Couture Cookie Collection for Glam Gals

Earlier this Spring, I was challenged by a cookie customer to bake some "Couture Cookies" for her high-fashion friends as party favors for a shopping/beach trip.

As my normal uniform is a pair of jeans and an old sorority t-shirt, this was a both a cultural and cookie stretch for me! ;^)

Thanks to my good friend Google and some AMAZING cookie artists out there, this is what I came up with for her!

All packed up and ready to go to the beach!

The full extent of my "Couture" knowledge was summed up in this Christian Louboutin shoe cookie. Way back in my brain, I had stored an article from the Wall Street Journal about trademarking the color red.   

I also have a relative, my husband's father's cousin's daughter, Whitney, who lives in California, who had these fancy shoes for her AMAZING wedding... that you can read all about on this Every Last Detail post.  (She probably knows someone famous, since she and I are only four degrees of separation apart!)  

But they were to beautiful to try to cookie, so enough about shoes, and more about cookies...

These Chanel logo cookies were copied from Oh, Sugar!  Her amazing Chanel party should not be missed!  She was also smart enough to use royal icing transfers, but I kept breaking mine and just ended up using push pins to mark the ends and the joints of each C and then drawing each one.  (This trick would also work for your Olympic Rings!)  You do have to get it right the first time though, because you CANNOT scrape the black off the white quilting.

I also learned the quilting from two very helpful tutorials:

• Quilted Cookie Tutorial  from Haniela's
• Quilted Cookie Tutorial  from Amber at Sweet Ambs as a guest post on celebrations.com

Since I was covering with white, I didn't draw lines on my cookies.  Instead, I traced the circle on a piece of cardstock and marked my lines with a ruler that extended past the edge of the cookie.  That way, when I was icing, I could visually line up the diagonals to keep my lines straight.

The Louis Vuitton cookies were inspired by this amazing cookie artist: Kava Dolce, which I found on the Art of Cookie website.  (Her bags are AMAZING!  I have no idea how she does those, but with some help from this Luster Dust Tutorial by Hani at Haniela's I pulled these off.  I used a pearl luster dust on the base and a gold on the logo and the  accents.

My customer wanted "Little Black Dress" cookies.  I tried to warn her against the taste of black icing... but she definitely wanted the dresses, so I ventured into more unknown territory and tried my hand at glaze.  So I borrowed a tried and true glaze recipe from my dear friend Shari, and thanks to some encouragement from Cristin at Cristin's Cookies and this WONDERFUL tutorial on glaze with Cristin and Arty MaGoo, I gave it a whirl!






I ended up deciding that I preferred to let the glaze run off the sides and the bottom edge of the cookies so that it would wrap around and look more like a dress.  The best news... glaze only takes a tiny bit of food coloring to get dark black, so they tasted great!

I also gussied them up a bit by adding a tiny ribbon around the waist! ;^)  (That is Kansasan for "making them fancy.")






However, when it comes to beach wear, the big floppy hat and shades are more my style.  I created these as "special extra" cookies for my customer!

While I was at it, I made some flip flops too!  They were a perfect touch for two other projects: one for Teacher Appreciation Week, which I will blog about next time...

... and the other for these adorable "Mother-Daughter Flip Flops" for my flip-flop-loving, glaze-recipe provider, dear friend Shari, who had just finalized the adoption of her foster-daughter Willow!   They are based on my favorite flip flops of the summer from Charming Charlies!

(The big ones were a flip-flop cutter, but I made the little ones out of a jellybean cutter!) ;^)

Have a great day!
Cheers~
Sarah

Cookie-d Memories: My Magnum Opus

Have you ever thought... "This is it!  I'd better stop now,
because it could not get any better than this?"  

This is how I feel about these very special cookies.  I am not sure that I will ever love any cookies more than these "Happy Birthday" cookies I made for my very dearest friend, Dana, who is celebrating a big birthday this year.  As my gift to her, I created these cookies, which show not only where she has been, but my wish for her future and the foundation for the wonderful woman she is.

Dana and I meet in college at William Jewell College, in Liberty, MO.  We were kindred-spirits from day one and have been best friends ever since!  She is younger than I am, so we didn't always have our adventures that the same time... but we have so many memories in common it was almost like cookie-ing my own life story!

