At some gawd awful hour last night I realized the buttercream/royal icing I made on Wednesday contained 1/2 cup more shortening than the recipe stated. Why I was thinking about this in the wee hours of the morning is beyond me.
I got this big mental image of me cutting up the shortening block & cutting it too big. *sigh* It still tasted good, but it does explain the texture issue I had.
So now I have a tub of this in the fridge, waiting for coloring & to be put on something baked. I want to try a couple more sugar cookie recipes I've been finding on my food blogs.
My sister comes over tonight so I can try on my wedding dress! That realization quickly made my day better. I've been having some bad headaches this week & not getting what I feel is enough sleep. I'm sure if I lost 50 lbs I wouldn't feel the need for the amount of sleep I'm wanting now. Saw a Vlog on youtube last night where a guy lost 171 lb in a year. I didn't watch all the "episodes" but he took it quite seriously. I'd love to lose over 100 lb but right now I'll focus on getting more active so I can a) fit into my dress & b) go hiking with my sweetie on our honeymoon.
I just need to flick that switch in my brain to either get up with sweetie at 5:30 or go after work. All this week that's what I've been trying to do & nothing got me to the gym. I'm my own worst enemy.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Dress Is Here!
I warn you I still have "The dress is here" brain, this means I'm more easily distracted.
I had ordered it on January 13 & it arrived this morning, only 12 days from order to door! I went with someone I found off ebay who's out of China. I like how inexpensive that was, that it's custom fit and that I could change the color of the liner to get the color dress I wanted.
The bridesmaid desses were ordered January 2nd, and aren't scheduled to arrive until the later part of April. I find this highly entertaining since I'm quite sure their dresses will also be made in China (80% of formal dresses are made there, heard that somewhere).
Mom wants to wear a color similar to my dress, now that I have my dress & can take pictures of it she might change her mind. Both her & my dad are walking me down the aisle. Mom has contributed so much to our wedding so far, it's quite humbling.
*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE MY DRESS IS HERE*
I had ordered it on January 13 & it arrived this morning, only 12 days from order to door! I went with someone I found off ebay who's out of China. I like how inexpensive that was, that it's custom fit and that I could change the color of the liner to get the color dress I wanted.
The bridesmaid desses were ordered January 2nd, and aren't scheduled to arrive until the later part of April. I find this highly entertaining since I'm quite sure their dresses will also be made in China (80% of formal dresses are made there, heard that somewhere).
Mom wants to wear a color similar to my dress, now that I have my dress & can take pictures of it she might change her mind. Both her & my dad are walking me down the aisle. Mom has contributed so much to our wedding so far, it's quite humbling.
*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE MY DRESS IS HERE*
Coooooooookies Part 3
The chocolate sugar cookies were by far the leader in the weekend bake. The rolled nice, they cut nice (well after I stopped using the unicorn cutter), they baked nice, they iced nice and they tasted good.I got a pretty fair amount of cookies for the recipe too. This one has made the cut to be at the wedding, now to decide on a second cookie.
I've been asking some of the baking bloggers what I might be able to do to get prepared for my wedding. How far in advance I can bake, flood ice etc. So far nothing but I shall be going over their blogs to see if that info has already been posted. After I get some work done that is, yesterday I worked but was fuzzy for most part of the day.
Today my dress arrives! I'm nervous to see how it turned out since I ordered it direct from China - not through any bridal store. UPS tells me it'll deliver before days end. I'm can't say I'm not sqeeeeeing already.
We ordered our rings last night off Etsy. I can only wear a few metals as most of the lower karat golds etc eat my skin. The lovely ladies at Forest of Jewels in Riverbend Square in Edmonton were quite helpful in getting proper ring sizes. We had both forgotten ours from when we got our engagement rings. They had nice thick bands to try since our bands are going to be 1/4". Made it easier & made me more confident in the size. It's nice that the ring maker we chose goes into 1/4 sizes.
*big sigh*
We ordered our centre pieces, picked up our guestbook stuff (well we need to pick up pens, but that can wait until May), ordered the correct favor bag size. Now I just need to get all the icing stuff for the cookies. I know I'm stressing out over it but I'm glad I'm doing this (with the help of my maids & my sweetie) because I like the thought of giving something homemade as a favor over just tossing a bunch of candies in a box. It's more personal to me.
