Sunday Night Football
I have to say, I am not a huge fan of football and spending my entire Sunday watching it is agony. Of course, every once in a while I indulge my husband, because it makes him so happy. But, there are a few things I do love about football Sundays. It means it is fall, when the weather starts changing (as much as it can in SoCal) and it is time to start thinking about the holidays. It means the neighborhood annual block party and football game. Which is a blast! I mean really, 5 wives against 5 military guys. How we think that is...
read moreDinosaur Baby Shower Cookies
This last weekend I had the honor of co-hosting my friend’s baby shower. Her shower is the sole reason why I found my first cookie blog and got so interested in decorating sugar cookies. I decided to replicate the baby dinosaur cookies that originally inspired me to get started on this blog. Please visit here to see the cookies I worked from. I worked off of the baby shower invitation to select the colors I would use. Mixing colors is still pretty difficult for me. I am also still using my original meringue powder, so blotching happened...
read moreRoyal Icing Cookie Decorating Class
Last night I took a royal icing class at my local baking supply store, Pila’s Kitchen. I was so excited to learn some new tips and have hands on experience. Unfortunately, I came away a little bored and underwhelmed. We were given premade cookies that were hard as a rock and not tasty at all. I would never suggest using their recipes. Also, the base royal icing was never beat to stiff peaks, so it started out runny. Since my biggest issue so far is icing consistency, this was disappointing. I really wanted to see in person the...
read morePumpkin Cookies
My very first “official” cookies! I am really excited how they turned out. I am getting great reviews from my office on the taste and texture. I used Sugarbelle’s recipe for both the cookie and the royal icing. I also took some notes from her on how to decorate and color. These are pretty easy. My only issue would be that I noticed a day after the cookies were bagged, the darker pumpkins ended up getting blotchy. From what I can read on the blogs, it looks like I need to do a few things. Run a fan or heater on the cookies...
read morePiping Practice
So just like I promised, this last weekend I started my piping practice. My girlfriend at the office came up with a great idea for me. Buy a couple coloring books and try to color within the lines. What a great idea. I have to say, I was really worried after my first try at decorating. I thought I just wouldn’t be able to do this. Making straight lines with icing just doesn’t come that easily. So, I looked up YouTube videos for piping tutorials and studied their techniques. There are a lot of videos available and I found...
read moreTechnology Update
Today I am enjoying a glass of wine. Why you ask? Well in celebration that TheCookieMaster.com is back up and running. The last 4 days have been spent going back and forth with HostGator. I am still not a hundred percent sure why my website was taken down by them multiple times, but it was. All in all, I think I will still to practicing my cookie skills and leave technology advice to the experts. If you read this two years from now… DO NOT do what I did. I failed. I had to live chat with a techy to get it fixed. I...
read moreThe Technology Side of Things and More
So, I have spent the last couple days doing extensive research on blog set up AND I have reviewed every cookie blog possible to see what they are doing. In the next week, expect A LOT of changes on here. Man-o-man, setting up a hobby, business and website is no small feat, let me tell you. Here is the list of my to-do: Change Linking Structure/Permalink Structure: which means when you click a link it the future the article name will show, instead of funky junk. Fix Some Security Issues. Set Up Discussion/Comment rules: include email and...
read moreInspiring Cookie Decorators that Started it All & CookieCon
I have already compiled a list of the most amazing cookie decorators and their blogs. I am in serious awe of what they can produce, and it is because of them that I am doing this now. 1. Callye aka. Sugarbelle – www.sweetsugarbelle.com : Sugarbelle was the very first blog that I happened upon. She has by far the best how to’s and descriptions for all sorts of decorating needs. Check out these Owls she recently made. 2. Georganne aka. LilaLoa – http://www.lilaloa.com/ : I like Lila’s personal...
read moreRoyal Icing 101
Last night was my very first try in actually decorating cookies with Royal Icing. Let’s walk through my very long evening. First, I made the royal icing. I chose to use The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle’s recipe since she had really detailed instructions on how to make it. You can find that informative post here. I did not halve her recipe and found out that two bags of powder sugar come dangerously close to overflowing into a dust cloud once the whisk starts its work. Poof! But overall, the process really surprised me… I had...
read morePerfect Sugar Cookie??
In my mind, the goal at the end of the day is to become a master decorator of sugar cookies. Therefore, they can taste awful as long as they are beautiful, right?!? According to my wonderful, inspiring mom, apparently not! Thus began last weekend’s endeavor to find the perfect sugar cookie. So, I chose three recipes that I liked and went shopping for supplies. A lot of supplies… Cost: Flour, sugar, butter, etc. – Vons $27.20 Meringue Powder – Amazon.com $17.32 Option 1: Follow what the master decorators do. My favorite...
read more