School's Out For Summer!

Whoo! On Wednesday, summer will officially begin...for teachers, that is!

School's out.....for summer!

How about some ice cream?

With some sprinkles...

and a cherry on top?

Or, a dirty martini?

And, a dip in the pool in the cutest bikini!

To all of you teachers out there, have a great summer!

Cookie Scrabble Anyone?

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to try making Scrabble tiles as part of my dad's birthday gift. Why, would this be the perfect gift for my father you ask? Well...let me tell you a little bit about my dad or "Tate" (pronounced "ta"-"teh,") as we say in Yiddish!

My Tate...

• 
  
  owns 4 Scrabble games, one of which is kept in his trunk
• 
  
  owns 3 Scrabble dictionaries
• 
  
  knows about 121 two letter word combinations
• 
  
  has scored 316 points in one game

I guess you could say that he just a little "Scrabble obsessed!"

Therefore, I don't think that this could be any more perfect!

But, before I begin, I have to give credit Bridget from Bake at 350, which is where I originally got the idea to create scrabble tiles a few months ago. Her blog is fantastic and her cookies look incredible!

I rolled out my dough as I normally do, and realized that I did not own any square cookie cutters. That meant that I had to improvise!  So...I used a ruler and a very sharp knife to cut vertical and horizontal lines to form square tiles. Rrrrrrrr....my squares were too big and looked more like rectangles!  I finally managed to cut away at the dough and cut the rectangles into smaller squares.  Yippee!  My tiles were cut.

Using an offset spatula, I individually placed each tile on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

The cookies baked for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Once they cooled, I piped and flooded each tile with white royal icing and let them dry overnight. 

The next day, I piped the letters that I would be using for the board.  My sister, (Scrabble player number 2 in my family), created the layout.  I told her that we had 42 tiles to work with and off she went!

Here's what we came up with!

I tried to resemble the "Scrabble" letters as much as possible. 

The numbers were the hardest to pipe, since they were so tiny.

They turned out okay!

Just look at the expression on my dad's face when he opened the box and realized that the tiles were cookies! Priceless!

We first gave him and Ada the opportunity to play with the tiles.

It took no time for my dad to use up all of the letters and to create his own board.

Of course he managed to have some fun along the way!

Here's what he came up with. 

And it took him not even 10 minutes to incorporate all of the letters.

And here's what we created.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Scrubs for a Doctor

Congratulations to Dr. Pope, a recent Medical School graduate!

To design these cookies, I looked up some actual pictures of scrubs online and modified and added some of my own personal touches. I also included the name of the recipient on the pocket.

To make these cookies, refer to my favourite sugar cookie recipe. I used a onesie cookie cutter because I was not able to find a t-shirt cookie cutter anywhere in town. Use a sharp knife to cut off the bottom of the onesie, creating a straight edge. Bake and let cool. Pipe the border of the t-shirts with royal icing.

Flood the t-shirts with desired color.  This order was for pink scrubs.

I am obsessed with these Wilton Food Writer Edible Color Markers!  They are the same ones that I used in the last post to draw Cookie Monster's and Elmo's eyeballs. 

Using the edible marker was the most practical way that I found to include all of the details on each cookie. 

Let dry for at least a half hour before packaging.

Package and send away!

C is for cookie...

C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!  I had a blast making Cookie Monster and Elmo cupcakes for Lucas' first birthday party. Thanks to Bakerella's Street Party Post back in November, I had some ideas of products that could be used to transform these muppets into cupcakes.

 Pictured above are the materials needed to make both Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes. 

To make Elmo cupcakes you will need...

-red frosting for the face

-orange jelly beans for the nose

-scotch mints for the eyes

-a black Wilton FoodWriter edible color marker for the eye balls

-small chocolate coins for the mouth

Pipe the face using any flower tip.  (The tip used for piping grass might work even better.)

Draw circles on each mint with an edible marker.   

Elmo's nose is made by using orange jelly beans.

And the mouth is made by cutting small chocolate coins in half.

To make Cookie Monster cupcakes you will need...

-blue frosting for the face

-scotch mints for the eyes
-black Wilton FoodWriter edible color marker for the eye balls

-mini chocolate chip cookies for the mouth

First, pipe the face.

Next, color the eye balls; one should be slightly higher than the other. Then, cut a mini chocolate chip cookie in half and use one half for each mouth.  Let the crumbs crumble!  After all, cookie monster loves crumbs and cookies!

Holy cuteness!

So many cookies...

Elmo and Cookie Monster are friends.

The kids at Lucas' party were so excited to eat the cupcakes!  

Jory couldn't wait to eat Elmo!

Happy Birthday Lucas!  Enjoy the cupcakes kids.

Help!

The reason why I did not post the recipe for these vanilla/white cupcakes is because I wasn't satisfied with the way they turned out. The recipe created a very dense, greasy cupcake which many people enjoy, however, I personally do not. For some reason, I can't seem to find a fluffy, sweet, non-oily white cupcake recipe. HELP! If you are willing to share, please post a white cupcake recipe that you may have, or feel free to link up to your blog where I might be able to find a good one. I have tried about six already, and none of them seem to taste like that delicious birthday cake, cake that I am looking for.  

Looking forward to reading your suggestions,

Melissa ;) 

Cookies for a Wedding

A friend of mine gave her friends a cookie platter as a small gift for their intimate wedding.  The cookies turned out really well!  I think I am getting better at this, the more I practice.

I used purple icing for the accents this time, instead of the usual pink.

The icing turned out really well.

I followed the method that Marian from Sweetopia uses.  She uses the same icing to pipe and to flood. Click here to see some of her incredible cookies.   

Nonetheless, I am very happy with these!

The cookie tray looks great, don't you think?

Congrats to the newlyweds!

Enjoy!