Today I shall see if I have time at work to make stencils, if I can find something to make them out of first.
Cheers!
I've been asking some of the baking bloggers what I might be able to do to get prepared for my wedding. How far in advance I can bake, flood ice etc. So far nothing but I shall be going over their blogs to see if that info has already been posted. After I get some work done that is, yesterday I worked but was fuzzy for most part of the day.
Today my dress arrives! I'm nervous to see how it turned out since I ordered it direct from China - not through any bridal store. UPS tells me it'll deliver before days end. I'm can't say I'm not sqeeeeeing already.
We ordered our rings last night off Etsy. I can only wear a few metals as most of the lower karat golds etc eat my skin. The lovely ladies at Forest of Jewels in Riverbend Square in Edmonton were quite helpful in getting proper ring sizes. We had both forgotten ours from when we got our engagement rings. They had nice thick bands to try since our bands are going to be 1/4". Made it easier & made me more confident in the size. It's nice that the ring maker we chose goes into 1/4 sizes.
*big sigh*
We ordered our centre pieces, picked up our guestbook stuff (well we need to pick up pens, but that can wait until May), ordered the correct favor bag size. Now I just need to get all the icing stuff for the cookies. I know I'm stressing out over it but I'm glad I'm doing this (with the help of my maids & my sweetie) because I like the thought of giving something homemade as a favor over just tossing a bunch of candies in a box. It's more personal to me.
Today I shall see if I have time at work to make stencils, if I can find something to make them out of first.
Cheers!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Coooooooookies, Day 2
Today we went to the magical world that is Michaels, where we picked up a few wedding activity things & cookie decorating things. I didn't pick up any tips or icing bags because somewhere along the line I learned that using snap close bags with a corner cut off worked rather well for piping.
After the failure of the cutter chocolate chip cookies, I decided to go with a gingersnap cookie for Test Cookie #2. My sweetie likes gingersnaps so I took this recipe I had from Christmas. My new little hand mixer pumps out the power, so my arms got a break mixing this one. I'm not a fan of the smell of molasses straight from the container-ewwwwwy.
This dough rolled out beautifully! I used a tip I read on one of the cookie blogs to roll out your dough between two layers of parchment paper - the lack of mess on my counter is so amazing. I cut out some rainbows & tried to cut out a unicorn but I hadn't floured or oiled my cutter prior so it just made a mess. I loaded up one sheet with the rainbows & rounds, tossed them in the fridge while the oven heated up. Then re-rolled for round 2 with the unicorn cutter, even greased up it liked to stick to something (leg, head, what have you). I took my time & got 3 made. Rather than try to lift them onto the pan I just left them where they were on the parchment & put that on the pan. Great idea! Unfortunately they were entirely too close together - the gingersnaps spread out more than I thought they would.
Round 3 with the unicorn had me spacing them a little farther apart and still I got a few rainbows out of this roll. The apartment smelled so much like gingersnaps it was a bit overwhelming. While I let these babies cool I tried Icing #2 which I picked up from Joy of Baking, I have a few friends or relatives that are allergic to raw egg or would scoff at using raw egg in something they would eat so I used the Meringue Powder version. I had also picked up butter flavoring & used it instead of Almond extract. Mmmm Mmmm tasty!
I only had one small zip close baggie, so I had to use 2 large ones. Ruh Roh, they have a double corner crease. This proved a little problematic in the piping so I've now decided to go pick up some icing bags & tips. I know these cookies aren't going to be perfect or how I'd originally envisioned them, but I also don't want them to look like a 3 year old decorated them. The gingersnaps totally overwhelmed the taste of the icing. So while they aren't knocked out of the running they're not my favorite either.
While at the Joy of Baking I saw a pic for Chocolate Sugar Cookies so I whipped that up before making the icing. More on how they turned out tomorrow, they're currently chilling in the fridge.
