USA Map and Star Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Happy Almost Fourth of July!

Just a few patriotic cookies to show you today. 

A map of the USA in cookie form, striped with red, white and blue, and some simple stars.

I've got an idea for a Fourth of July platter that I'll be working on this weekend.  I hope it turns out the way I'm envisioning!

New Baby Sugar Cookies With Royal Icing

These would be fabulous cookies to bring along to a baby shower. Aren't they just so cute?

Onesies on which I didn't think to pipe the little leg openings.

A sweet little duck and teddy bear.

A bib and a bottle.

Mini bottles.  Love.

These onesies are small.  Not quite minis.

Here they are bagged up as favors.
I haven't yet decided what to use to tie my favors.  Here I used the only baker's twine that I own.  Doesn't exactly match does it?

Curling ribbon or baker's twine?  For some reason, I adore baker's twine but it's not very substantial.  I'm leaning toward buying a variety of ribbon colors to use for favors.


Thanks for visiting!

Flowers and Insects Platter - Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing

My neighbor needed a "thank you" platter.  (Hi ML!)  She gave me complete freedom to do what I wanted.  Love that!

Her request . . . girly, flowers, insects, summery, lots of minis.  Mission accomplished?  I think so.  I do love how it came out and it was so fun to decorate.  This has to be my favorite platter yet.

The flowers were plentiful. 

Caterpillars, snails and butterflies were there to represent the insects.

Birds were there to, um, look cute.  The strawberries too.  (Isn't artistic license grand?)

I was super pleased with the plaque.  I inserted a mini flower up on the top.  Dressed it up a bit I think. 

I've got to remember to do that with other minis!

I was so glad that she wanted a lot of minis.  They're always my favorite.

What?  Crabs aren't insects?  But we live in Maryland, and they're adorable, and I couldn't resist.  It's the whole artistic license thing again.

What again?  Crabs have legs?  Haven't you ever seen a crab missing a claw or leg?  Well this guy apparently lost 6 legs.  Artistic license?


Ok, I forgot to pipe his legs.  Dang it.  You would think that if I hadn't noticed while decorating, I would have noticed while he was front and center in all of the photos I took of the minis.  Sheesh.

Girly, flowers, insects, summery, lots of minis?  Check.

Birds, strawberries, and legless crabs?  Check.

Selling Cookies

I've decided to go for it.  Selling cookies that is.

So far, I've only made cookies for family and friends.  I knew that I'd eventually want to start selling, but there's so much to be done to get started.

I need a commercial kitchen to bake out of.  I've got that.

I need a license from the health department.  That's in the works.

I need a website to show my cookies and prices.  This is the major problem.  I just don't know how to price!  Well, I know the prices I want, I just don't know how to clearly get that across to potential customers.

Do I charge by the platter - small, medium, and large?

Do I charge by individual cookie?

I've seen it done both ways.  (I've actually had it both ways on my website already!  First I had individual prices (per 6 cookies), now I've changed it to per platter.  Now I don't know!)

I prefer to show the price of each individual design and allow people to "build" their own platter.  Then there's the question - State the price per individual cookie, the price per 6 cookies, the price per dozen?  Oy.

If I just show the prices per platter, won't people want to make changes to it?  Like add a few extra cookies, or different designs, or something?  I would think so.

I'm thinking about a combo plan.  I can show actual platters and their prices.  I can also show individual designs and their prices for those that aren't interested in any of the platters as they are.

Will I confuse them? I want it to be clear, make it easy, and not scare them away with the prices.

Is there anyone with advice from me - either as a buyer or a cookie seller?  Here's my new website.

I just started a facebook business page.  I'd be thrilled if you followed me there.  I posed the question on my wall about suggestions for my website.  I'd love to hear your thoughts either here or there.

Thank you!!

Oh, and before I go. . .  I made these cookies last weekend. Can you spot the ridiculous mistake that I made? I need a do-over!





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Embroidery Pattern Sugar Cookies - Roses, Mushrooms, and Owl

I pulled out some more of my embroidery patterns, my Kopykake, sugar cookies, royal icing and got busy.

Beautiful roses with lots of tiny "embroidered stitches" in royal icing.

I wish I could credit where this pattern came from.  I photocopied it from a book ages ago to someday stitch.  Well, at least I got around to stitching it with icing!

The owl and mushrooms are from patterns by Aunt Martha.  You can find the owl here and the mushrooms here.

The owl was super fun to do.  Love those eyes!

