I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps . . .

I can NOT stop singing New York, New York!

Yep, that's right....a little New York City update for you. Just a short recap, 14 other food bloggers and I will be teaming up with Kelly Ripa and a special cake decorating guest to decorate cakes and raise money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

{Thank you, Electrolux and Foodbuzz.}

Tuesday is the big day...here's how it will work (I think):

• Arrive in The Big Apple Monday...dinner and cocktails with the other bloggers! Yay!
  
• Tuesday morning, we're heading out EARLY to see Live with Regis & Kelly!!!
  
• That afternoon, we are paired with 2 other bloggers to decorate our cakes.
• We will be given tips by a surprise guest (click here to find out!).
  
• We'll pull a theme out of a hat and have ONE hour to decorate our cake (and eat lunch!).

Here's where you come in...

• The cakes will be posted on Kelly Confidential. You'll be able to vote for your favorite and by doing so, a donation will be made to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.
• Check back here on Wednesday because I'll have more info AND a prize to thank you for voting and raising money.

Let me introduce you to my decorating team of three...

1. Jen, of My Kitchen Addiction: check out her Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting!!!
2. Diana, of A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa: how good does this German Chocolate Cake look?!?
3. And, moi! :)

Get to know the other lovely bloggers going along on the trip as well. I can't wait to meet them all!

♥Linda, of My Salty Seattle and her Mad Men Birthday (love this!)
♥Katherine, of Smoky Mountain Cafe and Chocolate Brownie Cookies
♥Meghann, of The Inner Workings of a College Graduate and Pumpkin Spice Granola
♥Megan, of Megan's Munchies makes yummy Spice Cake Oatmeal Scotchies
♥Sandy, of No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner introduces us to the Sweet Sweat Towel
♥Laura, of The Cooking Photographer makes Caramel Macchiato Thumbprints (!)
♥Erika, from In Erika's Kitchen has a great post on 10 Things NOT to say to Kelly Ripa
♥Kelly, from Evil Shenanigans makes some deliciously evil Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies
♥Jessie, of CakeSpy...please tell me you've met Cuppie! (This is one of my favorites!)
♥Tina, from Carrots 'n' Cake makes Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
♥Sabrina, from Rhodey Girl Tests and Pumpkin Pie Cake
♥Joseline, of Daydreamer Desserts makes a Hot Chocolate Cake (oh my!)

So...wish us luck! Look for us in the audience of Live with Regis & Kelly on Tuesday. I'll be tweeting along the way.

Thanks so much for your support...it means the world to me! *MWAH*

Little Blue Houses for You & Me . . .

I'm always leaning towards pinks and reds and yellows and dots...read: BRIGHT...when making cottage cookies.


A sweet lady wanted to send some housewarming cookies to a friend. She described their house style as "Restoration Hardware" and wanted cookies in blue and brown. Well, I just love the way they turned out. I may take a break from BRIGHT and move into a more mature cookie decorating palette.

{OK...I'll never leave my pinks and reds and dots, but these were a lovely change!}

Here are the colors that I used...all AmeriColor Gel/Paste food colorings.


What color combos would you use to make pretty cottages?


Related posts:

• cottage cookies
• Christmas cottages

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OH! I almost forgot! Check out the latest issue of my town's family magazine (Woodlands Family Magazine), page 27. You might see another familiar face on page 12! :)

Troubleshooting . . .

OK...here it is, part 3 of our F.A.Q.'s. Let me stress that...these tips work for me, but they are not necessarily the "proper" fixes. I know there are a few cookie experts who read the blog, so I'm hoping they'll chime in with their tips in the comments. (You know who you are!)


My royal icing is staying "tacky" even after several hours and overnight...any ideas?

My experience is that this is due to flood icing that is thinned too much. When flooding cookies, if the icing runs quickly to fill the entire cookie with having to be spread with a toothpick, it's too thin. Pour your icing back into the bowl, sift in some powdered sugar and let sit again for several minutes.

Why is my royal icing pitted looking and still wet?

Same answer as above...it's happened to me before, too. I'm crying with you.

Help! My cookies dried overnight and now they have dark splotches all over them!

Yeah...you know how humidity is so lovely for your hair? It's just the same with cookies. Close the windows, run the A/C...do whatever you can to make your cookie drying area humidity-free. The good news is, the splotches will normally spread across the entire cookie to darken the icing to a consistent color.

