, let me tells ya.

* You'd think this would be an easy cutter to find in a sprawling megalopolis like Toronto, but I couldn't find one ANYWHERE. I did what any reasonable human being with a credit card and the ability to use the internet for things other than porn** would do: I GOOGLED. It tickled. The best result? OMGYG, it was thirteen dollars. AMERICAN. PLUS SHIPPING. Fogettabouddit!

One sheet of tin joisting that cuts into roughly 15 strips, one strip per cookie cutter: $5.00
One pair of tin snips that will last you forever and you'll use over and over again: $10.00

Math for the frugal! I should write a book.

** I also use the internet for porn.

Much ado about nuffin'

This blog really should contain...


...and instead it contains...


At least, nuffin' since August. Boy howdy, the deadlines at work have been KILLING me. SRSLY. They are, however, all over now, so no more excuses!

I have been baking here and there when I've been able to, so let me dig up the ghosts of baking past.

Over the summer a work colleague was charged by the grandma-to-be with the task of hosting a baby shower that was more of a "classy tea party" than the "guess-the-poop diaper games" variant of the baby shower (yes, I've actually been to a baby shower in which melted chocolate bars were smushed into a diaper and we had to guess what the "poop" was for prizes. This is a thing that happened to me!). She didn't want cutesy or cheesy at this party, as most of the guests would be some older ladies who mightn't appreciate seeing baby bums everywhere.

This? Fine by me. I'm one of the silliest people I know, but when it comes to baking I love pretty things. Denyse gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted with 4 dozen mini cupcakes but hinted that she loved my lemon luxury cakes, so I made some "Silver and Gold" mini cuppies. Half were chocolate cupcakes with Raspberry buttercream sprinkled with silver dust and silver dragees, and the other half were lemon cupcakes with light and fluffy lemon cream cheese buttercream, sprinkled with 24k gold dust (edible gold, how I love thee) and topped with a gold dragee.

Speaking of gold dragees, those babies are HARD to track down outside of Christmastime! Bulk Barn didn't carry them, nor did 3 other bake shops that I patronized. My Wilton cake decorating class instructor bailed me out by selling me some from her shop (thanks Lynn!) Now that it's November and our lords will soon start a-leaping, I say do yourself a favour and STOCK. UP. NOW.

Reese Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake Bars

I'll give you a moment to wipe the drool off your chin.

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You done? Well, don't throw that tissue out just YET, because get a load of THIS:

Just baked, still cooling in the pan.

You can stop your cheesecakes from cracking by baking them in a water bath. I just didn't bother this time.

All cut into squares!

I could have done a better job with piping this chocolate, but at least I used a paper cornet!

Inside view of the deliciousness.

I served these at a BBQ recently and everyone loved them. I seriously couldn't stop eating them myself--which is a pretty lame quality in a hostess, I must say--but it speaks to just how gosh-durn yummy these are.

Here's the recipe for Reese's Cheesecake Bars. I didn't put a piece of PB cup on top like the recipe calls for because I ate three Peanut Butter cups before the bars were baked I didn't think they were necessary. Yeah THAT'S it.

Sugar Cookies Ahoy!

Oh my god you guys (henceforth to be abbreviated OMGYG), all I've been baking lately is sugar cookies. Roller derby has been the main culprit, but I of course use the term 'culprit' loosely because I love love love doing it. However through the process of baking and decorating cookies en masse for a vendor's table, I have learned that I need to work on my time management skills. And how.

For the last derby bout I made CHOCOLATE sugar cookies, and dipped them in purple and green Merckens (which is essentially white chocolate). Think Black & White Cookie meets Rollergettes.

However, poor time management = rushing to get cookies done and out the door in time = stress = forgetting to take pictures. However I did manage to squeeze off this one:

Chocolate sugar cookie, half naked.

I'll try to get more photos of these, because they were kind of cool when the were done. I mean, chocolate cookie dipped in white chocolate? WIN.

And speaking of sugar cookies, July 9th was National Sugar Cookie Day!* The fabulous Sugar and Meringue has put together a free sugar cookie e-booklet called "Cookies for a Cause" (hmm, sound familiar?) to raise money for the Great American Bake Sale to end child hunger. It's filled with links for donating to the cause.

OMGYG, check it out.


*not an official holiday, so don't take next July 9 off work no matter how badly you want to.

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Roller Derby Cookies

A few weeks ago I set up a vendor's table at the local roller derby bout in support of our girls--Rollergettes (sounds like "roller jets", in reference to Sufferagettes!). Using the "O" from their logo and their team colours, I made these:

Round sugar cookies. Fresh out of the oven while still warm I pressed a star cookie cutter into the cookie to make my piping guideline.

Boy, did I make a lot of these cookies! About 6 or 7 dozen, I think.

First, I piped the outline of the green icing.

I let the green dry while I piped the purple.

When they were all outlined, I decided to do the flooding.
First the green flooding...
Then the purple!

When all the cookies were flooded, I filled the star with white. I packaged one of each cookie into celophane bags, tied them up with black curling ribbon (to tie the black of their logo into it) and sold them for $3 per package, or 2 for $5. I sold all but 8 of them, and gave the rest to my very good friend (and Rollergettes' volunteer) Jill, who deserves much more than cookies for all her efforts.

I used Amanda's (she's so famed she goes by one name now) Sugar Cookie and Royal Icing Substitute, and they turned out splendidly!