It's Pig Skin Season

Pig Skin Season is football season.

And it's still going strong here in the Midwest!

And thankfully, so is the request for football themed cookies.

An order came in this week for three dozen cookies for a Nebraska Husker tailgate. So I jumped into it and away I went.

And I made extras for our own personal tailgate too - because who doesn't love a decorated sugar cookie on game day?!

Three dozen cookies turned into seven...

The acutal paying order of three dozen was comprised of...

Husker helmets...

Jersey's...

And N's with the Husker writing...

Good thing we won the game too!

Eye, Eye, EyeEye

This order was the bane of my existence.

Mainly because the white base layer of frosting didn't want to fully harden.

I've never had that happen before. 

Especially since I'd done NOTHING different.

The cookie started like this...

Yep, just plain circles.

The reason was - I was asked to do different eyes.  Yep, just eyes.

For the Nebraska Optometric Association. 

See why I did eyes now?

Four dozen cookies later - after frosting the base layer of white - I realized they weren't hardening.  So I whipped out the dehydrator.  Lila Loa had posted about doing this on her blog - and I thought I'd give it a whirl.  Normally it works great.

This time, they still wouldn't harden.

So I frost 4 different sets of eyes - one for each dozen - and then put them back into the dehydrator to dry overnight for 8 hours. 

Because my husband had to deliver them to Lincoln the next day and he was leaving at 6:30 am.

Yeah, I was real happy.

The ended up not too shabby.

A girly set of eyes...

Some green eyes...

Big Blue...

And the shocked set of eyes...

So after drying overnight in the dehydrator - I rose early to package them up.

And I finished packaging them at this time...

Yes, that's in the morning.

But they were ready for their trek down the interstate and hopefully to be enjoyed this weekend!

What Went With the Wine Glasses

My husband asked me last week if I'd make cookies to take to someone at his work.  Specifically Wendy - who in Dave's eye's is not only amazing but puts up with him and the other guys at the office all while keeping everything running smoothly and not letting them burn down the office each day.

It was her birthday Tuesday - so he wanted me to make cookies.

And after asking him what Wendy liked or what hobbies she had - all he could come up with was that she was in a wine group with a bunch of women.  So we settled on making some grapes and glasses of wine.

Perfect.

Away I baked.

And made a dozen grape cookies and eight wine glass cookies.

Then I whipped up some burgundy colored wine - so it'd at least look realistic - and away I went.

Pretty good start huh?

Apparently Brooke our Chesapeake Bay Retriever thought so too...

The wine cookies now reside in her belly. 

Thankfully the grape cookies were nowhere in her reach.  Though I'm now convinced she has a go-go gadget neck...but that's a side story for another day.

I told Dave as I was working on the grapes that he'd have to explain to Wendy why she was just getting a bunch of grapes for her birthday.  Or else she'd think I was rather crazy.

Thankfully he did - and I heard she loved them. 

They ended up looking pretty nifty if I do say so myself.

They just would have been that much better with the wine glasses.

Harrumph.  Darn you Brooke.

It's my FAVORITE

Lots of people have a favorite brand of flavoring to make their cookies or for any baking.

I have a brand that I love.

It comes from Penzey's Spices.

They have AWESOME stuff.

I buy the almond and vanilla.

Big bottles too.

And it's amazing.

So if you're looking for a flavoring to try - I strongly suggest giving them a try!

60 is the new 30...

Or something like that right?

Either way I was asked to make 3 dozen cookies for a 60th birthday celebration.

So away I baked...

And away I frosted...

They ended up looking pretty nifty...

Happy 60th!

Best Purchase Ever

Here's how my best purchase ever started...

1.  You see I needed...scratch that....wanted to buy a KopyKake projector that all my cookie hero's use. But I'd been hemming and hawing (yes it is a real expression) over purchasing one because they were a tad on the expensive side.

2.  I needed a KopyKake projector by this past Sunday to do a logo.

3.  I realized I needed a projector Friday afternoon.

4. There was no way I was going to be able to purchase one on-line without paying a ridiculous amount on top of a crazy amount of shipping.

5.  So I did what anyone else would do...I frantically began my search around town for a drawing projector.  Thinking it would work.

WRONG.

I digress.  I actually tried to use an old drawing projector that my mother had given me that I think probably came from my grandmothers house.

It didn't work.  I couldn't make the image small enough....not to mention I wasn't about to decorate or let alone even bake a cookie that was 12 inches x 12 inches to fit the smallest visible image this sucker was projecting.

So I shopped around...bought...and then returned a lot of projectors.

Then in desperationI went to google.  And worked the computer like crazy.

And finally....FINALLY...something popped up.

I was at the point that I was willing to try anything.

So I bought myself a 3M MP225 Mobile Projector.  Rolls off the tongue doesn't it?!

Why that model?  Well it claimed to hook up to ipads and iphones and ipod touches - all of which we had at our house.  And it was small. 

Which makes it incredibly easy to store.

So I hauled off to Target and bought one.

It's white....and yes I know it's hard to see below.

This might be better visually.  See how small it is? I could put it into my purse.  At a moments notice I could project things wherever I was.  So handy, right? (I'm being facetious).

This I think gives you a better idea....

But you say, how will you project onto a cookie? 

Why by using my handy dandy tripod that my husband got me for Christmas.  It's not for just taking pictures anymore.

So I hooked it up to my iphone - got a picture of the logo I needed from off the UNO Athletics website and away I went.

And it works pretty darn nifty.

I will say it's not cheap. As in $229.09 not cheap.  Not at all.  It's almost as expensive as a KopyKake.  However....it was readily available at my local Target (other stores carry it too...that was just where I went) and as I reasoned to my husband it's easy to store because it's so small. 

Remember, I could put it into my purse it's so small.

So for that somewhat splurge purchase I'm actually very very happy.

What can I trace next?



(Note: 3M did not ask me to write this review, nor do they even know I exist.  I stumbled upon this on my own and thought I'd share).

U Know UNO

Do U know UNO?

If not you should.

The University of Nebraska at Omaha is one mighty fine campus located in the Omaha metro.

And they wanted me to make cookies.

Well, acutally a group was having a dinner and many of the attendees work at UNO so they thought it'd be fitting to have their dessert be UNO theme cookies.

I happily obliged.

Well....I maybe fretted first.

Because they asked that I do the logo for the campus.

Which is a slanted italicized letter O.  Really easy to mess up.

In trying to not make this long story longer I'll save the explanation for another post.

Let's just say I figured it out.

So I traced the logo onto each cookie with a food safe marker.

And then a whole lot of stuff happened in-between the above and below pictures.  What happened was...I filled in the cookies with frosting.

I'd also made some mini cookies - a rectangle and a star to use in the "cookie package" that I was putting together.

53 bagged cookie packages later they were ready for delivery!

Go MAVS!

Go Big Red...and Welcome Back

Family friends asked me to make some cookies for a gathering they were having for an uncle who would be back in town this weekend.  So I made up a combo of cookies that were Husker athletic themed and "We love Gene." 

Totally normal.

So here's what I ended up with.

Well this is what I started with...and you saw yesterday.

And this is what I ended up with...

From what I heard (via an email) they loved them.

And they said they tasted good too.

That's nice to hear.