Quieter Cookies Days ..

First 2-tiered wedding cake. A 6" cake which is also 6" tall on a 8" cake.

The past 2 weeks have been kinda relaxing for me, cookie-wise. Hahaha. Since I didn't take a lot of orders preferring to focus on Ramadhan.

I only did a High Fashion cookies class on the 29th August and that was it. I was so relieved after the class as I was looking at a leisure month. BTW, the class so much fun. It was Ramadhan nevertheless and I was fasting but somehow it was very interesting. The 11 students who came weer very enthusiastic and I'm grateful that I was able to conduct the class well.

Anyhow.

I meant to write about some of the cookies I managed to deliver for the past month but someone borrowed my camera through hubby and yet to return. I hope that person returns it back soon and she'd better not delete any of the pictures, still! *shudder*

Well. There's 2 weeks of Ramadan to go and then it's Hari Raya and suddenly we're right smack in the wedding season. The good thing about taking time off like this is that I get to reflect and to really plan for my October wedding orders. Whatever I can do in advance like fondant ribbon flowers and fondant hearts cutout I should start soon. And this is the best to check on stocks of ribbons and bags and tools.

Anyway. Selamat Berpuasa to all you out there. The last 10 days is fast approaching and we should all quadruple our efforts. Insyallah.

Chocolate Cookies by Toba Garrett

I pomised this recipe to Lilian, a student and here it is :

Ingredients :

1 cup ( 230 g) unsalted butter
2/3 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (75 g) dark brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 Tbps extra strong soffee
1/3 cup (35 g) cocoa powder, Dutched-processed
3 cups (336g) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream together butter, granulated sugar and packed brown sugar for 2 mins. Stop & scrape bowl. Cream the mixture for an additional 30 to 60 secs.
Beat in the egg and coffee. Beat until liquid is absorped and well combined.
Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda & salt.
Add the flour mixture 1 cup at a time to the creamed mixture. Beat. Add the last cup by hand.
This is a stff dough.

From this point onwards, I like to use 2 sheets of nonstick parchment paper to roll out the dough and freeze them until I'm ready to cut.

Bake for 6 to 8 mins or until the edges of the cookies start to brown. Let cookies cool on the cookie sheet.

Note: Dough can be made few days in advance. It will last at least 2 weeks in the regrigerator and up to 2 months in the freezer.

Extracted from Creative Cookies book by Toba Garrett.

Butter Sugar Cookies

This is THE recipe I use for all my cookies and also the same recipe I use in my Cookie Classes. It's taken from the Toba Garret's book which I thought is a real gem.

Although the recipe gives the Glace Icing, I never seem to have much luck with it. So I always use Royal Icing or fondant to decorate the cookies.

Makes: about 20
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Total time: 1 hour (plus chilling time)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups sifted all purpose flour

Glace Icing
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons milk
6 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Mix for another 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Beat until well combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together baking powder and flour. Add the flour mixture 1 cup at a time to the butter mixture. Blend in the last cup of flour by hand. Refrigerate the dough until slightly chilled; this will make the dough easier to roll.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

On a floured surface roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thick. Cut cookies with desired cutters. Place cookies on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake for 7 to 9 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

To prepare the glace, mix the confectioners’ sugar and milk with the electric mixer for 2 minutes. Add the corn syrup and flavorings and mix for 4 additional minutes. Separate the icing into several bowls for different colors.

Ice and decorate cookies as desired and allow to dry. Glace icing requires 12 hours total drying time.

From Dawn Schwanke, Berkley. Adapted from "Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion" by Toba Garrett (Sterling, $12.95).

What Fun We're Having This Saturday

This is what I've planned this Saturday, for the Wedding Theme Cookie class. It's completely sold out by now and I have 11 students and I do get a little nervous at the start of every class. Who wouldn't?

So, I always make it a point to pre-plan everything.

And guess what, since I've gotten this spankingly new LiveScribe that lets me convert my handwritten pages to digital form, I can share what I've planned for Saturday.

It's gonna be 7 cookies per student instead of the usual 6. A bonus, definitely. Well, I did 6 and at the last batch before I cut the cookies, I found my wedding bell cutter and I could not do a Wedding theme without a wedding bell cookie, now, could I?

