Bees, what to do with left-overs

So I originally made 2 batches of cookies for the American Bee Federation. The first batch was a little strong on the lavender and light on the honey so I made a second batch to make the honey stand out more, since these were for bee keepers after all. But now I had a bunch of strong lavender cookies that I didn't want to go to waste. I decided to ice them plain with a lemon flavored frosting to see if that would help balance the lavender flavor. Let me say these were delicious.

Now that I know the flavor worked I wanted to try painting on them. I've seen the blog for a wonderful cookie artist, Arty McGoo, who paints wonderful cookies in all sorts of themes. Since I knew these could be a quick and easy design, I was inspired to try painting these cookies and see how they come out. I just did them really quick but I can say I'm not as afraid to try as I was before. I got a lot of good compliments on they way they look so I may have to try my hand at a more complicated design in the near future.

Okay and I had to share this... My son (who is 3) wanted to "help" me decorate one morning. So I filled a bottle and let him decorate one of each cookie all by himself. He came out while I was painting the bee cookies and asked if I could please paint a bee on his cookie too. He was very proud of his cookie and showed it to everyone, for about a day, then it was promptly eaten :)

American Beekeeping Federation Conference

I was asked to donate some "bee" themed cookies to the American Beekeeping Federation conference next weekend in Las Vegas. I really wanted to do something to highlight the honey so I did some research and made a few batches of Lavender Honey cookies with Honey/Vanilla Royal Icing. It took a few tires to keep the lavender subtle but these were really tasty and something very different that you could really taste the honey in. I am fortunate enough to live in a place were local honey is available almost anywhere so I was able to use Round Rock Honey in my recipe. The wings on the bees were dusted with honey powder to add some extra sweetness and texture. It was amazing on just the smallest amount of honey added to icing really came thru in the flavor, I may have to start using it more often ;) Hopefully the beekeepers enjoy them.

Christmas Time...

I tried 2 different recipes for Christmas this year... Orange Gingerbread courtesy of Sugarbelle (orange gingerbread recipe), and Vanilla Eggnog, that I made up on the fly. Overall I wanted to keep a really fun and traditional look to these. I gave away way more of these than I was able to keep... I think I was decorating gingerbread in my dreams :) Everyone seemed to love them though, and I can't wait till next year to see what fun flavors we come up with.

Arkane Studios

Arkane Studios is a local gaming company here in Austin, TX. They are a small company (so far) so one of their wives, who work with my husband, asked if I could make some cookies in their company colors to take with them to the party. The only thing she asked for was a large rectangle that had the company name and logo on it, the rest was up to me as long as there were at least 2 dozen cookies.  These made me really want a kopykake :) I was told that they all really loved them so it was worth all the hand drawing. The flavors were simple but it looked really cool with the vanilla and chocolate cookies all laid out on a platter with such a graphic style cookies.

DJ Birthday Cookies

This was just a quick order for one of my coworkers who requested a small set of cookies for a friend that is a DJ. He and his wife are on a diet so she didn't want anything big but gave me liberty to make them fun. This is what I came up with... The records are dark chocolate and the stars and "turn table" are vanilla bean. I love the way the black food marker showed up on the coco icing. Hopefully her friend will enjoy them and not worry about the diet for a few bites at least.

(sorry for the color on the photo, it was taken at night)

UMHB Graduation Cookies... Congrats! (Gluten Free)

These were made for a friend's daughter that is graduating from the University of Mary Hardin Baylor as a Nurse. Her mom, Nancy from R.O.C.K., is ecstatic and is throwing her a party with friends and family to celebrate. Nancy was my very first customer for her younger daughter who graduated from Texas Tech earlier this year (texas-tech-graduation-first-order). The twist on this order was that the graduate has gluten allergies and she wanted at least a few to be gluten free so she could enjoy them. Her mom threw down the challenge when she thought I could only do simple ones as gluten free and it was okay to make the cute ones with the normal flour... Well that just doesn't work. The guest of honor should be able to eat the best ones, right? I took a few tries but I got it. These were great, by the time they were decorated you could hardly tell the gluten free from the normal recipe. I was so excited when I got these done I rushed to box them up and almost forgot to take a picture... if you were curious at all the graduate girls and the hearts were gluten free while the chapel tower and the nurse scrubs were standard vanilla bean.

R.O.C.K. Cookies #2

Nancy had me working hard this week... first these wonderful horse themed cookies to thank her workers and volunteers that help make R.O.C.K. the wonder place it is... next week I'm making graduation cookies for her daughter that is graduating as a nurse from UMHB. If you recall my first attempt at making horses (going-in-solo), these are far beyond the first set. I did research this time and tried to make each horse represent a real horse they had on property (their names are written on each cookie). Nancy wanted to have their brand new logo represented as well so what better place to put it than in a big heart :) The colors were simple, since I wasn't sure the theme to the party I thought the cowboy boots would be fun and easier to make than I thought.

I soooo wanted to keep the horse heads after I got done with them. My wonderful husband picked out the horse head cookie cutter, and to be honest it scared me to death the first time I tried to use it. These I tried to take my time with and that made all the difference... new lesson learned, them more you plan the more you love the end result.