ELM's Hot Stuff: January 2013

To commemorate the end of residency interview season, my boyfriend and I are going to South Beach. I can not wait!! My last interview was a dermatology interview, so its a damn good thing we postponed our trip until after that... you know, those dermatologists hate a sun tan!

This occasion definitely called for some beach themed cookies. I hope they are not confiscated by airport security tomorrow!

We are taking polka dot, paisley print and Baywatch-red bikini cookies.

We might mismatch our bikinis--I hear that is in style.

When we get there, we will look for sea shells.

Hopefully we will be eating fish and lobster!!

...but if we don't eat fish and lobster (because we are on a budget and might too lazy to go out), then we can act like the cookies are the real thing.

Forecast is 75 and sunny everyday : ) YAY! I will definitely need some of these sunglasses cookies!

I'm still on this "making the cutest cookies ever" kick. And really, if a person has the inclination and the tools, pretty much any occasion can become a cookie-worthy one.

And so has become my step-father's birthday. His name is David. We have a little cottage on a lake up in Minnesota and fishing is one his favorite activities.

So, here are his birthday cookies!

How to make your own wilderness assortment:

First I picked out wilderness or fishing-related cookie cutters. To replicate, you will need a moose face, small fish (trout), large fish (bass), wilderness tree, ornament/bobber, and something that can be molded into a long pole. I used a sea horse and molded the cookie dough into the fishing pole shape.

Second I baked a batch of sugar cookies--but substituted rose-water for the almond extract to make them smell outdoorsy. They smell a bit like rose-scented hand soap, but taste delicious and after all my holiday baking, I was definitely ready for a change! Recipe available at: http://www.annies-eats.com/2007/12/12/christmas-cookies/

After baking, I prepared royal icing. Again, I used the Royal Icing recipe available on Annie's Eats. The writer of that blog also does an amazing job of describing how-to do royal icing, so I will not repeat. I will simply post the link and let you read her post. This is definitely worth reading if you are trying to learn. The only difference in technique is that I put a heaping spoonful of piping icing onto the center of a piece of saran wrap, roll it up, put it in my decorating bag, then cut off the tip of the saran wrap so the icing can flow. Then I put on the decorating tip. I learned this trick from Karen's Cookies at: http://youtu.be/QxE-pnqmsE0

Here is the link to the Royal Icing recipe and tutorial: http://www.annies-eats.com/2009/12/04/how-to-decorate-with-royal-icing/

For my wilderness cookie assortment, I used these colors: gold, brown, no-taste red, super black, leaf green mixed with navy and yellow, leaf green mixed with brown, and white (just the icing--no coloring needed).

Next, I piped the thicker icing onto the cookies. I used Wilton decorating tip size 1 for the white because I was thinking of the very small fishing line I needed to draw. I used tip size 5 for the green on the tree, because I wanted the branch outlines to look rounded. For all other colors, I used decorating tip size 2.

Then, I flooded the cookies with the thinned out icing:

I then sprayed Wilton spray on the fish to make them look metallic (or wet). Gold spray looks good on white and silver spray looks great on green. I let this dry overnight. Make certain to place a wet paper towel in the bottom of a cup and keep your decorating bag tips in the paper towel when not in use. Otherwise, they will dry out.

The next day, I added details with leftover thicker, piping icing.