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How to Make Decorated Witch Cookies for Halloween

I ran a half marathon last Saturday. Really, I have nothing else to say about that. I just wanted you to know. Because 13 miles is a long way. And there was a hill at the end. And if I knew who designed the course so that the biggest hill would be half of a mile from the finish line, we would definitely NOT be friends. I mean, I might wave to them if they were checking their mail at the same time that I was, but I wouldn't go over and start a chat about the weather and how great our street is. Even though I love my street. I realized though, that I have pretty much the same thought process for running 13 miles as I do when I make a set of cookies. This is going to be awesome. Look at how awesome I am. Maybe this isn't going to be awesome. WHAT HAVE I DONE??!!! Everything is all wrong. It wasn't supposed to be like this!  I can do this. This could possibly work. I am going to MAKE it work. YES!!! I did it!!! I will never ever ever ever ever do that ...

How To Make Decorated Stencil Centerpiece Cookies

We live in the golden era of cookie decorating. For decades, cookie decorators have had to improvise with tools originally designed and created for cake decorators. And we've done a pretty awesome job of it, if I do say so myself. BUT NO MORE!! Our cookie decorators are all grown up and creating product FOR cookie decorators, BY cookie decorators!!! It's fantastic you guys!! In a really sappy way, it just makes my heart happy to see this hobby, this passion become an actual way of life; an industry unto itself. I feel like every new product conceived, designed, and manufactured only strengthens the base of this decorating community. It's the perfect answer for every person who has ever given you that knowing look while condescendingly saying something like, " Hmm. I see. So what do you plan to do with this little hobby of yours? " (Because how ADORABLE is it that we have a hobby?) And as a community, we are quickly becoming our OWN solutions! Seriously, h...

Fantastic Find: Fat Daddio's Meringue Powder

 Royal icing ingredients are kind of a big deal in my life. As in... I do NOT kid around about them. And I do not trade up my favorites. With the craziness surrounding meringue powder this last year though, and the skyrocketing prices of egg white powder... I've been testing a bunch of different choices so I would have a good back up in the event that my world ends and I can't find my favorite egg white powder. So when Fat Daddio's emailed and said they had a new meringue powder this summer, I jumped on the chance to try it out. I'll be honest. By that point, I had tried a few different meringue powders and they were all very much alike. I expected Fat Daddio's to fall into the same line as the rest of the meringue powders I had tried and would have been pleased if it had. But to say I was surprised at the taste is an understatement. Without ANY flavoring at all -- this meringue powder tastes BEYOND AMAZING. It's like angel food cake batter but with butt...

How To Make Decorated Melting Eyeball Cookies

Is there a word for an anti-talent? Because I have one of those. It involves returning library books before they've been gone so long that they've very nearly assimilated into the wild and can no longer associate with the other library books for fear that they will band together and stage a coup while the poor librarians backs are turned helping an unsuspecting patron find that very special book on knitting wool overalls. Seriously. I don't want to live in a world where *I'm* the one responsible for the lack of wool overalls. I can't handle that kind of pressure. And not to be indelicate...but thank goodness Blockbuster is no longer around. Returning rental videos was like library books on steroids. Which, as you can imagine, would also NOT be good for the woolen overall population of this country. The library isn't even that far away. I drive past it on a near daily basis. And there is a conveyor belt return that requires me to move my arm a total of 7 ...

How to Make Decorated Halloween Spider and Spiderweb Cookies

Learn how to make decorated Halloween sugar cookies that look like spiders on spiderwebs! How do you even feed your children dinner on a daily basis???!!! I'm not talking about the procuring and the cooking of said meal. What I want to know is how you convince your children to look at a plate of food and think to themselves, "Self - you will simply cease to exist if you don't get some of this inside you. And since this sustenance looks vaguely (EXACTLY) like the meal prepared by our parental figure just 4 days ago that we loved and ate every last morsel of, we may as well start ingesting this now instead of pretending that we are adrift at sea, surrounded by sharks that are trying to eat us while we cling precariously to our chair/life boat. And probably, we should also NOT start screaming for 27 minutes straight about how annoying our parental figure is because she won't stop preparing nutritious meals for our daily consumption." I mean... is there s...

How to Make Simple Pumpkin Cookies

Ever had one of those days where really the only solution would be bathing in melted chocolate because just EATING it would not be enough? Me too. Today was a perfect storm. We started potty training 3.0 with Miss P. (You know...because 1.0 and 2.0 were utter and complete failures that ended in tears and naps all around.) And she found scissors. And used them. On hair. Her hair. And we are days out from a family picture. And we are remodeling the bathroom. And it gets dark before bedtime. And my jogging stroller has a slashed tire. (Not a FLAT tire, mind you.) AND... there was no mail today. It's like a dream. But not a good dream like when you get to eat at the mashed potato and candy buffet with unicorns and then you fly off to the land of napping and sailing where you are crowned princess of the universe and get your own star chariot that magically turns into a dressing room filled only with clothes that make you look fantastic. But this day was not actually a dream. ...

Fantastic Find Friday -- Ateco Icing Spreader

I've tried a lot of tools in my years of cookie decorating. I always seem to come back to the simple products. I use the same 8 bottles of food coloring for almost every set of cookies I make. In fact, I would guess that I use 10% of my decorating supplies 90% of the time. It's pretty rare when a new product makes the 10% list right away. But I'm telling you... not only did these icing scrapers make that list...I ordered 30 more within a month of purchasing the first set.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself. It's an icing scraper. You've seen them before in many forms. This one is a small, thin piece of plastic that is used to scrape icing across a stencil like a spatula. It has a little circular grip at one end to keep it from slipping out of your hand. It's simple. And basic. AND I LOVE IT. Let me tell you why -- 1. It's quite small. The scraper is about 1 1/5 inches across. Because of that, it's really easy to grab icing out of a bowl...an...

How To Make Decorated Fall Leaf Cookies

You know when your airbrush gets a little sticky and you put coloring in it and it just kind of goes, "BLEH!" all over your cookie? Sometimes I feel like that describes my life. I'm all over the place. Mentally and physically. Even my employment record looks like that. I've been a white water river guide, a nature guide, a lifeguard, and a sailboat cruise captain. I've had the very important job of raising the parking gate arm at the exit of a parking garage. I've been a personal trainer and a nanny...though never at the same time. I've had desk jobs and jobs where I never sit down. I even delivered furniture for a year in college before I broke my leg playing rugby. I loved that job because nobody thought I could do it. My job interview literally consisted of the owner of the store asking me to help him move a couch from one side of a room to the other because I was a girl. It was all a little confusing at the time...all that furniture and people wa...

How to Make Decorated Blackbird Cookies

Remember when you were little and your parents had friends and you were like, " WHAAAAAT??!! You can't have friends. You're a grown-up and your life should be all about taking care of me and making me chocolate cupcakes and taking me on outings in the park and chalk drawings and... " And then your parents were all " Umm, no. That's Mary Poppins. And we are certainly not Mary Poppins. Or codfish. " And then you were all, " What's a codfish? I wanted cupcakes. " Yeah. As it turns out...I'm all grown up and still don't know what a codfish is. And I make my own cupcakes now. And I have friends that I try to hide from my children so that my children won't be scarred for life when they discover they aren't the complete totality of my life. Actually, that's a lie. I hide them from my children because my children like my friends more than they like me. I'm not even kidding. I just got back from a substantially long co...