After the failure of the cutter chocolate chip cookies, I decided to go with a gingersnap cookie for Test Cookie #2. My sweetie likes gingersnaps so I took this recipe I had from Christmas. My new little hand mixer pumps out the power, so my arms got a break mixing this one. I'm not a fan of the smell of molasses straight from the container-ewwwwwy.
This dough rolled out beautifully! I used a tip I read on one of the cookie blogs to roll out your dough between two layers of parchment paper - the lack of mess on my counter is so amazing. I cut out some rainbows & tried to cut out a unicorn but I hadn't floured or oiled my cutter prior so it just made a mess. I loaded up one sheet with the rainbows & rounds, tossed them in the fridge while the oven heated up. Then re-rolled for round 2 with the unicorn cutter, even greased up it liked to stick to something (leg, head, what have you). I took my time & got 3 made. Rather than try to lift them onto the pan I just left them where they were on the parchment & put that on the pan. Great idea! Unfortunately they were entirely too close together - the gingersnaps spread out more than I thought they would.
Round 3 with the unicorn had me spacing them a little farther apart and still I got a few rainbows out of this roll. The apartment smelled so much like gingersnaps it was a bit overwhelming. While I let these babies cool I tried Icing #2 which I picked up from Joy of Baking, I have a few friends or relatives that are allergic to raw egg or would scoff at using raw egg in something they would eat so I used the Meringue Powder version. I had also picked up butter flavoring & used it instead of Almond extract. Mmmm Mmmm tasty!
I only had one small zip close baggie, so I had to use 2 large ones. Ruh Roh, they have a double corner crease. This proved a little problematic in the piping so I've now decided to go pick up some icing bags & tips. I know these cookies aren't going to be perfect or how I'd originally envisioned them, but I also don't want them to look like a 3 year old decorated them. The gingersnaps totally overwhelmed the taste of the icing. So while they aren't knocked out of the running they're not my favorite either.
While at the Joy of Baking I saw a pic for Chocolate Sugar Cookies so I whipped that up before making the icing. More on how they turned out tomorrow, they're currently chilling in the fridge.
Coooooooookies
Somewhere along the line we decided on cookies for favors. It was supposed to be an economical from the heart kind of thing. With this decision made, and stuck in my head now it was off to decide what kind of cookies.
I've been reading a lot of baking/cooking blogs since before Christmas and one of the things that kept amazing me was iced cookies. Since the theme is Rainbows & Unicorns I thought I could make some cookies that looked like rainbows & unicorns. Somewhere on ebay I found a pony cutter that kind of looked like a unicorn so I snapped that up. It's a double layer cutter so it cuts the outline then imprints the shape of a pony in that outline. Pretty neat.
My idea for the rainbows was pretty simple; get 2 different sized circle cutters, take out the smaller circle & then cut the doughnut shape in half. That worked out real well with a bonus of having a round cookie that I can monogram too.
The first recipe I tried was Sugarbakers' Chocolate Mini-Chip Cookies that was recommended to me by Jessie at Cakespy (randomly contacted her off her blog & she responded so fast!). After seeing what Sugarbelle can do with cutters & icing I bookmarked her blog too. I only had regular chocolate chips & margarine on hand. I don't know if it's the winter dry Edmonton climate but my 2 cups of flour made for quite the dry mix. I'll be trying this one again with the recommended unsalted butter & mini chips (in rainbow if I can find them) and probably a wee bit less than 2 cups of flour.
This failed batch was so dry I couldn't roll it out to cut it, so I formed 2 massive cookies and fresh out of the oven I just used one circle cutter on them. That worked out well, they tasted like chocolate chip cookies but had a flaky almost pie crust like texture.
The icing I used for this was found on I Am Baker. It was very simple to remember & I thought the corn syrup would give it a taste that everyone would love. I found it quite sweet, but then I also forgot the drop of lemon juice. I still liked it but I know others wouldn't be so fond of it. I iced some of the failed cookies and went on to play some Rock Band & Cranium with my sweetie & his brother & cousin.
I've been reading a lot of baking/cooking blogs since before Christmas and one of the things that kept amazing me was iced cookies. Since the theme is Rainbows & Unicorns I thought I could make some cookies that looked like rainbows & unicorns. Somewhere on ebay I found a pony cutter that kind of looked like a unicorn so I snapped that up. It's a double layer cutter so it cuts the outline then imprints the shape of a pony in that outline. Pretty neat.
