Cookie Pops for a Baby Naming

A few months ago, I made cookie pops for center pieces for a baby naming. The cookie pops served a dual purpose; Not only were they focal point at each table, they were also given to the guests at the end of the party. Talk about practical!

I'm sure you have figured out by now that the baby girl's name is Jenna! To make the letters in her name I used the same technique as I did here, using parchment paper and a chosen font from Microsoft Word. The font that I used was Curlz MT. This time, I used royal icing to make the letters. This meant that I had to make extras since they were quite fragile. To make the dark purple letters above, I immediately sprinkled the royal icing letters with purple sugar crystals and let them dry overnight. Had I only done the same for the pink and light purple letters...

But I didn't...The method that I used for the cookies above was a little more time consuming. Once the pink letters dried overnight, I gently removed them from the parchment paper. After flooding the cookies with purple royal icing, I placed each letter in the center of a cookie. The cookies needed to dry completely overnight before adding any sugar. The next day, I retraced the letters with a little more royal icing and added white sugar crystals. It was helpful to lay the cookies on a piece of wax/parchment paper.  This way, the excess sugar can be poured back into a bowl to be used to add sugar to the next set of cookies.

Here's a side profile!

Making cookie pops is quite simple. The way that has worked best for me is simply sticking the lollipop stick about halfway into the raw cookie dough after it has been cut and placed onto a parchment lined cookie sheet that is ready for baking. The cookies are baked with sticks in them at the same temperature as regular cookies. Above, are the three different combinations of cookie pops that I made for the center pieces.

I used both longer and shorter lollipop sticks.

I think they turned out pretty cute!

A fun and original center piece.

For my sugar cookie recipe, click here.

For the recipe that I use to make royal icing, click here.

Congratulations to Jenna's family!

Cookies for a Lawyer

I continue to have such original requests from one customer who has lawyers and doctors to congratulate!  Isn't that exciting?  This order was from the same lady who ordered Scrubs for a Doctor cookies. Remember those? 

The challenging part of making these cookies was finding a design that could be made without using a Kopykake projector, since I do not own one...yet! And, finding an original design that fit the request. In the end, I made two different cookies: one with a gavel and another with a scale of justice.

These are the images I used for each cookie.

For the cookies with the gavels on them, I first  piped and flooded each sugar cookie with green royal icing.

Then, I used Wilton Food Writer Edible Color pens to add the details.

For the scale of justice cookies I followed the same steps but piped and flooded white royal icing.

 

Then used a blue edible marker to add the details.

Then I packaged up the cookies and they were ready to be delivered.

Congratulations Mark!

Cake Pop Bouquet

I made these cake pops for a first birthday party.

I used chocolate and blue candy melts.

First, I dipped the vanilla cake balls into the candy melts and attached the sticks.  Then, I set them in a styrofoam stand to dry.

To decorate, I used the leftover candy melts of the opposite color and drizzled a simple design.

To learn how to make your own cake pops, click here.

This order turned out perfectly!

To package the cake pops, I filled a silver plant pot from Ikea with styrofoam.  I topped it with blue and brown tissue paper and poked the cake pops into the styrofoam.  I added clear cellophane to cover up the arrangement and delivered it to the party. Everyone was thrilled and confused at the same time.  They had never seen or eaten a cake pop before!

Have you tried a cake pop before? If so, where was it from and what flavour was it?

Baby Cookies for a Purple and White Baby Shower

A few weeks ago, my friend Jen and her sister Alyse made a baby shower for their niece, Mila. The colors they chose for the shower were lavender and white.

To make these cookies, I used my favourite sugar cookie recipe. To tint the royal icing purple, I used Wilton Violet Icing Color. The more colour added, the darker the shade of purple. For the royal icing recipe I used, click here.

I used two different techniques to decorate the baby onsies: marbling or creating feathered stripes on wet flood and adding polka dots to wet flood.  For a step by step tutorial showing how to create feathered stripes on wet flood, click here. To learn how to create polka dots on wet flood, click here.

The purple and white icing looked great together!

All packaged up and ready to be delivered.

Jen sent me a photo of the gorgeous table from the shower. The baby cookies were only a minor part of all of the beautiful purple and white sweets displayed. The cake was from Cake Opera Company, the french macaroons were ordered from a company called "Pretty Sweet" and everything else, was homemade!

Alyse even made her own cupcake toppers to top the vanilla cupcakes she made.

As well as fondant little ducks to decorate the chocolate cupcakes she made.

Great job ladies!  Thanks for including my cookies in your celebration. Congratulations to your sister on the birth of her daughter.

Rose Cake for my Mother-in-Law's Birthday

Happy Birthday Kathy!

We invited Rich's parents to Toronto for the weekend to celebrate his mom's birthday. I knew that this cake idea would be perfect for her. But I can't take credit for it. I have to credit Amanda from i am baker.

She has so many great cake ideas.  Some are simple, and all are elegant. 

For this cake, I modified her round rose cake to a rectangular rose cake.

1. Bake a rectangular cake and let cool.

2. Load on the frosting. (I used a vanilla frosting which I like with white cake.)

3. Spread the frosting over the entire cake using an offset spatula.

4. Evenly coat the sides of the cake so that all areas are covered.

To make blended pink and purple roses, I filled a piping bag with both colors of frosting. I filled the left side of the piping bag with pink frosting and the right side of the piping bag with purple frosting.

I used a 1M open star tip to pipe the flowers onto the cake.  For each flower, I started in the middle, working my way around the center until a rose formed. 

The roses turned out really pretty. Had the icing been a little colder and stiffer, I think the roses would have taken better form.

To fill the spaces between the roses, I piped a star of icing and topped each star with a silver dragee.

Since I ran out of frosting and therefore was not able to add roses to the sides of the cake, I also lined the base of the cake with dragees. Amanda covered the sides of her cake with roses. In retrospect, I wish I did too.  Her cake looked fantastic! To see her beautiful creation, click here.

Matching up some sugar cookies using the same colors as the cake made it all come together.

My mother-in-law was thrilled.  She really deserves it. She is such a wonderful lady!

She was so happy to have her family and friends together to celebrate a special milestone in her life.

Here's to celebrating many more birthdays together! 

Happy Birthday Kathy!