See that horse cookie in the collage above? This is also known as "the day I almost divorced my husband." I kid, I kid! BUT, he did open the windows in the room where the cookies were drying, right after the sprinklers had run outside. Take my advice...have a heart-to-heart with hubby about humidity.

Why do my cookies have white splotches on them?

When stirring in water to flood the cookies, be sure to fully incorporate the water. Those white splotches are water. Also, if you are using a squeeze bottle, make sure it is completely dry before adding your flood icing. If a drop of water is in your bottle, it will come out on your cookie. If you notice a drop of water, grab a paper towel, blot it out and re-coat the area with icing. It will smooth out.

Why is my royal icing full of bubbles?

Two hints here...stir in the water for flooding gently with a rubber spatula, not a mixer. Two: once the water is incorporated, cover with a damp dish towel and let sit several minutes. Most of the bubbles will rise to the surface. Stir gently again and you're good to go. Any other stray bubbles can be popped with a toothpick or a pin.

I've tried royal frosting once and it hurt my hands so bad I swore never to do it again.

Try filling your icing bags only 1/2 full. I know it sounds strange, but it makes such a difference!

Why does my red or black icing taste terrible?

My guess is that you are using the food coloring brand sold in craft/grocery stores. While this company does a lot of things right....red and black food coloring are not those things. I strongly recommend AmeriColor Super Red and Super Black. You can find them here, in my Amazon shop, or in many online baking supply stores.

Why does my piped icing...you know...the outline...or maybe just some piping done on gingerbread men...well...why does it dry up and just fall off in little bits.

I think this is from overbeating. It's happened to me, too. Try to beat it until it's glossy and just coming to a stiff peak. Also, use the paddle attachment of your mixer. (Check the Royal Icing 102 post for more info.)

I can not write names or outline without the icing breaking.

This just takes practice...lots and lots of practice. Try getting used to your icing bag and printing on a plate or sheet of wax paper before going to your cookies. It's possible that your royal icing may be a little overbeaten. Check out the Royal Icing 102 post, too.

Why are my colors bleeding?

Well, that happens to me, too, sometimes. First, try to use AmeriColor food colorings. I had this problem a lot more when I used "the other guy's" food coloring. Second, when using a wet-on-wet technique for something like flat dots, let the base color sit for a few minutes before adding the dots. And sometimes, especially with the flat dots, it just happens. What helps me deal with it is to know that it WILL BE EATEN and there will be no evidence. People will just remember "cute cookie."

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Please be sure to check out the previous two F.A.Q. installments...

1. F.A.Q.'s
2. Royal Icing 102, or 201, or whatever comes after 101

...I'll be updating these posts periodically with your questions.

{This post is also being linked to Works For Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family.}

Flavor-of-the-Month . . . Amaretto Madeleines

Welcome to Flavor-of-the-Month, boozy edition!

My favorite drink in the whole wide world is an Amaretto Sour. Even though I'm too lazy to make them very often, I try to keep a bottle of Amaretto in the house at all times, just in case. So, when contemplating Boozy Edition, it was calling to me.

Take a look at this Amaretto I found. Read the label...


"Made by infusion of...cookies!!!" Now, this is my kind of liqueur!

Madeleines are, to me, like a combination of cookie and cake...how can that be wrong? And did anyone else read the Madeleine books growing up? I loved those books and making these made me think of...

"In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines,
lived twelve little girls in two straight lines..."

Amaretto Madeleines with Amaretto-Vanilla Bean Glaze
(makes 22 madeleines)

10 TBSP unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
2/3 c sugar
1/2 salt
3 eggs, room temp.
2 tsp Amaretto
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
1 c flour, sifted

Over medium heat, melt the butter in a saucepan. Simmer gently until the butter deepens slightly and there are small flecks of brown in the butter, about 5 minutes.

{Browning butter always makes me nervous!}

Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Beat the sugar, salt and eggs several minutes until they are light yellow and thickened. Stir in the Amaretto and vanilla bean paste.

Gently fold in the flour and butter in 3 additions each, alternating between the two. Refrigerate the batter for 45 minutes.


Preheat the oven to 375. Brush the madeleine pan with melted butter.

Fill the pans with 1 heaping tablespoon of dough per cookie. Bake 12 minutes until the edges are light brown.

Let cool in the pan 5 minutes. Carefully remove from pan and let cool completely on a cooling rack.

If making these in 2 batches, let the pan cool completely. Wipe out the cookie molds and re-coat with melted butter.


