Halloween biscuits....Boo!

Halloween is one of those celebrations that mean very little to me, it doesn't really inspire me nor excites me.
I saw in my "Cookie craft" book an idea of a halloween house using boiled candies for the windows that really looked cool, so I got some candies and I tried to do something different myself. At the beginning I was just going to make some circles with candy in the center and some royal icing, but as I was cutting circles I saw a little face taking shape... and I loved it.

Then with an oval cutter I cut more cookies using the orange dough, cut some letters using the green dough and put them together as you see in the following picture, I added candy inside the letters to make them look a bit bloody:


When I had them all ready, I put them in clear bags with orange and black ribbon, they looked great!.

Lavender cookies

After I bought the book "Cookie Craft" I have been thinking and even dreaming about cookies... the book is so inspirational!!!....the photographs, tips, recipes, tricks.....hmmm perfect!, honestly, if you're interested in cookie decoration THIS is the right book.

I was so eager to start using the ideas and techniques from the book that I dashed to get all what I needed, although I forgot the squeeze bottles, more pastry bags and extra nozzles.....which I can't find easily where I live. When I visited a friend the other day I remembered that I saw a pack of 4 sauce bottles in a shop, very cheap, not the perfect ones, but they would definitely help, so I got them. The pastry bags and extra nozzles had to stay in my "wish list" for now. Not to worry :o)

As I got a pack of greeting cards with photographs of lavender, I thought it would be nice to use the same colors for my cookies :

It was great to experiment with royal icing as I have never used it before. It can be tricky, I made some mistakes...that I ate afterwards :o)
I feel that I learnt a lot today and believe me.... I can't wait to decorate more!.

I'll put these in a clear bag with a nice ribbon plus a thank you card (the lavender ones...of course) to a very sweet friend of mine, Jacqueline, who sent me by surprise 5 pots of food coloring paste with a note that said "Happy baking and marzipal modeling"....isn't she nice!?.

Oxfam cookies

A month ago I needed a 2 tier plate to put some cupcakes I made for a friend's B'day party so I asked Gen (my friend and neighbour) if she had one at the Oxfam's shop whe she works as a volunteer. To my surprise, she came back with a lovely one, in perfect shape, just what I needed. When I asked how much it was, she said that instead of the money, she wanted some nice cookies for a coffee morning at Oxfam. It seemed like a good challenge! I put all my heart in them :o)

Cookies

If I bake something, it's to be shared...otherwise I eat it all and that's not the idea!.

Lastnight I baked some cookies to share with a good friend of mine I visited today, she has 2 little girls so I thought it would be nice to garnish some cookies specially for them and my son.
I used my lemon pie's pastry (although I added one more tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract).

Ingredients (it makes 5 1/2 dozen cookies):
* 1, 1/2 cup of self raising flour
* 2 tbsp of butter (it can be oil instead)
* 3 eggs yolks
* 1 cup of sugar
* 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 C
Place baking paper on the baking tray.
In a large bowl, mix flour, egg yolks, butter (or oil) and 1 cup of sugar until you get a good consistency to knead and give shape with your hands. If it's too dry add a bit of milk.
Sprinkle some flour on the surface you'll work and roll out the dough till you get a 3mm thickness. Use your favourite cookie cutters. Place the cookies on the tray and bake in the oven for 10 minutes or untill light brown.
Take them out of the oven and let them cool.

You can have them just plane or you can garnish them with chocolate, sugar strands or any other edible decoration.

To stick the sugar strands I used egg white powder as it's safer than using raw egg whites.

For the ones dipped in chocolate: I used the chocolate cake covering, 5 squares for this recipe is more than enough.

Enjoy them!!! :o)