Choo Choo

It's the third and final installment of my Father's Day cookie posts.  And this one is for my uncle.

He loves trains.  Apparently since he was young.  My grandparents took him when he was young to the train yard so he could watch the trains coming and going, engines hooking onto coal cars, cabooses and all things train.

As he got older they use to go to the Am track station in town so he could watch, and announce, the trains coming into the station and heading out.

He's even got a pretty sweet model train and city that is almost complete.  He's been working on it since I was little...and I'm 31 now.  I'd like to credit my aunt in the final push to get the train set complete so I guess she can enjoy these cookies too!

I'd seen an example of these recently...and for the life of me I can't remember where.  So I'd honestly LOVE to give credit where credit is due...I just can't remember.  So if you made these cookies originally PLEASE let me know so I can announce it to the world!

I made square cookies. I believe the original were on rectangles.  However I have NO rectangle cookie cutter.  So square it is.

First things first is to outline and flood.  Pretty much how EVERY cookie starts.

Then I grabbed my black thick frosting with a #1 tip.

And I started laying down train tracks.

I feel like I sound as if I'm a musician "laying down beats..."  Anyone?  Anyone?  Is this thing on?

And then the other side.

Magic.  A train track.

Then I piped on a red train - which actually sorta looked like a red blob train.  I'm not sure the red train heads down the real train tracks...but it's an imaginary train.

And because I forgot to take pictures I added on wheels and then the gray smoke.

I used a food marker to write on the train and give it a little detail along with adding some smoke detail.

Hopefully he can enjoy these cookies as much as he enjoyed watching them all those years at the yard.

Gone Fishing

Most of the men in my family (both my family and my in-laws) love to fish.

Some more than others...but none the less they enjoy heading out on open water to try their luck.

I decided to make fishing cookies for my father-in-law. 

I started with the fishies.

They are not a particular species.  Or kind.  Or whatever you call it.

They're my made up fish. 

Outlined in a thick forest green color frosting.

Then flooded with the same color flood frosting.

Then I thought I'd make some balloons.

Kidding.  I used a balloon cookie cutter - but thought if I turned it upside down I could use it for bobbers.

Started by outlining the red bottom half.

And filling it in.

Then outlining the white top portion.

And flooding in the top portion with white.

Then I went to bed.  Honestly.  You've got to let cookies dry overnight so you can add on the second layer of details.  That's true for any cookies.

But with the magic of the Internet you don't have to go to sleep to see what happens next.

I added on the white top, outlined the entire bobber in red (see the top left hand bobber) and added on the fishing line.

Ta-Da.

Next I made crayons.

Fish like crayons.

I'm a liar.  I made brown worms on crayons.

Or maybe it wasn't a worm.  It was a fishing pole handle.  And a green rod and reel.

And then the rest of the "stuff."

I wish I would have done an entire white background before I'd added on the fishing pole.  It would have helped the design to stand out.

Oh well...live and learn right?

So Happy Father's Day Don.  I hope you like catching these fish.

I linked this up to:

LilaLoa

A Tale of Two Cherry Pies

My father loves cherry pie.

So much that he'll go buy a cherry pie at Village Inn or from the grocery store randomly, even if there isn't a special occasion.

He prefers it over cake.

Over pretty much any other sweets.  Except for vanilla ice cream and raisins.  Yes, he eats that.  We choose to ignore it.

So I decided that instead of attempting to make him a real cherry pie for Father's Day I'd give him the second best thing, a sugar cookie made to look like a cherry pie.

A circle cookie cutter and some sugar cookie dough makes the perfect base for a cherry pie cookie.

Using my thick frosting in a piping bag I outlined circles (rather sloppy I might add) on the cookies.  I've yet to perfect circles - mine tend to be a little jagged.  Luckily the edges of the circles will be covered up...

Then away I went with flooding the cookies.  For flood frosting I like putting it into "ketchup bottles." The frosting pours out much easier and all the tips have caps to easily store extra frosting.  Not to mention these beauties were purchased at Wally World for roughly $1.00 each...pretty reasonable when I own about 20.

Flood.  Flooding. Floody.

Filling in some of the spots - so it's all evened out. 

Magic.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to add cherries.  So as the red circles were drying I decided to use the thick red frosting and pipe on red dots a.k.a. cherries.

It ended up not being what I wanted....so I just left it knowing the rest of the details would cover it up.  Should I make them again I'd add the cherries as the last detail and do them all over.

I used a Wilton Tip #103 for the "crust."

I started with making the lattice over the top part of the "pie."

It required a lot of thinking...something I wasn't prepared to do.

I thought that most cherry pies I'd ever had also had a sugary top - with the Turbinado Sugar I had at home I quickly spread it over the top of the wet frosting. 

Now here's the messy part.  And where the title of this post comes into play.  I ran out of the light tan frosting...and also didn't have enough white extra frosting to make more.  I had to use the dark brown frosting that was on hand...and it was runny.  Enough that it looked like the pie crust was burned.

But I ended up giving him both the pretty looking cookies and the "burned "version.  They still taste the same...unlike a real burned pie.

I'd like to revisit this cookie "Cherry Pie" attempt because I'd give this a B-. 

I'm looking to get an A+.



I linked this up to:
LilaLoa