Christmas Cookies (cont'd)

Here are my gingerbreads (which everyone LOVED!!!)  They were quite yummy.. went fast.. even the kids loved them (and my hubby who previously stated he didn't really care for gingerbread cookies).  I have to say this dough was pretty easy to work with.. and these, like my snickerdoodles, were made from a cake mix!

And my raspberry thumbprints, which everyone liked but, as my Mom put it, were nothing like my Grammy's.. oh well.. better luck next time :)

Christmas Cookies

I wanted to do some new cookies this year instead of the same old ones my family has every year.  It was very difficult deciding which to make (there are so many yummy Christmas cookies out there)!  

I've always wanted to make snickerdoodles and so they were at the top of my list.  Second on my list, gingerbread cookies, which many people don't make because of the difficulty working with the dough and the list of ingreds that go into them.  However, some of my family really like them so I decided to try and find an easy, yummy recipe (we'll see).  My third choice, thumbprint cookies, were ones my "Grammy" used to make and we all LOVED, so I wanted to try my hand at them.

Last night, I completed probably the easiest of the three, snickerdoodles.  This recipe actually involved using a cake mix, which was very intriguing to me.. a cookie dough made from a  cake mix?  I must try it!  Well, not only did the dough produce over 60 cookies, but they were super easy to make, and super yummy to eat! (of course I had to test them out :)

Monster High Cake/Cupcakes

Here are the finished cake/cupcakes for my niece's Birthday.  She loved them!  This was my first time using an edible image and went very smoothly (though I have to say I'm not a huge fan of them because of the lack of creativity that goes into the cake).  However, my niece wanted all the "ghouls" on her cake and I didn't know how else to make that happen.  This is why I decided to do the cupcakes with the skullettes in addition to the cake.

Cake is lemon with vanilla custard filling and whipped icing.  Cupcakes are lemon with lemon creme filling and lemon whipped icing (my niece loves lemons!)

Monster High Skullettes

I'm in the process of creating a "Monster High" cake for my niece's 6th Birthday.  She's obsessed with "Monster High" so of course that will be this year's cake theme.  I wanted to make the little skullette characters but was having a hard time finding a method of making them (one that I thought I could do anyway).  Then I came across an awesome blog by Mighty Delighty Sweets & Treats and thought "this is it!"

I don't have much experience with Royal Icing other than the RI flowers we learned in my Wilton class, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.  Well I completed my skullettes today, and while I did have some trouble along the way, and they don't look nearly as perfect as Mighty Morgan's, I'm happy with them overall.  Hopefully my niece will be as well.  Thanks for the inspiration Morgan.. you have lots of yummy looking treats on your site!  I will post a pic of the completed cake/cupcakes this weekend.