Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Shapes, Letters and Numbers on a Cake

Playing catch-up. If you'd like to see my latest cookie creations, please visit my Facebook page: A Random Act of Cookie.  

February - Mini Cookies on a Cake - Shapes, Letters and Numbers
2 dozen mini ginger spice sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Lunar New Year 2014 (4712)

Playing catch-up. If you'd like to see my latest cookie creations, please visit my Facebook page: A Random Act of Cookie.  

January - Lunar New Year Cookies for a School Celebration
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies, 2 dozen chocolate sugar cookies


January - Lunar New Year Cookies for a Family Party
3 dozen ginger spice sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Silly Monsters

Playing catch-up. If you'd like to see my latest cookie creations, please visit my Facebook page: A Random Act of Cookie.  

November - Silly Monsters Cookies for a 1st Birthday
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies, 2 dozen chocolate sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Lego Bionicles

Playing catch-up. If you'd like to see my latest cookie creations, please visit my Facebook page: A Random Act of Cookie.  

October - Lego Bionicles Cookies, Kopaka and Lewa
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Owls and Paint Palettes

Playing catch-up. If you'd like to see my latest cookie creations, please visit my Facebook page: A Random Act of Cookie.  

September - Owl Cookies for a 2nd Birthday
5 dozen vanilla sugar cookies


September - A Colorful 4th Birthday with Paint Palette Cookies
1.5 dozen confetti sugar cookies, 1.5 dozen chocolate cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Thank-you Minis, Dr. Seuss

Playing catch-up. If you'd like to see my latest cookie creations, please visit my Facebook page: A Random Act of Cookie.  

August - Last-day-of-preschool mini cookies for teachers
5 dozen vanilla sugar cookies, 5 dozen chocolate sugar cookies




August - A Dr. Seuss 1st Birthday, 5" favor-size cookies
3 dozen vanilla sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Disney's Brave-themed Birthday

July - Disney's Brave-themed 5th birthday cookies
4 dozen vanilla sugar cookies, 1 dozen chocolate sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - 90th Birthday Hearts

July - 90th birthday; heart cookies
1 dozen vanilla sugar cookies, 1 dozen chocolate sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Plumerias and Pink Ribbons

June - plumerias for a luau
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies
The plumerias are sugar transfers.  I printed out plumeria clipart images, placed a sheet of parchment paper over the images, then traced the flowers with royal icing.  When the icing dried, I carefully peeled the flowers off the parchment paper and placed them onto freshly flooded cookies.


June - pink ribbons for breast cancer survivor
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Monarch Butterflies

June - Claire's birthday; monarch butterfly cookies and cake
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies, some topping a cake and cupcakes

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Surf's Up!

April - Jack's birthday; surf-themed cookies
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies and 2 dozen chocolate cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Easter Peek-a-Bunnies

March - Easter; peek-a-bunny cookies, mini butterfly cookies
2 dozen 100% whole wheat vanilla sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Tet 2013

February - Lunar New Year; lantern cookies, snake cookies, cherry blossom cookies
2 dozen large and 1 dozen small vanilla sugar cookies, 2 dozen large and 1 dozen small chocolate sugar cookies

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Shabby Chic, Pumpkins

I brain farted and forgot to post these last year.

August - 1 month party for my cousin's baby (the Vietnamese version of a welcome baby party); shabby chic cookies
4 dozen 100% whole wheat vanilla sugar cookies.


September - 1st birthday party for a friend's daughter; shabby chic cookies
4 dozen vanilla sugar cookies.




October - Halloween playdate; pumpkin cookies
2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies.

Off Topic - Cake - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar cake for my son's 2nd birthday.  It's his absolute favorite book.

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Ferrari Farms Ladybugs

July - cookies for Todd's work department potluck at Ferrari Farms; monogram and ladybug cookies
6 dozen 100% whole wheat vanilla sugar cookies with rainbow jimmies thrown in just for fun.

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - July 4th Fireworks and Butterflies

July - More Independence Day cookies; USA and fireworks cookies; patriotic butterfly cookies
The square ones were for hubby's work (1 dozen triple vanilla sugar cookies), and the butterflies were for Claire's dance class (1 dozen vanilla sugar cookies).

