Elmo, Cookie Monster and Soccer Balls!

This week I had two cookie orders. One was a cookie bouquet for a Soccer Teams end of year party. And the other was a dozen Elmo and a dozen Cookie Monster's for 2 year old twin boys Birthday Party.

Baby Shower Cookies

Well, I have good news... My cookies have improved 100%! They have always tasted great, but I have always had problems with my icing. It would never get hard enough and when packaged, the icing would flake off very easily. I did a lot of researching for icing recipes that hold up better in high humidity climates like Texas and also I did some things to improve my techniques. I can now say my icing in amazing - and hard like it should be!

Check out these cookies I did for a baby shower - they turned out great!

I am Monster Trucked out!

I finally finished the monster trucks. I was supposed to have them done last night, but by 12:30 I was pooped out and had to finish this morning. Now I hope they are dried enough by this evening. Here they are before I started adding the detailed decorating.

Here is the finished product! And below is the actual Grave Digger!

Cookie Overload... Please pray for me!

Boy, this is going to be one busy week! I have two very large cookie orders. The first is Gravedigger Monster Trucks for a special little Birthday Boy - at first the Mommy was thinking 18 cookies but she just emailed me that it would be more like 31! So she just ordered 3 dozen of these awesome trucks! The next order is for my cousins baby shower and that order is for 4 dozen. I am stressing a bit, but this "business" is very much welcome to me... especially after the news we got from my husbands employer this last week. For the next few months, every little bit is going to help.
Also, just to let everyone know how much goes in to actually making my cookies, I want to try to journal my work this week. The "Gravediggers" are going to be picked up on Wednesday evening and the "Baby Girl" cookies will go with me to the shower on Saturday afternoon. Yesterday I made 4 batches of cookie dough so it could freeze overnight. Since my truck order increased, all of this dough will be used for them alone and I will need to make 4 more batches of dough tonight for the baby cookies. For the truck order I ordered a regular 'ol monster truck cookie cutter, but we all know that the "Gravedigger" is special so I had to get creative and add the shell to the bed of the truck.

Today is Monday and my goal for today (to get these cookies done in time) is to have them baked and glazed by tonight. Tuesday will be used for decorating and then they need to dry overnight Tues. and Wednesday during the day. I glaze all the cookies I make for various reasons. The glaze seals the cookie, and fills in any inperfections (like where I added the shell to the bed of the truck). The glaze also insures that the colored icing does not bleed into the cookie. Also sealing the cookie guarantees freashness for up to two weeks. The cookies have to be completely cooled before glazing. Then the tops are glazed, dried and then the bottoms are glazed and dried.

Here they are all baked and in the glazing process. This order was for 3 dozen but I always make a few extra just in case.... so there are 38 of these cute trucks.