The Cookie Cutter: Little Ladies

It's hard to believe it's December already.  Correction: MID-DECEMBER!  The last few months have flown by and needless to say my poor little blog has been neglected for a long time.  A few friends have asked why I stopped posting (woohoo!  I have readers!) and the truth is I was just burnout.  My day job has been running me into the ground since April and keeping up with the blog was not feasible.



That's not to say the creative juices haven't been flowing.  One of my newer hobbies has taken root and I really enjoy it.  You probably remember a few posts about decorated sugar cookies from earlier this year.  I've been making them more often and I see improvements with every batch.  It's also a lot of fun to see people's reactions to them. 

Little Lady

I organized a baby shower for a sweet woman I work with who was about to have a little girl.  While planning, I stumbled on a cute shower invitation with lady bugs and ran with the "Little Lady" theme.  Of course, this inspired me to make Lady Bug cookies.  I experimented with wet-on-wet royal icing decorating this time around and now I'm hooked!  I want to add polka dots and hearts to EVERYTHING!  Again,the icing consistency tutorials on Sweet Sugarbelle continue to be a huge help!  I don't think I would have been able to create these without her detailed instructions and photos.  

As expected, they were a hit!  Not only were they pretty but they were soft and delicious as well.  I still have a lot to learn but it's funny/ nice / so sweet to hear people say they can't eat the cookies because they are too pretty.  One woman went so far to say she would not eat her cookie because she wanted to frame it instead.  By all means admire them, take a picture if you must, but please EAT THE COOKIES!!

TIP:  Sugar cookies are notorious for getting hard.  One of my "secrets" for keeping them soft is to include a piece of bread in the container.  This trick was brought to my attention by a friend at work and because we are science geeks, we googled it to see why.  Essentially, the sugar crystals in the cookies suck the moisture out of the air and bread evaporates moisture.  Put the two together in an air tight container and you have a symbiotic relationship!  Just replace the bread slice(s) when they start to harden.  This not only keeps cookies soft but can bring rock hard cookies back to life within 6- 24 hours.

One word of caution with this: DO NOT place the bread on top of royal icing!!!  The added moisture literally "melts" the icing off the cookie and imprints it onto the bread.  All of your hard work and creativity will be lost.  I avoid this by using a 25 x 15 x 4 inch air tight container.  I can't remember where I got it (if I did, I would buy another one!) but it allows me to fit a cooling rack inside.  Cookies go on the bottom of the container and the bread sits on parchment paper on the top of the rack.  They never touch but the moisture can circulate and everyone is happy.