A Big, Beautiful Birthday Cupcake with Tushie Cookies!

jumbo birthday cupcake with stars and fondant ribbons

Only the most glam birthday cupcake would do for my wonderful friend, Suzi, and her most fabulously stylish daughter, Rebecca June, who describes herself on her blog as an ~ Interior Designer. Jewelry Addict. Clothes Horse. TV Junkie. Wife and Mother to a Rescue Dog. Suzi and Rebecca sparkle. Some people just seem to do that. I knew my design had to include glittering stars – (made from thinned royal icing, piped and filled in on top of cloth covered… [Read More]

Decorated Nautical Cookies!

The fleet is in! Are they nautical wedding cookies? Nautical Save-the-Date cookies? Nautical birthday cookies or nautical baby announcement cookies? Let’s set sail … … and send up the flags. Let’s signal L.O.V.E. … and Happy Birthday to my love bug, G.E.J., who turns 21 this weekend. Save-the-Date for a nautical wedding or to announce the very special arrival of a new member of the crew. The Scrabble possibilities are endless when you know the nautical alphabet or you can… [Read More]

‘Tushie Cookies’ for Valentine’s Day!

Valentine tushie cookies

Amy from Ohio had a great idea. She asked me if I would make her my Tushie Cookies for her boyfriend for Valentine’s Day. How could I resist such a sweet and fun request? Amy had a couple more requests – pink, red and… … Tiffany blue with Ben’s name in a black tattoo! Tushie Cookies aren’t just for bridal showers anymore! You’ll find more ‘Tushie’ Cookies at these links:  ‘Tushie’ Cookies I – Bridal Shower  ‘Tushie’ Cookies III –… [Read More]

Monday Perspective

As I’m taking a moment to think out my schedule this week which will include a cupcake tower with a snowflake theme and snowflake cookies, I’m also thinking of two strangely polar dining events that are taking place today. My brother and his wife are on day 4 without electricity from the Santa Ana winds that blew through Pasadena last week. They are eating of out an ice chest where there’s going to be a curbside drop off lane for… [Read More]

I Heart Martha!

I know you’ve seen this picture before from a recent post on decorated fall leaf cookies but today it is featured on Martha Stewart’s Dreamers Into Doers! It is such a thrill for one of my babies to be featured.Thank you Martha, & staff, for this honor!

Happy Birthday to A Best Friend!

When making party favors for my dear friend Suzi’s birthday party hosted by her equally lovely sister, Kathi, last Saturday, I thought of what images I could capture in a cookie that reminded me of her. Specific images came to mind when thinking of her style – simple elegance, sparkle, mirrors, silver balls, purple and white. Suzi, I love having you be a sweet part of my life and the icing on my cake. (I know, corny). Wishing you many,… [Read More]

Decorated Fall Leaf Cookies! A Tutorial (with rolled fondant)

With the autumn breeze swirling colored leaves to my kitchen back door, I had an idea for decorated leaf cut out sugar cookies using rolled fondant that created a different look than using royal icing to decorate them(to see leaf cookies decorated with royal icing click here). With fondant, I could blend the colors together to make them softer and muted.     The first step was to make individual colors of fondant.   I used Satin Ice rolled fondant… [Read More]

‘Best of Show’ and Other Pretty Ribbons

I hope you’ll allow me my ‘15 seconds, minutes or written lines of fame’ ‘cuz this is going to be one braggy blog post. It’s my story of entering the 2011 Orange County Fair Culinary Arts Division this summer. It all started with my husband who lovingly encouraged me to enter cookies I made for my niece’s wedding this past May. Those who love you are always your biggest fans. Since I had a few extra left over I thought,… [Read More]

Fondant Cookie Cutter Texture Set {GIVE-AWAY}

I want to spread the rolled textured fondant-on-cookie love so I contacted Autumn Carpenter whose cookie cutter texture set I used for the wedding cookies. She has generously offered the give-away winner a cookie cutter textured set of their own choosing from her website. Here are just a couple available. This is the set I used. The Wedding Cake Set. Here are some posts I wrote about working with the Wedding Set this past spring and about working with the… [Read More]

Mini Snowflake Cookies

Good things do come in small packages.   Especially in bite sized ones.After icing the cookies with thinned icing and letting them dry, I brushed them with aqua colored luster powder for a soft blush of color. I then piped the details on the cookie and finished with a single silver dragee in the center. For the presentation I used paper loaf pans that I never got around to using for baking cranberry bread for Thanksgiving. Another small package and… [Read More]