Last week in cookies…

No insights today, just a flurry of cookies I made for three special people.

First up is birthday cookies for our Rowan’s little friend, Sophia.  Happy Birthday sweety!

Next up is for our new neighbours Jane and Tom, as a welcome gift.  Thanks Bridget from Bake at 350 for the picket fence idea.  The house is designed to look like their house.

And lastly, for our sweet neighbour behind us, Miss Hazel, who always comes to say hello to the girls and gives them cookies.  So in return…

Thanks for looking!

Best Summer Vacation Ever

A bunch of us wack-a-do cookie people were chatting about doing a fun post about summer, so we chose to create cookies of our favourite summer vacation.  Now most of my favs have been since my kids were born and usually centered around a certain mouse but I wanted to do something unique.  I chose the summers we spent as kids in Muskoka, Ontario.  Cottage country as we called it.  Beautiful lake country on the Canadian Shield that are the summer getaways for Southern Ontarians and some uber rich celebrities.

As kids we went up north to Lake Muskoka and spent the entire summer.  My parents rented a cottage and we boated, fished, hiked, canoed, jumped off the boathouses, swam and generally spent every waking moment outside.  It was an awesome way to spend the days.  At night we had campfires, or hung out inside playing board games because the only tv station we got wasn’t even clear.  We’d take the boat into Port Carling for ice cream.  We’d go to Bala to the only bakery for the absolute best scones ever and as we got older we’d return to Bala to go see some amazing bands at the Kee.  Having a cottage was awesome.  Most cottages were a combination of eclectic furniture and modern conveniences.  Now this was back in the 70’s so by modern I mean we had a party phone line and a phonograph to play music.  Again awesome.

Now cottages are like going to another modern house that' is situated on a lake and you only go there during the summer or on long weekends.  It’s not the same but still the best way to spend some time.

So I decided to paint my cookies to make them look like Tom Thomson (Group of Seven artist) and then since it was my brother-in-law’s 50th birthday who has a family cottage in Muskoka, I gave them to him.

HAPPY 50th Pete, Hope you had an awesome birthday!

Thanks for looking!

So do you want to see the other awesome cookies? of course you do, so check them out

• The Baked Equation
• Sweet C’s Bake Shop
• Sparking Sugar Sweets
• Created by Diane
• Sweet Williams Cookies

Treat Day Wednesday–1st Day of Summer Cookies

Hi all!  Sorry I’ve been on a baking hiatus this past week because Rob’s been travelling with work and Abby is out of school for the summer, so my requirements have been elsewhere and it’s been freakish hot.  But since today is the first day of summer I felt it was a good enough reason to turn on the oven.

Nothing special today, just some fun cookies and I thought I’d try a tutorial.  I’m no Sugarbelle’s so bare with me :)

First I’d like to remind those who keep their ingredients in bins other than their initial packaging, PAY ATTENTION.  Why? you ask.  Well I made a batch of cookies the other day and after I added the flour the consistency was all off.  I used the remainder of the flour in the bin so had to open a new bag.  I used the new bag and finally got it to the right texture.  After I cleaned up and put everything away I noticed the small heavily smudge P on the container and then it hit me.  I grabbed the wrong bin and used powdered sugar instead of flour.  So I guess they were true sugar cookies.  Yes, it was a true blonde moment.  When I rolled some out and baked up a few, just to see, I got these.  And for the record, they are quite tasty but hardly kept their circle shape.

After I picked up my pride off the floor I made the correct dough.  Then I went to bed and started a fresh in the morning.

To make these funny faced suns you will need the following:

• Large sun flower cutter
  
• Size 1.5 and 2 tips
• Yellow icing (piping and fill consistency)
• Black icing (piping consistency)
• Large Circle cutter & yellow edible marker (optional)

Step 1:  Cut, bake and cool cookies

Step 2:  Using the circle cutter, trace using the marker to mark off a circle in the centre of the cookie.  (I can’t draw a straight line, so I needed to cheat)

Step 3: Outline the circle and make the sun’s fingers, lets dry 20mins

Step 3: Fill circle then fingers and let dry 4 hrs

Step 4: Using the 1.5 tip, outline the sun and draw a funny face

Step 5: Dry cookies for overnight.

Happy first day of summer everyone, may your sun be smiling at you ;)