I decided not to stitch the mushrooms, but instead to play around with just flooding the shapes.  Cute!

Welcome to Tuesday's Tips - where I share just a little tidbit with you that I hope you'll find useful.

Today's tip is to number your basic shape cookie cutter sets.  Number them with a permanent marker.  Start with 1 for the smallest of the cutters and go up from there.

I number them for two reasons.

*  Just suppose that you don't always put your cutter sets back together neatly stacked in their bins.  Just suppose that they're floating around loose in those bins or even piled up waiting to be put away.  If that happens to be the case when you're digging around looking for a small round and you pick one up, you won't be left guessing as to whether or not that's the smallest one in that set if it's numbered.  You know right away the size of that cutter in relation to the others of the same set.

* Having the cutters numbered helps me remember later which cutters I've used for certain things.  I know that I used a #5 circle cutter for tennis balls and a #1 circle cutter for minis.  Maybe it's just me, but I find it much easier to remember the sequential numbers rather than measurements.  Sometimes I write down which cutter I've used.  I don't write the measurement.  I write the number that it's been assigned.  This is especially helpful on cutters like the hearts in the photo above, that don't have the measurements stamped on them.  No need to pull out a ruler and look for a 3" heart when you instead are looking for a #4 heart.  Retrieving that needed cutter couldn't be quicker!

Grab that permanent marker and get to numbering!  I think you'll be glad you did.

Tutorial - How to make Crab Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

"Maryland is for Crabs!" Quite a slogan, huh? When I was a kid, tshirts with that motto were all over the place.

Crabbing and eating crabs is a summer tradition around here. Does any other state actually have an official "State Crustacean"? I dont' know, but we do - the Maryland Blue Crab.

So in honor of our adored crabs, I made cookies.When I saw the cutters, I just had to have them.  It's early yet for a crab feast, but I wanted to make just a few cookies to see how they'd turn out.

I'm in love with these little guys. Look at those minis!  Minis get me every time.

I was slightly intimidated before I started decorating them. I wasn't quite sure how to go about it.

I started by outlining with black.  Then just flooded each section with red.   They were really easy!

To simplify things even more, I think that outlining with red would be super cute too!

I know what I'll be bringing to the next crab feast!  Can't wait!

Beginners - Part 1 - Sugar Cookie Recipes

Are you wanting to decorate sugar cookies with royal icing but don't know how or where to begin?

I made sugar cookies many times over the years for Christmas and birthdays.  They were very simply done.  I kinda just winged it.  One Christmas I decided that I wanted to learn how to really do it and make my cookies amazing.  I started googling and reading absolutely everything that I could find.  My cookie obsession was born that December.

I found that there are a lot of recipes out there for cookies and icing.  There are a lot of different techniques too.  Everyone does things in a way that works for them.  Not everything I tried worked for me.  It took (and still takes) a lot of experimentation to get the best results.  Choose a recipe and get started.  If it doesn't turn out exactly the way you'd like, make a few changes and try again.  

I'm often asked what recipes I use.  I'll list the cookie recipes here along with others that I plan to use someday.  I'll keep updating it as I find and try more.  I hope you find it useful!

Coming Soon:
Part 2: Icing recipes
Part 3: Cookie and Icing Tutorials

Sugar Cookie Recipes . . .

Sugarbelle has two posts about her recipe.  They're both filled with great tips.  She uses powdered sugar in her recipe.
How to Bake the Perfect Sugar Cookie
Basic Sugar Cookie Recipe

No Fail Sugar Cookies is a very popular recipe (also known as NFSC).  I often use this one, but reduce the amount of baking powder.

Lilaloa's Vanilla Variation

Cookie Crazie's Sugar Cookie Recipe - she uses sour cream

Bake at 350's Sugar Cookie Recipe

Chocolate Sugar Cookie Recipes . . .

Glorious Treats Chocolate Rolled Cookie Recipe 

Lilaloa's End-All for Chocolate Cookies Recipe

 

A Variety of Flavors Cookie Recipes . . . 

Sugarbelle has several . . .
Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Lemon Poppy Seed Cookie Recipe
Red Velvet Roll-Out Cookie Recipe
Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
Brown Sugar Roll-Out Recipe - This one I tried and loved.  It's perfect for fall.  It tastes like an apple cookie, though there are no apples in it.

I am Baker's Red Velvet Cookie Recipe

If you're new to cookieing, just choose a recipe above and go for it!  Let me know how it goes!