Geek. Nerd. Techie. Egghead. Smart and quirky people warm the cockles of my heart. There’s a chemistry about them (tee hee). Here’s to those who claim the nomenclature on Valentine’s day! Um. Please forgive me for sneaking in a Star Wars reference (last photo).
Traditional cookies designs are not usually my “thing”… but conversation hearts open up endless possibilities on what to write. I went with simple food related topics on happy, bright colors. I didn’t know whether I preferred hand printing with food markers or stamping with “typewriter” font. Typewriter won the day but I have a few of the other too.
I started by using flood consistency royal icing in deep pink, sky blue, electric green, and white to cover heart shaped cookies. I let them dry overnight (8 hours- ish) before handling them again.
I mixed a little almond extract with red red Americolor gel and painted it on the top of my rubber letter stamps. To assure alignment, I Scotch taped the “word” together for even spacing. I experimented doing a few free hand too; that resulted in an old school, quirky typeface look.
The sky is the limit as to what message you want to convey! Let me know what works for you?!
Inspiration comes from strange and wondrous places. Instagram holds treasures; that is where I found sewlovetheday and my inspiration for this BIG 7.5 x 7.5″ cookie (check out her daughter’s sew-love-the-day-blog…also chock full of goodies!). I love happy, clean designs with fun as a founding principle.
Using royal icing, I first made the number “9”s on wax paper. Could not decide what color it should be so I made several choices. PS. I did not have a cloud cookie cutter so I drew a couple clouds on card stock, took scissors to the one I thought would work best, and used a regular, sharp knife along the outside of the shape to cut it out of the dough.
After they set completely (4 hours was enough), I decorated the cloud and the little hearts. Place the “9” on the cloud while still wet. I learned from the “love you to the moon and back” cookie to make the big cookie base royal icing a 9-10 second flooding at most (thin for me). Place the cloud and heart cookies on while base icing is still wet. Final details such as the “lace” around the edge and the dots went on after base was dry/4 hours or overnight. Used Americolor sky blue, deep pink, white, and red red.
I don’t exactly know who coined the phrase “love you to the moon and back”. The earliest I remember was when the nutbrown hare said it in the 1994 book “Guess how much I love you.” Sidebar…can you believe that book is 20 years old? Anyway, I have extreme adoration for this phrase because I associate it with my sister. She ends her emails with M&B and whispers it in your ear. My sister is the kind of sister that everyone wishes they had. I am one lucky girl.
The large cookie is 7.5″x 7.5″ . I free hand cut this from the dough. I also did not have a big enough cutter to make the quarter earth so I used my trusty trifle bowl. Hey, whatever works, right?
I first decorated all of the shapes that would create the top layer.
The bottom cookie took 8 ounces or so of royal icing to completely coat (and I had to momentarily stop about half way through, thus the lines in the dark blue. darn. It’s all about the icing consistency- should have made it a little thinner.) While this was still wet, I put the top cookies in place and dotted the stars.
I piped in the arrows with royal icing after the base dried about 4 hours. Colors used were AmeriColor deep pink, sky blue, electric green, and royal blue (with a touch of black for background). It fits perfectly into a 8×8″ box to ship to my sister! Thank you kolettehall for the free printable!
What exactly is a normal person? I’m still waiting to meet that normal family or witness that normal life. Thank goodness no 2 people think alike. How boring this world would be if we did?
So, I’m going to embrace the fact that my brain function might be considered abnormal. Might? How about we give it a classification of atypical and call it a day? Here is how my mind intertwines with valentines.
I choose you.
Top row cookies pay homage to Buffalo, NY. We like things spicy 🙂 The next several designs came to mind while listening to Usher’s song Scream. You’re hypnotic, magnetic…
It’s valentiMe!
And lastly, in cahoots with some fruits… also my version of Valentine nutrition. sigh.
Hats off to Chef’s Restaurant for donating to First Book’s Feed the Need to Read project here in Buffalo. This project allows First Book WNY to supply books to kids who have never had their own book and/or have none at home. A big cookie “thank you” for being so generous!
I can’t help it. The theme from Monk is running through my head. Oh, Randy Newman!
Baby showers are always fun projects and this jungle animal themed gathering was no exception. Lions and zebras and monkeys, oh my. Throw in a few palm trees and ta-da! I wish you could have seen all the decorations at this shower; Joanne left no moment to chance to make this one of the cutest baby showers ever!
Since both parents are teachers, a literature/storybook theme was a perfect choice for the baby shower. It is likely that there will be many open books in this baby boy’s future. But, “In the Beginning,” this cookie will start the celebration of a new life!
The cookie itself was a brown sugar and spice version, care of cookie goddess Bridget Edwards at Bake at 350. She and her recipes are AH.mazing!
We’ve had our fair share of Buffalo snow and wind over the years but this storm was particularly blustery and bitter! For those of you who know the area, I 90 was closed from Rochester through the PA border. Although we were sequestered in our home, we had electricity, heat, and one perfectly delightful fireplace! I had been wanting to try the dark chocolate cookie recipe from Sweetapolita so ta-da, silver lining for everything. (thank you Sweetopolita! Delish!) Here are the results.
Basically I wanted to do a study in 2x4s. Most might think Lowe’s lumber, but I mean 2 inch by 4 inch, as in cookie terms. I started with a 4″x4″ cookie and cut in half.
Then I made the earmuffs using a horseshoe and a ruffled circle cookie cutter.
This is my interpretation of snowmen during the blizzard…
Added a little retro snow (LOVE retro!)…
And then the thermometer.
Here’s a through.the.window glimpse of what Buffalo looked like mid-polar vortex… Appreciating your homestead about now?
Tic.tock, waiting for that midnight kiss. This clock fulfilled my requirements: completed ever so quickly and able to feed a lot of kids. There are about 60 cookies on the tray and the glaze icing is super simple (powdered sugar, water or milk, and coloring- only the “hello 2014” is royal icing). Deliciously counting the minutes until the new year.
Thanks for a great 2013. May every year be better than the next!
Mama Mayer Bakery 