Cookie Recipes and Decorating Ideas #157
IN THIS ISSUE:
Recipe of the Month:
Ice Cream Wafers
Sites of the Month:
Karen's Cookies
Decorating Inspiration -- Usual great stuff
Cookie Decorating Classes with Penney!
HELP! - We need your cookies!
What's New at KCI
FROM THE EDITOR
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"The
family unit plays a critical role in our society and in the training of
the
generation to come." —Sandra Day O'Connor
JOKE OF THE MONTH
Teacher to student: Arnold what is the most popular answer to the teacher's questions?
Arnold: I don't know ma'am.
Teacher: ''Correct!'''
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RECIPE OF THE MONTH
Ice Cream Wafers
This is a flaky, dainty cookie. It's great with coffee or with ice cream!
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup softened butter or margarine
5 T. vanilla ice cream, softened
1/2 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, blend flour,
margarine and ice cream. Dough will be firm. Chill
dough.
On lightly floured surface, roll dough into 1/8 inch thickness.
Cut with desired cookie cutters. Coat each side of cut-out
cookie with sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake
for 5 to 10 minutes or until edges are light brown. Cool.
Decorate with colored icing and candies. Make 2 1/2 dozen
cookies.
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SITE OF THE MONTH
Just surfing a bit I found a great "how to" site with lots of
examples, ideas, tips,
etc. Karen's Cookies
is a great source for those of you who are just starting
out in this wonderful world of cookie decorating. Check her site out at:
http://www.karenscookies.com/howto.htm
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COOKIE DECORATING INSPIRATION
Heleen from the Netherlands was asked to make cookies for a first communion
party.
She wanted to show us how well she put her KCI cookie cutters to work.
Great
job!
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I got an email last week from a lady wanting to know if KCI
carried a "flip-flop" cookie
cutter. I'm not sure what she had in mind exactly, but I was able to send
her these two
pictures showing how to turn one of our designs into a flip-flop sandal.
The one on the
left is from Marci in New Jersey. I'm guessing the tops are done with
fondant. The
second is our Bigfoot design that Kim, currently from St.Louis, did.
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Here is another picture from Marci -- way too cute to not share.
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CLASSES WITH PENNEY FROM "PENNEY'S PASTRIES"
I received a call from a girl in Costa Rica last week. She was interested
in starting her own cookie bouquet business and wanted some information about classes. I immediately
thought of Penney from Penney's Pastries in Austin. I left a message and Penney was kind enough
to return
my call. Penney said she teaches "intense" 2 1/2 hour classes in Austin, San Antonio
and Dallas. She generally
teaches the classes through a local grocery chain called Central Market.
Penney suggested
contacting the stores for information about registering for her class in San
Antonio in November
or her Dallas class in September. She recommends that her students take
something like a Wilton
cake decorating class prior to hers so that they can maneuver around a pastry
bag.
Here is the link to their website that also gives contact
information: http://www.centralmarket.com/cm/cmContact.jsp
If you do happen to sign-up for one of her classes, please let the rest of
us know ALL about it.
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STORING COOKIE CUTTERS
Last month we were asked for suggestions on storing cookie cutters.
Several of you
came up with some nifty ideas.
Mindy uses plastic shoe boxes. She labels each with what designs are in
it. For her
copper cutters she hung a peg board and "tries" to keep each one on a
peg according to
what it is.
Kim uses an upright drawer set and labels each drawer with the season or general
content.
Jeanie, who has over 200 cutters (over 150 are KCI) had a large lazy-susan type
wooden
box made to store her cutters. It's a large square box 2 ft x 2 ft. with
pegs spaced 4
across and 4 down on each side of the box. She too organizes her cutters
by categories and
can stack 2 to 3 cutters on each peg.
Paula keeps her holiday-themed cutters in clear totes and places
them inside her boxes
of holiday decorations. She has a tote dedicated to Christmas baking in
which she keeps
her cupcake liners cookie cutters, red/green food coloring, gold/silver dragees,
mini
loaf pans, gift packaging supplies etc.
Becky uses big crocks from her grandmother. She changes
the cutters according to the
season and keeps the crock on her fridge. The out of season ones she keeps
in bags.
Donna uses large Tupperware containers that stack and sorts her
cutters into them
based on holiday themes. Since the containers are clear she can also see
into them.
Heika uses her KCI catalog to catalog her cutters. She
notes under each picture the
sizes that she has and then stores them in Rubbermaid boxes by categories.
Catherine also uses plastic shoe boxes from the craft store and
divides her cutters into categories.
She also labels each box so she knows what's inside.
Denise has a pegboard hanging on a wall of her garage with the longest pegs she
could find from Home Depot (6"). She sorted them and hangs them on
the board
accordingly.
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HELP!
I'm running low on pictures of your beautifully decorated cookies so if you
get a chance this
month, pull out the old digital camera and email me some photos or mail me
duplicates
(address at the bottom) of your creations. The photos are one of the
highlights of this
newsletter so please share and inspire the rest of us.
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WHAT'S NEW AT KCI
I must admit that I was a bit skeptical when Al brought home the copper berry
colander and asked
me what I
thought about marketing it. I thought it was pretty, but
who would buy it? As usual, Al was right and it has been a HUGE
hit.
