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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