My favorite college English professor, Mike Williams, once said "Is a tree ever just a tree? No, it is a tree laden with deep symbolic meaning."  Well, is a cookie ever just a cookie?  Maybe.  But not it this case... each cookie is a cookie laden with deep symbolic meaning. (This is your warning... if you don't want all the sappy details of the cookies of my life, and can live with the guilt... bail now!)


My birthday wish for Dana, although it wouldn't all fit on the luggage tag, was that:

"Where ever life takes you,
May you always have your faith,
your family & your friends,
your compass & your big backpack."

(Please graciously ignore that it says "Whereever" with no space.  I have never been a good speller. A former teacher used to say that "My mind just worked too fast to bother with getting the letters in the right places." [Which by the way is why I had such a hard time with college prep vocab, not because I didn't know the definitions, but because I couldn't spell the words.]  However, now that I am trying to help my Reader R. learn to spell, I am convinced that I am just silly and lazy in that area of life.  I mean really, how long would it have taken for me to google which "Where ever" or "Wherever" to use... [twenty-two seconds, because I just did it to figure out which was right before I wrote this], but instead, I just did it and hoped no one would notice that it wasn't right, if it wasn't, which I wasn't convinced of, until I googled it a second ago.  Of course, I also knew, deep down that I couldn't just let it slip by now that I knew that it was incorrect, but rather, had to point it out to the rest of the world and admit what I goof I am... instead, I will just say "My mind was working too fast to bother with getting the letters in the right places" and leave it at that.)

This cookie is for Dana's faith.  Her strong faith gives her true joy and gratitude, even in the difficult times.  She is an amazing sister and such an inspiration and encouragement to me.  (OK, are you still with me?  Was that deep symbolic meaning too much for you?)

These cookies represent Dana's family!  Her mother LOVE Mickey Mouse, so that cookie is for her parents and her family of origin.  She is married to a wonderful man named David, so the heart is their monogram. And she has two precious children, a girl and a boy.






This is my cookie.  (Yes. I cookie-d myself into her present.... tacky? A little, maybe, but we are dearest friends.)  So, yes, if I were a cookie, I would look like this.  (Just stick around, I may turn into one yet.  They say "You are what you eat.")  No, seriously, I love tea pots and my last name is Rose.  It doesn't get any more simple than that.  (OK, except for the cross.  That one was a give-away.)  What I love about this cookie, is that I tried the brush embroidery that Alison at Ali Bee's Bakeshop taught me!  Thanks, Alison!

The mortarboard is for our Alma Mater and the value of the education and life lessons that we learned there.  The compass is actually the Outward Bound logo.  We both spent 14 days in the Florida Everglades, canoeing and serving on an Outward Bound High Adventure trip during college, but also it serves as a reminder of Stephen Covey's concept of "True North" and always knowing what is really important to you.  The "Big Backpack" is symbolic of hopes and dreams.  We were recently discussing that although we are officially grown-ups and are working hard to de-clutter our homes, one of the seemingly odd items that we cannot seem to part with is our "Big Backpack" that we used to hike all over Europe.  (The squiggles in the background are supposed to be a journal entry.)  These two cookies are also fun because they are the first time that I tried painting on a cookie.  Thank you to Liz, a.k.a. Arty McGoo and Alison from Ali Bee's Bakeshop for the inspiration and the great tutorials.

"Oh the places you will go!"  During college, Dana and I both studied oversees in Oxford England, not at the same time.  We also both had the same internship in New York City, not at the same time.  I also had a Dora the Explore potty training sticker of Eiffel Tour on my shirt as I was decorating, so I toddled off into Na-Na land and created an Eiffel Tour sticker, hoping that she, too, like Dora and myself, had been to Paris. (Deep huh?) Turns out, she has a really great story about meeting a mutual friend and sorority sister under the Eiffel Tour, that I am sure I have heard at some point in the last 15 years and just happened to subconsciously bring up in time to make the perfect cookies for her birthday.  Thank you to Anne at the Flour Box, who convinced me that yes, I could make a telephone booth cookie, and Kim at the TomKat Studio for the tutorial on how to make an Eiffel Tower.  Although, both would have been easier with a KopyKake projector than drawing them by hand, looking at Dora the Explorer stickers for reference.