So, there you'll have 7 cookies. Yay!

Wedding Cookies Class

*hangs head*

I know this is a bit late, but well, better late than never eh?

Anyhow. This month's class will be on the 25th July 2009, a Saturday and is set to begin at 10:00am until 12:30 pm.

The theme this month will be Wedding Cookies and we'll be doing a lot of tiered-wedding cake, wedding dresses, hearts and stuff like that. Click here to go to Cake Connection and get the other details.

Truthfully speaking, most of my orders are either for weddings or engagements or risik and the likes. And more for wedding favors and hantarans too. So this is like right down my alley. *glee*

But. But. But.

Unfortunately, when I was at the Cake Connection yesterday, I was told that the class has been sold out. In fact, we've had to take in 10 ppl! Wow! I had to pick my jaws off the floor.

I am flattered that I get this chance and that I'm more suprised that the response to the cookies classes have been superbly encouraging.

So, guys .. if you're keen and you're not the early 10, don't fret just yet. We're having this on a monthly basis now and I'll be sure to announce the dates for the future classes, kay!

Till then. Enjoy your weekend.

Wedding Hantaran for Alia

I met up with a tall, lanky girl named Alia a few weeks back after she called me up to ask about the cookies. Her aunt, Farida had ordered the milk bottles for SHAQUILL's birthday as well as MOZZAD's khatam Quran do.

So, she and her glitzy friend Trina poured over the catalogue of pictures I brought while, we the Garties were all hands eating the ketam at Kayu Manis over at Bukit Jelutong.

Here they are, Alia!

She wanted a silver-white theme, a wedding cake a heart monogram.

And I so love the silver, alhamdulillah. It really worked and I was so happy.

The 3-tiered wedding cake in silver and white. Since silver is rather mute, I added tiny daisies with golden yellow centre and leaves just to perk things up a little.

Alia ordered 25 of the cake and the other 25 of the heart monogram.


Just to highlight the silver. I tinted my icing with a drop of black, then a touch of royal blue. Once the flooding is set, I brushed the silver lustre dust mixed with some fresh lemon juice. I used to use a normal bruch which was so ineffective for large areas like this. So, now I got wiser and use a blusher brush, of course a specially reserved for the purpose.

So, Selamat Bertunang, Alia.

Azhad Muhaimin's Cukur Jambul Favors

Azhad Muhaimin is my Mak Ndak's first grandson and I wanted to do something special to commemorate this event. So, I made 94 pieces of this. Salah kira la, that's why it's 94 instead of a round 100. Haha.

Anyhow. Initially Mak Ndak wanted to have the full name written and I said, alamak .. panjangnya. So, we settled on Azhad.

Would've been swell if we were there but at the kenduri day, we were jumping off our boats to swim to shore, for lunch before another snorkelling session at Pulau Redang.

So, glad to know that the cookies were a hit and I wish we were there.

Baby pram. I didn't like that I outlined it again, sedikit messy. Must improve. And I now know better things to do with the wheel.


The Milk Bottle. Notice the slightly mottled effect on the bottle. Yup. I thought I've done this enough, but somehow my icing was a little too runny and when it dried, it mottled. *hangs head*

Baby Shower Cookie Class

Shyamala called and informed me that the class was overbooked and that 9 students have committed to the class. Yikes! *nervous*

Farah, my florist friend tagged along since she wasn't sure of the location.

There were 9 alright and there were 2 young guys, Ehsan who's done a fair bit of cake deco and Fakruddin who does fruit carvings. The girls were Farah, Su Chin from Singapore, Hasniza and alamak, I forgot the names of those gorgeous and gregarious ladies. Yikes! Must remember to write down names. I know the faces, but names escape me. Story of my life, eh?

Anyway.

The theme was Baby Shower so I kept the colours pastel, lilac, pink and sky blue. And the cookies were pram, milk bottle, heart, round for bib, rattles and squares for monograms.

Girls, hard at work.

This was one of my very lively classes. We laughed a lot and generally had a lot of fun.

Farah & Niza ( I think) .. concentrating.

Ehsan, who has such steady hands and great designs to the envy of us, gals.

Cookies Pictures Ahead!