With that thought he has added the large colander
you see pictured here. It really is pretty and functional.
The copper has a protective lacquer coating to retard
tarnishing and the inside is coated with Nickel for a practical
work surface. It retails for $37.00.
*******
FROM THE EDITOR
Thanks to those of you who sent notes regarding
Michael. He's doing fine -- kind of
bored with the long recuperating process, but not too worse for the wear.
School
starts here on August 13 so our "together" time will soon come to a
close.
If you have questions or feedback about this newsletter, send me
a note:
lesley@kitchengifts.com
STAY COOL!
Lesley
Cookie Recipes and Decorating
Ideas
IN THIS ISSUE:
Recipe of the Month:
Milan Cookies
Sites of the Month:
Need Cookies?
Custom Icing
Chart
Decorating Inspiration -- Great stuff here!
Storing Cookies
HELP!
What's New at KCI
FROM THE EDITOR
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
- Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age. -- Christopher Morley
JOKE OF THE MONTH
"I'm sorry," said the clerk in flower shop, "we
don't have potted geraniums.
Could you use African violets instead?"
Replied the customer sadly, "No, it was geraniums my wife told me to
water while she was gone."
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RECIPE OF THE MONTH
Does anybody else love those little bags of incredibly expensive Pepperidge
Farm cookies?
My favorites are the Milano cookies. Here's a recipe for them that you can try
at home.
Milan Cookies
12 tablespoons butter, softened Cookie filling:
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons lemon extract
1 1/2 cups flour
Cookie filling, recipe follows
1/2 cup heavy cream
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 orange, zested
Cream the butter with a paddle attachment then mix in
the sugar. Add the egg Cookie Filling: In a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream. Pour hot
cream
whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts. Add the flour
and
mix until just incorporated. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch
sections
of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as
they
spread. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light
golden
brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
over chocolate in a bowl. Whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well. Set
aside
to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools). Spread a thin amount of the
filling onto the
flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of
a second cookie
on top. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies. Makes about 3 dozen
cookies.
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SITES OF THE MONTH
If you haven't checked out our "Need
Cookies?" page please do so. I've
added some new people and their cookies and web sites are great fun.
Also, after emailing it to way too many people, I've finally added a web page
with the chart
for creating custom colored icing. You can now find it any old time at: http://www.kitchengifts.com/colorchart.html
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COOKIE DECORATING INSPIRATION
Helen sent us these incredible pictures of cookies she says "aren't
excellent quality".
I beg to differ!
Marci, from New Jersey, sent us this picture of a cookie bouquet she did for an
auction at
her daughter's school. She didn't say how much it went for, but I bet it
was a LOT!
Marci made these for a customer who was having a pocketbook party for her
4 year-old daughter. VERY cute.
Finally, for those of you who are ready to move on from royal icing, Marci tried
her hand at fondant covered cookies. She used lace mat impressions to
create these
dress cookies -- a la Mae West.
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STORING COOKIES
In the last newsletter Lucy asked us about storing cookies.
Several of you had some
thoughts for her. Meg suggested cardboard dresses boxes lined with
foil. She said
she packs her cookies in plastic storage bags and then layer them in the
boxes. We also
had pizza boxes suggested and plastic containers from your local fish company.
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HELP!
Florence would like suggestions for cookie bouquet classes in the New Jersey
area or
books or stores that might help her perfect her art.
Mary asked if anybody knows about drilling holes into cookies after they are
baked
to make room for bouquet sticks -- or simply suggestions on putting holes in.
Mary also asked about rolling dough to a uniform thickness -- I have to suggest
the
dobord -- makes all the difference in the world. Check out http://www.kitchengifts.com/dobord.html
Any thoughts? Contact lesley@kitchengifts.com
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WHAT'S NEW AT KCI
No offense Californians, but some folks out there are wacko! Somebody
has decided that
dragees should be taken off the market and is filing law suits against everybody
who does
sell them in California. Hence, until this is settled, we won't be sending
any to your sunny state.
It's probably the same guy, from California, who filed suit against Nabisco for
selling Oreo
Cookies -- they contain trans saturated fat.
I don't have it on the web yet, but we now have a 24 oz squeeze
bottle. It's huge but if you're
filling a lot of cookies it will be great. It retails for $3.85. You can
call our toll free # (888/593-2436)
if you're interested in adding one to your collection.
*******
FROM THE EDITOR
Thanks for all your suggestions for entertaining my 13 year old
this summer. I'm working
on a game plan.
Michael and I had an incredible week in Paris last month. The weather was
perfect, the people
were very nice and the sights were everything we dreamed they'd be. Within
24 hours we
had learned to use the metro and were then able to get around really well.
We have decided
that our favorite part of the trip was the food. This is a picture Michael took
of me at a sidewalk
cafe we ate lunch at. As I looked to my right I was looking right at Notre
Dame Cathedral.
If you have questions or feedback about this newsletter, send me
a note:
lesley@kitchengifts.com
USE SUNSCREEN!
Lesley
This newsletter is sponsored by:
Kitchen
Collectables, Inc.
Home of the world's largest collection of copper cookie cutters and
hard to find cookie decorating supplies.
Visit our Web Site at: http://www.kitchengifts.com
Toll free: 888/593-2436
Email: info@kitchengifts.com
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