My idea for the rainbows was pretty simple; get 2 different sized circle cutters, take out the smaller circle & then cut the doughnut shape in half. That worked out real well with a bonus of having a round cookie that I can monogram too.
The first recipe I tried was Sugarbakers' Chocolate Mini-Chip Cookies that was recommended to me by Jessie at Cakespy (randomly contacted her off her blog & she responded so fast!). After seeing what Sugarbelle can do with cutters & icing I bookmarked her blog too. I only had regular chocolate chips & margarine on hand. I don't know if it's the winter dry Edmonton climate but my 2 cups of flour made for quite the dry mix. I'll be trying this one again with the recommended unsalted butter & mini chips (in rainbow if I can find them) and probably a wee bit less than 2 cups of flour.
This failed batch was so dry I couldn't roll it out to cut it, so I formed 2 massive cookies and fresh out of the oven I just used one circle cutter on them. That worked out well, they tasted like chocolate chip cookies but had a flaky almost pie crust like texture.
The icing I used for this was found on I Am Baker. It was very simple to remember & I thought the corn syrup would give it a taste that everyone would love. I found it quite sweet, but then I also forgot the drop of lemon juice. I still liked it but I know others wouldn't be so fond of it. I iced some of the failed cookies and went on to play some Rock Band & Cranium with my sweetie & his brother & cousin.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
I'm new here
Hi!
I'm new here. This is my first post. To keep my sanity I'll be talking mainly about the things that keep me up at night. Trying to filter them out so I can sleep. Don't get me wrong, most of them are ideas for things or things I want to do - not crazy ramblings. Ok there will probably be crazy ramblings.
A little background info:
I'm getting married in 129 days. Never thought this time last year I'd be getting married. It was a whirlwind courtship, we're both in our 30's and it feels right.
As of now we have everything booked, we've put our deposits down & the dresses are ordered. That's the main thing. Currently the mental lists are about budget, the favors & just general worry of how everything is going to go.
We've decided for it to be a dry wedding, which hasn't sat well with my family as there's a lot of lushes there. We also don't want childrens about because neither of like them. Almost all the cousins I'm inviting (cause I'm not inviting all of them) have childrens under 5. We're offering my mothers house a haven for them with a couple of child sitters so hopefully that'll work.
The invites go out tonight so I'll find out how dissapointed the cousins are about not having their childrens allowed.
We went with a wax monogram of our new last name to add a special touch to the invites. We also went non traditional on the invite, the first page is a brief Story of Courtship that the man mainly came up with. The second page is all the details regarding the wedding, lodging etc. The first page is pretty green/gold shimmer velum.
Ye gods this is getting long. Next post I shall discuss favors!
I'm new here. This is my first post. To keep my sanity I'll be talking mainly about the things that keep me up at night. Trying to filter them out so I can sleep. Don't get me wrong, most of them are ideas for things or things I want to do - not crazy ramblings. Ok there will probably be crazy ramblings.
A little background info:
I'm getting married in 129 days. Never thought this time last year I'd be getting married. It was a whirlwind courtship, we're both in our 30's and it feels right.
As of now we have everything booked, we've put our deposits down & the dresses are ordered. That's the main thing. Currently the mental lists are about budget, the favors & just general worry of how everything is going to go.
We've decided for it to be a dry wedding, which hasn't sat well with my family as there's a lot of lushes there. We also don't want childrens about because neither of like them. Almost all the cousins I'm inviting (cause I'm not inviting all of them) have childrens under 5. We're offering my mothers house a haven for them with a couple of child sitters so hopefully that'll work.
The invites go out tonight so I'll find out how dissapointed the cousins are about not having their childrens allowed.
We went with a wax monogram of our new last name to add a special touch to the invites. We also went non traditional on the invite, the first page is a brief Story of Courtship that the man mainly came up with. The second page is all the details regarding the wedding, lodging etc. The first page is pretty green/gold shimmer velum.
Ye gods this is getting long. Next post I shall discuss favors!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)