These were Ehsan's

One of my demo cookies. Alamak, the wheels' a bit senget.

Su-Chin's artsy cookie.

One of the prams we made.

Fakruddin's replica of CakeConnection's logo. Good job!

Just my demo cookie, for those who do not prefer a lot of icing on their cookies.

Since Farah was curious how to make basketballs, baseballs, tennis balls or golf balls, so I demonstrated a baseball. This shined cos it's fresh and super wet.

Fakruddin's lot.

Another plateful of delights.

A trayful of such great attempts from first-timers at cookies. Good job, people!

Dinosaurs !!

Shyamala from the CakeConnection at PJ One, requested these for his son's birthday party last weekend. She specifically requested for dinosaurs but did not specify what species.

I can tell you that in the last few weeks, I'm an expert on dinosaurs since Ariz's fascination on these dinos.

So, I made tyrannosaurus, stegosaurus (these could easily be transformed into a triceratops, but I didn't pursue that) and a brontosaurus.

An orange T-rex. I had the eyes painted with edible marker. Wanted to do proper eyes, but a check in Ariz's World History encyclopedia revealed that most dinos have small eyes, so dots would do then.

A baby bronto. Ariz complained that this was not a bronto cos they have longer neck and they eat leaves. Hokeh ...

Doesn't this remind you of the friendly Barney ? I couldn't help but use his combination. Funnily enough, Ariz was not reminded of his best buddy, padahal dulu so the very obsessed with the purple dino.

A bunch of the stegosaurus. Ariz complained too that these did not look like they were meat-eating or carnivores. Sheeshh! The way he complained, mengalahkan orang yang order. I think Shyamala & Nancy, when I brought in the cookies, were beaming. And here, a little tiny todd, complaining to the heavens. But then, how can you refute a dino expert?

And lastly, 30 pieces of these butterflies in lilac and hot pink. I guess, you can't please girls with dinosaurs, they'd give you looks that could kill, so I guess these would keep them smiley and prissy too. Heheh

Mozzad's Khatam Quran

This is Farida's 2nd order from me. Remember the SHAQUILL's milk bottles?

She requested for a round, simple design. So, I did a 2.5" round cookies, with pale ice blue background and orange swirl border with royal blue text.

To MOZZAD, ramai orang suka nama you. Heheh and alhamdulillah sebab khatam Quran and insyallah more khatams in the future, ya?

Love Letters

A bunch of love letters, ordered by Anees for her brother's girlfriend/fiance/wife. That part I'm not too sure.

The love letter and its matching envelope.

I actually love the cookies, but sadly, I had to refund Anees because the red icing broke down and crumbled. The white was okay.

This was what happened. Red is hard colour to get, seriously. I was supposed to make the red at least 2-3 days in advance, so that the red can deepen. But I was out of time and I made it only the night before and I had to put in more red gel paste. To the point that it broke down. I should've suspected that earlier, but I thought it would be okay.

To Anees, I apologise for the mistake and even though agak comot, I hope the cookies tasted great.

Wedding Favours Cookies For Nadia

These were meant for her brother's wedding, I think. She wanted pale green & pink, and then purple.

6-Petalled Daisies

Butterflies

Heart-shaped cookies with garland bouquet.

Hope the wedding went great. Banyak betull wedding these days. My mom was telling me, she had like 6 weddings to attend in a weekend, tapi I takde pun. Pathetic, I know!

Father's Day Gifts From Farah Florist & Gifts

Father's Day looms near on the 21st June 2009. Honour THAT man. Make him smile from ear to ear to know someone cares for him and someone appreciates him. We've made moms happy last month, it's their turn now.

So, what are you waiting for? Call Farah at 019.220.4939 and or email her at farahfloristngifts@gmail.com

Monogram Cookies for As

AS is one of my very hip, chic neighbour and we get on really swell. Unfortunately for us, she moved to a better, bigger place a few years back and now she's moved to another bigger, better place outside of Bukit Jelutong. Sigh!

But we get on swell still.

So, when she sent me a distress sms on tuesday night asking for 100 pieces of wedding monogram cookies, I found it very hard to decline. Fortunately for me, Nadia's 60 pieces of wedding cookies were all ready and I said yes, eventually.

