I'm learning a lot about myself just by making cookies. Some people quit college and hitch hike across America or join the Peace Corps to "find themselves." I make cookies. (It's not that I don't like adventure. I just don't go white water rafting to discover who I really am. I do it because I LIKE it.) Anyway...cookies...learning about myself. I have discovered that I am a texture loving person. I like love grosgrain ribbon. Grosgrain has the best ribbon texture ever. (For the record, smooth is also a texture and sometimes I like that too.) What I don't like about grosgrain ribbon is the name. GROSSgrain ribbon? Eewww. Unless of course it's french, and then I totally know what it means. And if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you. You should get some grosgrain ribbon for your own cookies, or cakes, or cupcakes, or you know, you could just make some to look at and admire and take with you when you go shopping and your friends are al...

Let me tell you about my day. Apparently, I offended blogger with my spell check comment over the weekend. I honestly haven't been able to access blogger since posting about the cake. I can see my blog, and other blogs but I can't comment or view comments or post or anything else. I've been so sad. There are so many cute posts out there from this weekend and I can't do anything about it. My access to blogger is very intermittent and random. It works for 30 seconds or 12 minutes and I don't know when I will be able to get in again. I pretty much spent my whole day trying to figure out WHY. And guess what? I couldn't figure it out. All I know is that right now, at this very second, I can post. My point here is that these cookies were made under duress. I took a break from the frustrating search to make them -- and I shouldn't have. It was a cute design in my head....but cookies need to be made with peace, you know? The best part of all (insert sarcastic fon...

This was NOT the design I had in mind when I started this cookie. The original design included some lines and stitching and...well...the moral of the story is that I need to get some PME tips in the smaller sizes. To avoid complete frustration, a the last second, I just went with a flower instead. Literally -- the last second. I had the white icing all flooded and I had just seconds to find an alternative to put in it before it dried too much for a wet-on-wet design. (Its funny that I love the texture options with fondant, but really prefer a flat royal icing cookie! I don't really make sense to myself either.) So, clearly this cookie was not as impromptu as its royal icing cousin. (Cookie cousins...hmmm...that sounds nice. Not like siblings, because siblings fight. They're too close. But not my cookies. They can be best friends and then go to their own homes when they get annoyed with their cookie cousin.) Although these cookies are really similar, I have to say that if I ...

I have a special surprise for you all today! But we'll get to that later.  Let me first say that I came to cookie decorating from the cake side of things. So my love and loyalty do not lie with glacé and royal icing. (Heresy...I know.) Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against royal icing. Its never said a bad thing about me, and I plan to reciprocate that. Its just that there are so many options, and so many ways to make the SAME cookie design. Even for you strictly royal users, you can choose wet-on-wet or wet-on-dry or....umm...are their more options? (I'll get back to you on that. I'm still working on the details of cookie decorating.) (royal icing on the left...fondant on the right) So, today I tried two different mediums for the same design. I discovered -- big breath for dramatic effect -- actually, I discovered nothing. I like both cookies. The squiggly legs on the fondant octopus are much cuter than the royal legs. But the polka dots on the royal cookie...