Gnomes and toadstools

For munchie's birthday I really wanted to make some sugar cookie cutouts. I found a set of cookie cutters on ebay in the shape of gnomes and toadstools and thought it would be perfect to go along with our theme. In case you don't already know, I kind of have this thing about metal cookie cutters. I really and I do mean really love them. Sure the plastic ones are fine with the kiddos but honestly, I think no baker's pantry is complete without a good bunch of metal ones.

So here they are the finished products: 

 Here is a close up of my gnomes just after I finished flooding them:

I don't think they turned out too terribly bad seeing as I have never decorated a sugar cookie like this ever. I have only decorated them with a big slab of frosting, sprinkled some colored sugar on them and ate them up. I did learn a few things though and I will add my tips so that you can keep from making the same mistakes that I did.

I found my recipe for the sugar cookies on another blog that I follow as I didn't have a good one for cutouts of my own. These were really tasty and I don't think I will look any further for another cutout recipe.You can also find a really nice tutorial on how to decorate your cookies here: clicky

Ella’s White Sugar Cookies adapted from Annie's Eats
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 ½ t. almond extract
1 t. vanilla (I added 2 tsp as I am more a fan of the vanilla taste than the almond)
1 t. salt
2 ½ c. sifted flour
Directions:
Cream butter. Add powdered sugar. Blend in egg, almond extract, vanilla, salt and flour. Chill dough until firm. Roll to ¼” thickness on well-floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Place on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for 8-10 min. Cookies should not brown. Frost and decorate when cool. Yields ~40 cookies.

Royal Icing courtesy of Wilton

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons meringue powder
4 cups (about 1 lb) confectioner's sugar
6 tablespoons warm water

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer).

Makes about 3 cups of icing.

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Here are a few things I will do differently next time:

--I won't add too much water. I added too much to the icing I was going to use to flood the cookies and it came out a lot thinner than I would have liked once it was on the cookies. So you can see it is very flat and shiny.
--I won't use Wilton colors for red or black. I really like the Wilton gel food coloring but I needed an entire container of color and still couldn't get the right shade of red or black. It was very matte and almost pastel like in nature. It just did not have that pop of bright that I was looking for. Upon further research I have learned that for red and black you should use Americolor gels in super red and super black. Now I know and I will be adding these to my list of things to get before my next cookie baking session.
--These were pretty time consuming so I would say if you are doing really big batches, carve yourself out an entire day to make these. I made the cookies a couple of days ahead, stored them in an airtight container and then decorated the night prior to the party. If done differently, I would have decorated a day earlier and given myself more time to let everything dry before flooding. I gave myself an hour, but definitely could have used several more between piping and flooding details.

In all these turned out really good, had a nice flavor and stored very nicely. I can't wait to hone my skills a little more and try these two recipes with my next batch of cutout cookies.

A winter gnomeland birthday

Munchies birthday party was a success. Everything turned out nicely and though I didn't put up all of the decorations I had planned for originally, it ended up looking pretty good.

Here are some photos from the big day:

 Gnome and toadstool cookies

 The cake

 Sandwich and veggie trays

 Arctic punch

Gnome favor bags

The birthday boy behind his balloons

Decorated high chair

Inside of cake

Cake smash

I do this every time. I promise to update and then I don't for a long, long time. Well I am busy and my life for the most part is boring and not entirely blog worthy. I am not just a mother but a wife and I watch other people's kids besides my own. I just don't always have the time to get on here and quite frankly it is always the most mundane of things that fill my day. I suppose I could carve out a chunk of time, but who am I kidding, I love my sleep, so I choose it instead. Plus, I am pretty sure you don't want to hear about every. single. thing. I. do. Legit, I don't want to share it with you either. Just take my word for it that it is boring.

I am going to sum up what we have been doing and then I will proceed over the course of the next few days to post about certain things that come with great recipes, some pictures and whatever else you may or may not even care to be interested in.

So to start with my son is a year old. I don't even know where to begin to start with that one. But I will do my best. We had a wonderful birthday party for him this past weekend. Despite many cancellations, we did enjoy ourselves immensely and my hard work did not go unnoticed. I also learned a great many things that day. Next time, I probably won't try so hard. Lies. I will probably try harder and hope for more people!

Secondly, my parents are coming to visit all the way from the West coast. I cannot wait. I am so excited to see them as I have not seen them in several months. I cannot wait for them to see munchie either, he is so much bigger and more on the go than he was the last time they saw him. He is also way more fun now. I am planning for this to be the best Christmas ever and that is saying a lot since last year was pretty much the best Christmas ever because I had a brand new baby in my arms. Also saying a lot because it was the redeeming moment for the prior Christmas which sucked so much ass I almost banished Christmas from my entire existence. I know what you are thinking...ME become a Grinch? Oh yeah, it almost happened. But that is a story to be burned to ashes and never really spoken of again.

Moving along.

So this is how I felt the day of my son's birthday party: 

I slaved away for two days prior trying to get all of the cookies and the cake done and then no one was able to make it to his big day. I was understandably pretty bummed out. Meaning, I almost cried in front of our only guest and her husband and kids. But I managed to suck it up until the end of the day when the baby was well fed, pooped out, and snuggled in bed. Then I let it loose. I cried for at least a good few hours. I was so sad for so many reasons.

A lot of it was because I really miss my family and I really wished that they could have been there to celebrate such a tremendous event in my little boy's life. I know it means so much more to me than to anyone else, but I guess I had an idea of what it would be like in my mind and I was surprised to have been let down so badly by its differences. I didn't expect myself to have such overwhelming feelings of disappointment and sadness on a day that was supposed to be full of jubilee. In all, it was a great day and everything turned out pretty well.

My son in the hospital:

My son today:

Happy Birthday my darling little boy. You are the most precious thing in my life. <3