Christmas Cookies Diva Style….or not.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Well, I’m a week early, but considering how hectic everyone gets at this time of year, better to be early.

I thought last night I’d be a totally normal little DIY Diva and start baking some Sugar Cookies to give to friends for Christmas…I mean every ‘normal’ person starts mixing cookie dough at 6 in the evening don’t they? By the time I’d baked the first batch, waited for them to cool and clean up my explosion of mess in the kitchen it was after 9pm, so decided to put the decorating off till the morning. And again, being totally ‘normal’ I was up a little after 4am mixing up the icing batches to decorate my little goodies. I finished icing the first batch by 5.30 and have managed to clean most of that mess up!

Now before anyone starts questioning my sanity of baking so late in the day, or decorating so early in the morning, please note, it is Summer here in Brisvegas. Which means during the day the last thing I want to be doing is opening an oven door with a further 200 degress blasting at me…and for the icing to not be as runny as it would be during the middle of the day, early morning is the best time to be doing it! Plus I’ve been up since 2ish, so for me it was nearly morning tea time. Gotta love being married to a night shift worker.

The recipe I used for these little darlings can be found here. I found it on Pinterest, along with many others, but thought I’d use this one last night…it seemed simple enough, and it actually was! It’s no-one else’s fault that my decorating skills are rather poor…closer to pathetic truth be told. But the instructions are Cari Proof to follow, so don’t let my end result put you off.

I mixed it up with a little peppermint flavouring added to the dough, along with vanilla…and added rosewater flavour to the red icing, peppermint to the green icing. My little hint/cheat would be to use baking paper to do the icing on. Easy as to clear away when you’ve finished. And having tested one…oh ok, two, I’ve tested two cookies…hmmmm, YUM!!! Glad none of our friends are giving these to us, coz the hips would be spreading for sure!

Now to bag these goodies up, add a personal tag and they’ll be ready to share with everyone!! Otherwise I might not have the self control to prevent myself from testing some more!!

Christmas Baking and cooking nearly mapped out.

This year I’m going for the more ‘homey’ Christmas style of gifts and food. We’re not going the Traditional Roast for lunch, as here in Brisbane it’s normally a sure thing the weather is going to be hot and steamy enough without turning the kitchen into a sweatbox.

So this week, while I’m prepping and checking the decos and lights, I’m mapping out recipes to attempt for Christmas Lunch as well as for gift ideas.

So I’m back to trawling through Pinterest on the hunt for new ideas and tips…my icing skills are in serious need of improvement or total overhaul. Either way works for me.

So far, without really looking, I’ve found a few great sites which I’m about to share with you. These make it all look sooo easy, nearly Cari Proof…time will tell. As will my patience levels. hmmmm.

Ok, first link is here. This is from Glorious Treats and is a real treat to read.

Photo credit to Glorious Treats.

Another which I’m keen to try from Keep It Simple, Keep It Fresh is Gluten Free Spritz Cookies. Maybe I’ll make these up into mason jar gifts for those we know who can’t enjoy the run of the mill goodies because of Gluten. Possibilities…worth keeping in mind, but I’ll try them out on The Man first and see what he thinks. Ssssh, won’t tell him they’re GF, just see what he thinks. The link for this one is here.

And a great tip for icing monogram letters is found here. Ok, this was originally for Valentine’s Day, but no reason it can’t be adapted, and the tip on icing is certainly worth keeping for a rainy day. This one is from Sweet Dreams, a great launching pad for learning new cake decorating tips.

I’ll leave it at that for today…got to hunt through some recipe books and magazines that have been (sadly) collecting dust for the better part of a few months to find some more goodies. Let’s just say, The Man is going to be eating like a king for the next few weeks while I trial a number of recipes. Thank goodness he’s got a sweet tooth!

Rosewater Flavoured Choc Filled Meringue Kisses

I’m rather pleased with myself this morning for managing to re-create these little beauties. Thank You to Darla from Bakingdom for such an easy recipe to follow and produce. You’ll find it here if you’d like to try for yourself.

I did make a few little alterations to my version. I used Rosewater instead of Raspberry Flavouring, which has filled the house with a gorgeous scent all morning. And I wasn’t able to find any small choc buds in our local supermarket yesterday so have used buttons instead, making some of these larger than originally planned.

Now I’ve never been great with meringue to be honest, but found this method to be a cinch. Took a little longer but the results speak for themselves. And even with a few little mobility hiccups, this is an easily, and quickly, made recipe. I even had a laugh to myself when I was cleaning up the piping bag…talk about a Pink Sticky Sweet Mess.

And yes, I need to work on my piping technique come to think of it. Oh well, I’ll get there one of these days…in the meantime, if it’s messy I’m there.

Enjoy!

 

More cards outside of the comfort zone

Over the past few weeks my Mother and I have been having a continued debate over my card making talents. It seems this weekend has proven her correct, despite her biased point of view. Which means I’m left to eat my own words.

With Mother’s Day just around the corner I thought I better pull my finger out and get cracking on the cards I needed to make for the Mother’s in my life, which is a few without counting my daughter, friends, nieces, cousins…..there’s a lot! I also offered to make one for one of our housemates to give to his Mum…he’s ended up buying that one (hence my eating my own words and my mother gleefully enjoying herself!)

These have been out of my ‘normal’ comfort zone or skill set, but were a heap of fun to create. I followed some online tutorials and learnt to make easel cards (my new ‘fave’) and followed one of my Mother’s tutorials to make a cascading card. Tonight I’m actually waiting for some paint/ink to dry for another style of card (again outside my norm) while I’m writing this. More on that one later. Pinkie promise.

This week has seen me learning how to ink my embossing folders, play with my new black embossing powder, die cutting flowers, punching butterflies to my hearts content and playing with some of my stamps. I’ve also been rather messy with my Dylusions Ink and mixing it up with my Distress Paints for different effects.

And having worked out the upcoming birthdays, including my lovely aunt who is celebrating our wedding on her own birthday, I thought I best get into creating those while I’m not too strung out. Next week will see me head down, backside up back into wedding related craft. And low and behold, with just over two months before our Big Day, I’m finding my craft time is calming me down and helping me to destress. BONUS!!

Enough of me prattling on, here’s this weeks creations in all their glory. Oh, and I included a pic of the ANZAC Biscuits I made for yesterday. They’re technically DIY…and very yummy.