Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

I have been wanting to figure out how to make those adorable sugar cookies with the some what harder icing on them. Mixing what I learned in the 2nd level of Wilton classes and google….I think I have figured it out slightly. I got a mix of sugar cookie dough from the store and a big box of cookie cutters to make this a fun activity for the nephews!

Royal Icing information/Recipe

They turned out pretty cute 🙂 I needed to thin them out more if I wanted to fill it in. The bottles were a bit tough to squeeze the icing out of due to the consistency being too thick.+

              

Pressure Test

So, I’ve recently started watching Hell’s Kitchen and Master Chef..and I am absolutely amazed by these people. The past few weeks of cooking/baking I’ve realized..I like to take my time and be relaxed when I am in the kitchen. I can not imagine cooking 30 some sunny side up eggs in 15 minutes while Gordon Ramsey, Joe, and Graham breathing down my shoulders. WHAT A NIGHTMARE.

Today in the Lesson Two of Wilson cake decor class, we brought withus 8 inch cakes, filling, and two consistencies of icing. So since it’s also Eid (www.whatiseid.com) today, I decided to make a nice cake out of this lesson (recipes in next post)!

We had 2 hours (!!!!!!!!) to level, tort, fill, ice, learn a few piping techniques, use a gel transfer method, and decorate our cakes. My smart self decided to do a three layer cake since I had extra batter (took more time -_-). For me, THIS WAS PRESSURE! Trying to learn how to do everything and trying to perfect it in just two hours is a challenge.

BUT, I guess….not bad….for my first try at this whole thang.

Cool things I learned with this lesson:

1. When using a filling in between layers, using a tip 12 to make a border along edge of cake before putting the filling down will help with not having the filling oooooz out.
2. Colors in butter cream get messy if you’re in a rush, changing piping tips, bags, colors, etc.
3. When leveling the cake, not only saw the tool back and forth but turn the cake at the same time to help get a cleaner cut.
4. That gel transfer stuff is pretty legit. tracing a design and copying it over to the cake!!!
5. Let the cakes initial icing sit for a while before decorating so it has time to set.

Definitely will need to practice these techniques…but my biggest problem is..what do I do with all these desserts?!?!

Being Domestic and Shii

So today was my first class at Joann’s!

We did Lesson 1 of the Wilson Decorating course. With about a month to go before committing the next chunk of my life to corporate America, it feels good to start doing some “me” things.

We learned some basic information about cake baking and used a star tip 18 to decorate some cookies with buttercream icing.

Enjoy.