Amaretto-Vanilla Bean Glaze

1 & 1/4 c. powdered sugar, sifted
3 TBSP whole milk (or whatever you have on hand, lower fat will make a thinner glaze)
2 TBSP Amaretto
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)

Whisk to combine all of the ingredients.

Place the madeleines on a cooling rack placed on a cookie sheet. (This will catch the glaze and make for easier clean-up.)


Spoon glaze over the cooled cookies.

Flavor-of-the-Month February will be CHOCOLATE!!! Oh, I can't wait!!!

♥Reminder: when linking up, please link to your blog post only...not your blog's main page. These links will be removed. If you're not sure how to do that, click here.♥

Want to check out our past FOTM's? Click here! It's a great way to find new blogs to love!

Link away! (Linky will close the evening of February 3rd to discourage spammers.)

The Game of Love

I just love hearing about couples getting engaged...don't you? Just the thought of a new marriage, a new family...and well, the wedding cake, makes me turn to mush.


My cousin Meg got engaged last month...yay! Now, I have 9 younger cousins...just on one side of the family. Hearing about their engagements is always exciting, but this one was especially thrilling because I've actually gotten a chance to get to know her *now* fiance....and he is such GREAT GUY!

{ok, first...how adorable are they?!?}

Let me tell you a just little about Meg & Sean:
♥Meg is about 12 years younger than I am. She used to write to me in college...telling me about how she would get up before school to do "Mousercise" (Mickey Mouse jazzercise) and writing out songs she had composed....at age 7! (As I remember, there were a lot of "Ooo, baby's" in the lyrics!) I think she is the most stylish person I know!
♥Sean was the first person my son ever met who owned an iPhone. And he let him PLAY WITH IT...that promoted him to "cool" right there. He plays guitar and sings and...Sean is also a SCRABBLE Champion. And that's where the cookies come in.

{Seriously, now...don't you think the "blank" tile in Scrabble should be a heart ♥? I can picture it now....Scrabble, the Valentine Edition...a pink and red board with little heart tiles. *I* would buy one!}

The cookies:
My original thought (a year and a half ago when I met Sean and had a feeling this day was coming) was to make a cookie Scrabble board. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get it to look quite right, so I made Scrabble cookie tiles.


Using my bench scraper, I divided square cookies into fourths.

I jazzed up my usual cookie recipe with 3/4 tsp vanilla bean paste in place of the 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Since they were smaller, I cut the baking time down by 2 minutes.


To decorate:

♥Outline each cookie with a #2 tip in ivory (AmeriColor Ivory).
♥Thin the royal icing with water, stirring in a teaspoon at a time until it is the consistency of a thick syrup. Cover with a damp dish towel and let sit for several minutes.
♥Stir gently with a rubber spatula to pop any air bubbles that have formed on the top and transfer to a squeeze bottle.

♥Fill in the cookies with the thinned icing. Use a toothpick to guide into the corners.
♥Let sit for at least 1 hour.

♥Using a #2 tip pipe the letters in black icing (AmeriColor Super Black).
{I tried to get as close the the Scrabble letters as possible.}

♥Switch to a #1 tip and add the point value for the letters in the corners.
♥With red icing and a #3 tip, pipe hearts on several of the cookies.

♥Let dry overnight and package.

{Wouldn't these be darling for Valentine's Day?}

Congratulations & best wishes Meg & Sean! Here's to a ♥sweet♥ life together! Cheers!

Related posts:
♥Yes, I said Yes! Engagement Cookies
♥For June Brides...
♥Valentine Cookies with va-va-va-vanilla

*updated...thank you all so much for your sweet comments, emails and tweets about my Nana, Marge. they meant so much to me!*

In Memory of Marge . . .

When my uncle's call came yesterday, it wasn't a surprise. My grandmother had been sick with Alzheimer's and lung cancer for a while now. Almost ten years after we lost my mom, Nana is joining her and my grandfather....wouldn't that be cool if they greeted her with a Goldie's Hamburger? ;)

{This is Nana with my mom, 1945.}

My Nana's picture just might be in your dictionary under the word "character." She went to mass every morning and her favorite word was "sh@#." {That's the truth.} She was the craziest dancer at every wedding (though, my Uncle Mike & my sister are running neck & neck for that title now).

