Well, sort of. Cake is awesome but I am much better at baking cookies. So when a friend’s kiddo wanted to take treats in to school for her 10th birthday, the phrase ‘let them have cake and eat it too’ came to mind. Hopefully no (french) revolution will follow…
When you turn 50, all bets are off. You can ‘whine a little, WINE a lot!’ Milestone birthdays often bring around self medication in this socially acceptable form. Um. Maybe any birthday??? So, here is my ode to said alcoholic category; they may not all be considered “spirits” but they are all libations of a sort. Happy 50th Akemi! May your second half of the century be even better.
Midnight Blues is the pattern. I definitely saw midnight and a LOT of blue when decorating the cookies for this birthday party…
Requested were 12 favors that had the pattern on a purse plus one large cookie cake. I took the daisy within the pattern and made the “cake” such that guests could pull a large petal or a small cookie, depending on their appetite.
I didn’t have a cookie cutter to match so I sized a 4×4″ purse on card stock and hand cut the shape.
The base layer was a very saturated black.blue (half and half Americolor royal blue and black, required lots of gel to achieve the color).
After drying the base overnight, I began applying the flower pattern. Yellow= Lemon yellow with a drop or two of egg yellow. Blue= Royal blue: just a little bit for the light blue and several drops more for the darker. Green= Leaf green. Orange= orange. Purple= Violet with a couple drops of regal purple. Americolor gels all. I wish I could tell you exactly how many drops but 1) I mixed without counting & 2) it does depend on how much icing you are tinting. I had sketched a pattern first to balance the colors on the cookie and it mostly worked. That is also why I always, always make an extra cookie or two for my “oops.”
Here’s how they turned out against a print of the original design.
Next I moved on to the cookie cake. Sorry but it required a little math. I measured the serving platter diameter and from there figured out how wide top and bottom each petal needed to be, considering that I would have a 4″ circular center and 8 petals, etc. (If you really want to know how to calculate the measurements, comment back and I will tell. A little boring.) Made a hole with/for a candle in top cookie of stack. Did this BEFORE I baked the cookies.
I cut out a cookie stack (using cutter set where each cookie gets slightly smaller) for the center to support the happy birthday sticks. Unfortunately, it was late at night and I mistakenly thought I needed 12 sticks. Um, “happy birthday” has 13 places, even without a space. Duh. So that’s why the sticks weren’t flat around the stack. My bad. Just do the math better than me and it will all fit. These sticks happened to be 3″x .75″ each.
One more look at the entire production!
Despicable Me minions were requested for birthday favors/a party platter, with some female versions included! Conveniently, Sweet Ambs had just posted a tutorial on minion.making and, if ever anyone knew cookie decorating, it would be the awe-inspiring Amber Spiegel. So I followed her directions other than also making a female version (birthday girl really likes blue so dresses are blue not the green from the movie), royal icing in my own “eyes,” and using my own hearts (saying thank you to the guests, etc.). The bigger minions (from 4″ rounds) all had unique faces but the favor sized (3″ tall rectangles) were the same design.
Step one was flooding the little hearts and letting them dry. About 6 hours later I painted on the “thx” or “luv” or “Liana.” In the meanwhile, I did the yellow face background. I let this dry for 4 hours (Sweet Ambs did not but I had an errand to run. It worked for me.). Next was putting on the pants and dresses; I placed the heart on while the icing was wet, basically as soon as the pants on each cookie was completed. For the dress, I added the dots and bottom trim while the icing was wet first and then added the heart.
Then I continued following Sweet Ambs directions. Here’s how they turned out.
After drying overnight, I put a boy and a girl (or Stewart dressed up as a girl) minion back to back to place in the favor bag. Added a cute little tag and they were ready for the guests!
Now 100% legal! Two fantastic young men turned 21 last week; two different personalities called for 2 different cookie genres. I had trouble with color bleeding on the beer mugs but, luckily, our birthday boy was in it for the sugar rush. Used a different colorant for the yellow so maybe that is why it bled? I’ve trolled the web looking for answers but will certainly take any advise from the all-pro cookie crowd out there. Win some, lose some.
Got to love Ben Franklin and his wisdom (see pic).
Happy birthday Doctor (cough, Brian)! Take 2 cookies and call me in the morning.
I prefer not to use the description “old, ” especially when celebrating my sister’s birthday. “Vintage” is proper, I believe. A brilliant positive connotation. She is sensational at 60! Would I go so far as to call us sexy? Perhaps not, but the sass level has never diminished.
A few of my favorite friends hit the half century mark this year; God forbid I miss an opportunity to jest. I thought a little sweetness would go well with the 50 black balloons , etc that mysteriously appeared at their homes. And who doesn’t love an old fashioned candy gram…
Mama Mayer Bakery 