So, I individually-wrapped each cookie and bundled up our memories in a gift basket.  I added the outer-wrap so that they wouldn't spill out, and I VERY carefully delivered these delicious wishes to my very best friend.   (By the way, it is very hard to get a good photo of a gift basket... sorry.)

We laughed.  We cried.  We smiled so much our faces hurt, like rush in college.  We shared memories.  It was wonderful!  Thank you Dana for having a birthday, so that I could make these cookies!  (Which turned out to be a "for-you-for-me" gift... sorry!)

"We will always be dear old friends, 

until we are old and senile, 

then we will be dear new friends again."

I also want to say a brief thank you, my husband and my girls for supporting my cookie dream, to my parents for providing so many of these life-forming experiences, to my family and friends for buying my cookies, to all of my cookie mentors (whom I have never actually met, but feel like we are close friends), but especially Jodi at Wonderland Cookie Co.who taught me not to be afraid to link to cookies that are prettier than mine, and to my almost 100 followers who read my ramblings on a regular basis.  Thank you! 

Cheers!
Sarah

Thanks Coach!

Basketball season is coming to a close.  At our house, Reader R., who LOVES basketball, played on a team for the first time this year.  She played with a great league called Upward.  We have LOVED Upward!  It was a wonderful, non-competitive, all positive experience for my young basketball player!

The Upward Magnet - The Inspiration

At the beginning of the season, she was given this magnet.  I thought that it would make a really cool cookie.  It took quiet a bit of cookie engineering and used several different techniques to pull it off but I am REALLY pleased with the results.  (This was by FAR the most complicated cookie I have tried to date.)  First, I used the magnet as a template to hand cut the dough.  

The Upward Logo: Cookie-d

Thanks Coach!

Then, I made and colored the royal icing.  I didn't realize how tricky it could be to get just the right color when you are copying a real object.  (It doesn't really matter what color green you make your Christmas trees, but you don't want to butcher a logo.)  

Next, I created a royal icing transfer of the star and the lettering. (I figured that way, if I messed it up it would be easier to do it over.)  I stuck the magnet to the back of a cookie sheet and covered it with baking parchment, so I could "trace" the shape, since it was not symmetrical.

The "Boo-Boo Stick" 
Purchase 3 today at Karen's Cookies
(www.karenscookies.net) for only $0.69  each!

The next step was to outline and flood the outer stripes.  I used a wet-on-wet technique to do this.  I had some trouble getting the light blue stripe to vary consistently from thin to thick and not to spread where I didn't want it to.  I also have a hard time working out exactly how much flood to use to fill the space, so sometimes I have some overflow issues.  Then I use another FANCY technique called "Cookie SCRAPING."  For this technique, I use an amazing tool - THE BOO BOO STICK!  I have several of these and could not cookie without them.  Basically, I use the flat edge to scrap the icing off the cookie in the places where it didn't go where I wanted it to and start over.  (It is also helpful in lifting your cookie from the decorating tray when you have over-flooded and overflowed and you didn't realize it until the cookie is dry and STUCK to the tray.)  I also use it to poke out my frosting air bubbles and the pointy end is handy for cleaning out decorating tips.

After that I outlined the basketball and then flooded the navy field and the light blue ball and then after that was dry, I went back and top dressed the ball.  Finally, after it had dried some, I used a thin coat of royal icing to "glue" the transfer on.  I put it in a box with a half-dozen basketball cookies, and I think it makes a nice "Thank You" gift for my daughter's coach.
 

One of the moms from another team in the league, ordered celebration cookies for her son and daughter's teams.  I made a few extra cookie for their coaches, too!  Thanks Angie!

New"In-Motion" Basketballs...
look more like the real thing
(compare to the basketballs in the 1st photo).

Do you know of a basketball team that is celebrating a fun season or a coach that should be thanked for his or her time, encouragement, and hard work?  Or do you need cookies to help celebrate March Madness?  Call or e-mail Sarah today to place your order!

Thanks!
Sarah