TUTORIAL: Dracula In Love

So I was searching my brain for something cute to design for Halloween....and all I could think of was that movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall....and that Dracula love ballad..

Hillarious if you haven't seen it.  Jason Segal....

Anyway.....that's how I ended up with this:

Yes...Dracula is in love.... and he has it baaaaaaad.

Who is he in love with??  Uh...I dunno...probably a blood bank tech....

No matter....

To share the love I thought I would also share a little tutorial for y'all....simple and sweet...

Then maybe a few more shots of the collection here...because I took a bajillion pics....weird right?  I mean me?  Taking way too many pics of cookies?????

Batty for Blackberry Pie! (And Pie Crust Cookie Bats)

I'm kind of a batty lady...

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ok no I'm not really....just tired...and a little delirious...so this post might be a little strange...

But hey, you'll get a yummy recipe from it so....there's that.

Oooooo..looks creepy and Gothic...like it could be filled with baked black beetles.  Blackberry Beetles...

Baked Blackberry Beetles.....say that 6 times fast...

Ok, it isn't that hard ...never mind.

Anyway!!  It'a a blackberry pie!  A mini blackberry pie!  Make that 2 in this picture....make that 3 to 4 from this recipe that I'm just about to give you...

TUTORIAL: From the Vault: Fall Pumpkin Wagons

Gotta make this a quick post unfortunately  Baby John is in his fussy state today....trying to breath fire.  And my oldest refuses to clean her play room and is trying to get into my cookies....so.  I need to be efficient.

It' a really quick and easy photo tut of PUMPKIN WAGONS!!

And can you guess what cutter I used??

Double Chocolate Cookies

I like drop cookies...a lot.

I mean don't get me wrong...I love decorating...but there's something in the oh so instant gratification of just dropping dough on the cookie sheet and puting it in the oven.....

And then doin' NOTHING with it.

Ahhhhhh.....the simple life.

Ok so I couldn't leave them COMPLETELY alone....just a few...little eyeballs....

Anyway,  these cookies are AMAZING!  Like a delicious brownie. I kid you not.  The perfect texture, the perfect size, not cakey, not too dense, not too chewy...soft and light.... DELICIOUS.  And so easy to make!!!

Haunted Halloween: Go Bo!

So I decided to make 2 sets to donate to the Bo Go Bake Sale this year...I dunno...to make up for missing it last year I suppose.

My first set was simple, and happy and fall....

So this set...well I went a little Tim Burton....or maybe I flatter myself.....But it kind of reminds me of a Gothic Alice and Wonderland....

I really like these.  I was on the line about them...hubs thought they just looked dirty...then I had to admit to him that that was sort of the point...it's meant to resemble old wallpaper or something that's getting that black around the edges.  Like a house that was once bright and colorful....gone dark

Tutorial: Speckling with Luster Dust

Ok, I have a really easy tutorial for you...of course I did it in video because it's one of the only ways to really show you how to speckle...it's more of a live action kinda thing...


But first let me tell you a little about the cookies I speckled.

I made these for the Go Bo Foundation.  Follow the link to learn more.  This is one of two sets I plan on donating to the Go Bo Bake Sale.

Caramel Macchiato Brownies

So I will admit....I'm not a huge coffee drinker.  I'm a little sensitive to caffeine.  That and I can't just drink it black.  I have to have some cream and sugar...THEN I like coffee...

So I STAY AWAY from Starbucks...because they have that SUGAR+coffee thing down....to a science.  

When fall comes around...sucker for those pumpkin spice....everything.  I try to limit myself to a skinny non fat cinnamon latte if I EVER decide I will give in to coffee....in college coffee and I were pretty tight...amigos...campadres...

Anyway....I don't drink coffee...I drink caffeinated sugar milk basically.....and that is why I am not a huge coffee drinker.

Doesn't mean I don't still WANT the sugar cream concoction...I do.  And I would have to say the KING of the over sugared creamy coffee drink would be...

The Caramel Macchiato

those yummy caramels are from Firefly Confections

I wanted one really bad the other day and I had no clue why....  Maybe I was in a caramel mood...but I was also in a dark chocolate coffee mood.  I was at a loss...

So I baked me some brownies...and put coffee in it....and then topped it with thick caramel sauce....and sugar...and chocolate...

Because I'M BAD!

TUTORIAL: One Stroke Flowers

I made these cookies for my MIL last year.  I was feeling inventive....and my MIL is a super awesome woman and I love her.  So I wanted to do something pretty for her.  But I didn't have a lot of time.  So I had to cut a corner...my usual corner cut is to not mix colors.  I will make white cookies (because I don't have to color the icing to do that) and then airbrush....  or paint.

Now I know I have stated before that I am not the best at painting at cookies....Mostly because it's like painting with watercolors and that's just not my thing....but I still know a few painting techniques.

I remember in art class being taught this really easy way to paint two toned flowers.  It's called a one stroke technique.  Because you can apply 2 colors in one stroke and make a beautiful petal.

Peach Ice Cream with Ginger Peach Compote

Peach Season is almost over....

Remember my last post on peaches?  How I talked about childhood memories of making peach ice cream?

Think I was going to let peach season pass and NOT make peach ice cream?

Heck, think I was going to let SUMMER pass and not make any ice cream AT ALL??

Those crazy words....

Of course I'm going to make peach ice cream.  It's one of my faves.  I made this batch for my mom last time she was here.  She was really wanting peach ice cream and we had a very fine bunch of peaches...I mean I kinda went peach crazy when she was here.  Peach-tacular.

TUTORIAL: Shading With Luster Dust

So when I was working on my owl set last week, I was trying really hard to work with a certain palette.  It was all kinds shabby chic...and there's a fine line between shabby chic and just plain pastel.

It wasn't as easy as I thought.... so once I had my colors mixed and my cookies decorated...they still didn't look right.  The pastel was just PASTEL and the other colors were much too bright to be shabby.  But I still liked the palette. I needed to do something to fix that.

So I brushed off the cobwebs...and out came the dusts...

Luster and petal dusts I mean of course.

I haven't used them in so long.  In fact the only one I really use consistently are the gold or silver ones...and those are for painting...but I have this whole stash of petal and luster dusts that I swear have never even been opened.

But I had a plan for them today.