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Tulips, Daisies, Butterfly, Retirement, Sea Turtles, 4th of July Flag with Star Spangled Banner

May - a Random Act of Cookie for the Werner family; daisy, tulip and butterfly cookies
1/2 dozen vanilla and 1/2 dozen chocolate sugar cookies.


May - Chu Long's Retirement / Welcome Home party; freehand happy face and wine glass cookies
3 dozen chocolate sugar cookies
 

June - Claire's Birthday; turtle cake and turtle cookies
She's been obsessed with baby sea turtles lately, so that was the theme of her party.  The cookies were for her classroom. Devil's food cake birthday cake, 3 dozen triple vanilla sugar cookies.


July - Independence Day; flag cookies
I didn't plan out the lettering as well as I could/should have so I ended up having to put in filler squiggles. Oh well. At least there are fifty stars in there. :-) 2 dozen vanilla sugar cookies.

Off Topic - Decorated Cookies - Trains, Valentine Hearts, Leprechauns and Shamrocks, Easter Eggs ,Bunnies and Chicks, Teacher Appreciation

As some of you already know, I've been decorating cakes as a hobby since I was 10 years old.  My mom even bought me my own decorating tool caddy with, like, a dozen different tips to use, a handful of couplers, flower nails, and those oh-so-fun-to-clean piping bags.  Every so often I'd pick up a copy of the latest Wilton decorating magazine and I had a blast, it always felt good to be able to zone out in front of a blank cake canvas and get my creative juices flowing.

Nowadays, 30 years later, I still do decorate the occasional cake, but it seems like the chore of cleaning grease-based frosting from tips and couplers (at least we have disposable piping bags now, or else I'd have completely quit a long time ago) over-rides my desire for creativity.

Earlier this year, as I was planning my little one's first birthday party, I was trying to come up with a fun party favor when I came across decorated sugar cookies online.  Well, sure, I've seen lots of them before, but never gave them much thought until I decided to make some for little one's party.  The flooding part is different than frosting a cake, but the piping technique is very similar.  And royal icing, unlike buttercream, is just sugar, water and meringue powder, no grease and easy to clean!

So here's what I've done over the past 4 months.

February - Train cake and cookie favors for little one's first birthday party
Still learning about icing consistency, it was too runny but the cookies still turned out cute. Can you believe I baked and decorated 60 trains?!  Crazy first attempt at decorating cookies.  5 dozen vanilla sugar cookies.
 

February - Valentine's Day playdate; heart cookies
Much better icing consistency.  These were time consuming but so much fun!  1 dozen chocolate sugar cookies.
 

March - St. Patrick's Day playdate; leprechaun and shamrock cookies
1 dozen chocolate and 1 dozen vanilla sugar cookies.

 

April - Easter brunch at in-laws; bunny, baby chick and egg cookies
18 chocolate sugar cookies.



 May - Teacher Appreciation Week for big one's teachers; square and daisy cookies
1 dozen chocolate and 1 dozen vanilla sugar cookies.

 

That's it for now.  I'm having so much fun with this that I wish I had more time to do it more often.  I'll post more as I make more.  I need a place to keep these pictures for reference, and I can't keep up with two blogs, so they'll make the occasional appearance on here.  Thanks for bearing with me.

Off Topic - Swimming Pool Cake

I just wanted to post a couple of photos of the cake I made for today's Moms Group's 2-year anniversary. The theme was supposed to be pool party, but it ended up being too chilly to swim. But that didn't stop me from making a pool-themed cake.

I've been baking and decorating cakes as a hobby since I was 10 years old. It's a royal pain in the ass (too many ingredients, too many tools, and way too much clean-up at the end), but sooooooo fun and rewarding.

This is absolutely NOT SBD legal.  The cake is a devil's food chocolate cake from this Food Network recipe.  It's absolutely delicious and I highly recommend it.  The frosting is a simple buttercream, and the "water" is Wilton's piping gel with blue food coloring added to it.  The kiddos are gingerbread cookies iced with a simple powdered-sugar-and-milk cookie icing.