Cookies for School

These next two weeks are going to be full of baking: end of school parties, James' birthday... planning to make

1. Cookies for James' class, for end of term / birthday
   
2. Cookies for Sophie's class
   
3. Birthday cake for James
   
4. MORE cookies for party favors
   

So these are the first on my list, cookies for James' class, wearing the school uniform. Cookies are lemon flavored, recipe from a friend.

Hmm. Didn't plan my piping well enough - it would probably have looked better piping the tie over the white flooded background, cause right now only the stripes are standing out : P. Actually, the cuff, band details could probably all have been overpiped too..

Isn't it just typical that the least interesting part of cookie decorating - colour mixing - should be the most time consuming? I only had two colours besides white to mix up and I was already moaning and groaning over the time it took to get there. And isn't it disgusting how much gel colour it takes to build up to a nice bold shade? And frustrating that guidebooks always tell you to add colour "a dab at a time"? At one point I was pushing gollops of gel into my mix, heck about your "dabs"!

The other mistake I made was in the consistency of my soft flow icing... I don't know why I was so stingy with the water. My lines kept breaking up or showing air bubbles in it.

First Commercial Deal!

Okay, I made a loss, but I had so much fun doing these, it didn't matter.



James' teacher asked if I could make cupcakes for her daughter's birthday and I was really happy to. The recipe was from the Cupcake bakeshop again, Vanilla cupcakes. Blew my budget by getting vanilla sugar and vanilla beans - didn't have time to make my own vanilla sugar, unfortunately. Also, used all the good stuff - Nielson-Massey vanilla extract, Lurpak butter... The cream cheese frosting was much appreciated - funny why Singaporeans are all so fearful of butter. I personally feel nauseous thinking about eating buttercream, although I will decorate generously with it : ).

Some of the bits look really messy to me. Had some trouble with some of my fondant shapes. Cut them out the night before and stored them over night in an airconditioned room. They were nicely dried on top, but their backs were stuck on the cue cards I use to move them around on. Must remind myself to ditch the cue cards next time. Will they stick to a cookie sheet? I suppose if I sprinkled cornflour on it first, it might not?


Mmm - fresh out of the oven. They smelt good!!