Monday, December 31, 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR by Nina

It's New Year's Eve!

Red Shoe Cookies by The Ginger Cookie
Put on your party shoes...

Champagne Glass Cookie by The Ginger Cookie
And raise your glass to welcome 2013.

Happy New Year from The Ginger Cookie!






Sunday, December 16, 2012

SNOWFLAKES by Nina

For really beautiful snowflakes made with an actual snowflake cutter here are Nina's flakes.

Snowflake Cookie from TheGingerCookie.com

I love this cutter - the prettiest I've seen. Where did it come from?


Nina says: This is one of my favorite cookie cutters! Auntie Janet gave it to me for my birthday in the spring and I've been looking forward to using it this winter. I don't know where she got it. Maybe she remembers and will post in the comments!

Snowflake Cookie from TheGingerCookie.com

They say there are no two snowflakes alike - hard to believe!

Snowflake Cookie from TheGingerCookie.com

These are soooo pretty, Nina!

Nina says: Thank you, Momsu! They were fun to make. I only made these three but would like to do lots more.

- posted by Momsu

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

SAN DIEGO SNOWFLAKES

No snow in San Diego - just in the mountains to the east of the city once in awhile. But we can MAKE snowflakes! So - from the archives since I'm not decorating cookies until this coming weekend and it's time to get something wintry on the blog:

I like the look of piping in white accented with sanding sugar on a ginger cookie.


Even prettier is white on white. A six-sided star makes a nice snowflake if you don't have or (in my case) don't want to use a snowflake cutter.


And cut out around the edges of big cookies are small bite-sized snowflakes. Be sure to bake cookies of the same size together so the little ones don't get too done while the bigger ones are taking longer.

A six-sided scalloped cutter makes a pretty snowflake too.



Or decorate fat stars in the same way - this one is sprinkled with granulated sugar which stuck to the ginger cookie as well as the icing giving a frosty effect.

- posted by Momsu

Saturday, December 1, 2012

FALL COLOR GIVES WAY TO BARE TREES

. . . but not here in San Diego. We go to the local mountains for a fall "fix" every year. In San Diego we have liquid ambers, ginkos and a few other ornamentals that can be very colorful but most of our deciduous trees just dry up and turn brown.

I discovered photographing my cookies in the sun works well but not on a day when the sun keeps going behind a cloud - like the day I photographed these cookies. It took me forever!

Here's an example of what happens:


This cookie was photographed in the sun - the color is good but with the November sun low in the sky every imperfection shows up. My icing was too thick and it looks like the struggle it was! It will take some Photoshop work to make it look presentable. But if it's a good icing job the sun works very nicely.


Here's the same cookie taken when the sun went behind a cloud. The icing looks better but the color is dull and it will take some Photoshop work to get the color to look better - but not good. The cookies at the top of this post were taken when the sun went behind a cloud and they look dull in spite of Photoshop.

So - I need to slow down and not be in such a hurry - and make sure my royal icing is the right consistency. See Sugarbelle's 20-second icing tutorial. And perhaps I need to set up a photo light box inside instead of using nature's light box? See Sugarbelle's post on photographing cookies

- posted by Momsu