{This was always the picture I would stare at when I visited. I love this picture!}

She was in the Women's Army Corps in WWII and she and my papa got engaged at Pat O'Briens in New Orleans. {No wonder I like those Hurricanes so much!}


{Here we are in 1979. Nana had that same hair-do for 40 years. I'm on the left. Knee socks & sandals were high fashion apparently.}

Now, to me, Marge wasn't known as a cook or a baker. I remember her with a crochet hook in her hand rather than in the kitchen. But every time we visited, there were always two cream pies in the fridge...always chocolate and either lemon or coconut. She was famous for her "macaroni & meat" (pasta, tomato sauce and ground beef....totally kid heaven) and made a mean whiskey sour.

So, I made a Chocolate Cream Pie in her honor.

Chocolate Cream Pie
{Recipe modified from Food & Wine magazine}

6 ounces, about 1 & 1/2 c. Oreos (just the wafer part), or chocolate wafer cookies
4 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Pinch of fine sea salt

2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

make the crust: Preheat the oven to 350°.

Using a food processor, finely grind the Oreo cookies (not the creamy centers...do with them what you will).

In a medium bowl, mix the cookie crumbs with the sugar and salt. Stir in the melted butter until the crumbs are evenly moistened.

Pour the mixture into a 9-inch glass pie dish and press evenly over the bottom and up the side of the dish to form a crust. Bake for 8 minutes, until the crust is fragrant.

Remove from the oven and, using the bottom of a drinking glass, immediately press the crumbs again to compact the crust. (brilliant idea from F&W!) Let cool completely.

make the filling: In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with 1/4 cup of the sugar, the cornstarch and salt. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, heat the milk with 1/4 cup of the sugar until bubbles form around the edge. Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the yolk mixture.

Pour into the saucepan and cook over moderate heat, whisking constantly, until very thick, about 3 minutes.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the semisweet and unsweetened chocolate until smooth. Strain the chocolate filling into the pie crust through a coarse sieve (this does not work with a fine sieve, I tried!) and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula.

Press a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pie filling and refrigerate for 3 hours, until chilled.

{Nana made this ♥ doily!}

Let the pie stand at room temperature for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the cream with the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and the vanilla until firm. Spread the whipped cream over the pie, cut into wedges and serve, garnished with chocolate shavings, if desired.


Nana...we will miss you. The dance floor at the next family wedding won't be the same without you. And, I'll think of you the next time I say, "sh@#"...it shouldn't be long.



{Works for Me Wednesday and the "troubleshooting" post will be back next week.}

May the Force be with you . . .

The kiddo had a Star Wars birthday party last weekend. Only 6 kids came over and I still feel like I'm in recovery mode!

Actually...it was really fun. No injuries, although my husband almost lost an eye with a projectile from the pinata. I'll spare you the details.

But, you will get the details on the sweets. Let's start with the R2D2 cookies....

I'm always reluctant to do "characters." I tried my hardest to channel these Star Wars cookies from Sugar Belle, but didn't quite get there.


These were the party favors. I mean, as if cake, ice cream, punch and candy from the pinata aren't enough...send the kids home with a little more sugar!!! You are welcome, parents! ;)


The plan was for the cookies to say "May the Force be with you." I couldn't get it to fit.


Can you see that sparkle in the background? I love it! I used my new disco dust. I didn't want the entire background to be glittery, so I brushed this on the DRY background (IE: the cookies had dried overnight) to make it look like the sky.

On to the cake....now the girls on my cake decorating team for NYC are about to get nervous because I am not a cake decorator! You'll soon see.



I made an R2D2 from candy melts and royal icing. Then, the Star Wars cake was inspired by the lovely multi-colored cakes from Amanda of i am baker. My son said he wanted red and blue layers...something about good and bad lightsabers.


{So, R2 didn't sit exactly flat on the cake...the boys didn't seem to notice!}


{These candles were supposed to have a blue flame...not as cool as they looked on the box.}

Want to see the inside??!?!



Cool, right?

I tried to get a few more pictures of the inside, but hungry boys just don't understand, "Wait about 10 minutes while I put this cake in the light box near the "good window" and take a picture from every angle." Geez.


The layers are just white cake mix with blue and red food coloring. (Each cake mix made 2 layers and I used AmeriColor Royal Blue and AmeriColor Super Red.)


This frosting was incredible...right from the back of the cocoa can (I used Hershey's Special Dark, or dutch-process cocoa).

"PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING
(from Hershey's...I doubled this recipe)

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa, Special Dark or regular
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

I used 3/4 c. frosting between each layer and used the rest to cover the top and sides.



Jedis...I leave you with a picture of Dog Vader. May the Force be with YOU!