So, here they are.

One little snag though. She wanted blue. I was being curious and I started mixing Royal Blue with Sky Blue and although I thought the blue looked bright and chirpy, it kinda looked a little turquise. Shucks! I hope As wouldn't kill me. *ampun*

Monogram in little dots all around.

Monogram in in a frame with a Cornflower blue hearts at the side.

All of them little delights in a box.

Milk Bottles for Shaquill

Farida requested these for her SHAQUILL's 2nd birthday. All 100 of them bottles.

I was very intrigued with the way she spelled SHAQUILL. Unique and sure is interesting.

She wanted these in purple, green and blue. I had a bit of issue with the placing of the name. So, they started out like these.

Plain MILK BOTTLES. While I thought how best to write SHAQUILL.

Then, I received a lightbulb moment and decided to write SHAQUILL sideways in whimsical placed characters and I guess they did work, I guess. *beams*

Bottles in purple and blue (below)

To Farida, thanks so much and hope the party went swell!

Nadia's Wedding Cookies

These were for a cousin's wedding, I was told.

I really hope that the wedding went well. Nadia wanted these in a transparent box for hantaran. I got the box, but I'm not sure I have such flair in arranging hantaran, so I stacked them up, with bubble wraps to protect against bumps and humps.

Hehe.

Nadia did not specifically defined a colour theme, so I figured blue and pink and white and orange would be apt.

Here goes.


Butterflies. I actually damaged 2 of these butterflies as I scraped them against the drying rack while I was arranging the tray. So, I compensated with 2 more flowers. Yikes! This is the exact reason why I always have 1 or 2 spare cookies per design. Just in case, eh?



2.5" daisies in white base with sugarpaste tiny sprays of flowers and three dots.

Ciao

Baby Shower Cookie Class

It's back, folks

I will be doing another Cookie Class at CakeConnection on Saturday the 13th June 2009.

It's slated at 10:00 to 12:30pm and although I've earlier agreed to have the classes once every 2 months (due to a lot of cookie appointments), apparently there's been quite a lot of queries on these classes ever since CakeConnection was featured in the Star recently.

Anyhow. It's Baby Shower theme!

Yay! I've collected quite a hefty collection of baby cutters and I'm eager to do this theme. I'm thinking milk bottles, rattles, maybe one-sies, bibs 9from round cutters) anf of course prams!

See you there!
earlier has rescheduled the cookies classes that I conduct to once every 2 months to accomodate for bigger demand as we

Roaring In After A Hiatus

Yikes!

I haven't posted anything yet, though I'm dying to post pictures of 120 milk bottles cookies I made for Farida for her SHAQUILL's 2nd birthday. Later kay folks!

Let me clear my in-trays first.

Anyhow, introducing




This is Nisa's venture into business. I normally call her LazyDaisy as her blog was called that when I started blogging in 2004. She is one tireless gal, I tell you. She's working fulltime and has 2 boys and a pair of seriously cute twin girls! Wow! I'm a twin myself so I can imagine the hectic and the chaos her house would be, if ever her twins are as boisterious and me and GartRed ever was. Haha

Anyway.

I thought this is such a great niche. Everybody makes cupcakes and cakes but no one does personalised gift tags and book marks. So there. I hope to work with her for my future cookies projects and I'm gonna get gift boxes and all. So keep tuning in people. More good things are in the pipeline.

Ciao!

Sofea's 8th Birthday

These flowers and balls cookies were ordered by Famy for her Sofea's 8th birthday party at school tomorrow.

Her birthday is today but since today is the last day of the PKSR 1, she didn't think it's appropriate.

Considering how adverse boys would be to flowers, I suggested that we do balls for the boys to save some air muka for the boys. Tak macho ler. I love the orange. Orange is my new pink from now on. Heh!

Anyhow. Hope Sofea has a great one tomorrow.

For A New Mother

These cookies were to be delivered as part of a Mother's Day flower bouquet by Farah the Florist yesterday.

I wish you all a Happy Belated Mother's Day to all you gorgeous mommies out there. To the new mom receving these cookies, have patience but above all, try to have fun while you're at it. Haha. 4 kids on, I think I should know what that's all about.