Fall (2012)

It's about this time on my cookie-making journey, when I ran across Sweet Sugar Belle's blog, an amazing cookie artist from Texas who has inspired many of my cookies from here on out.  She has taught me so many techniques, like her 20-second icing trick, brush embroidery, and royal icing transfers, but most of all, I find that I just can relate to her.  She is creative, yet methodical, and while we both enjoy the process (which takes way too long to describe...what with the dough-making, the cookie-cutting, the baking, the royal icing preparing, the outlining, the flooding, and the detailing), we appreciate whatever shortcuts/tricks we can find to make it go as smoothly as possible.  She makes this hobby accessible for the self-taught baker, like me.

For example, she can take one basic cookie cutter and think of many different ways one could shape it into something else and vice-versa.  Look at how many different ways she has made a giraffe (and all with common cookie cutters).  Anyhow, if you have any interest in delving into the depths of this whole cookie-making vortex, she is the gal I can't recommend enough...

These pumpkins are my first attempt at her "perfect" pumpkin and jack-o-lantern designs.  (My pumpkins from 2013 turned out much better, I think, and the same techniques were employed...with a little more practice and better icing consistency.)  In any case, these cookies were made with the fall season in mind, obviously. 

Some were used at Halloween...

and some at Thanksgiving.

These leaf cookies started out as either yellow or orange, and then sprayed with food color spray from Wilton (think spray paint, but edible).  An excellent way to add some realism to the Thanksgiving dessert platter...thank you Sweet Sugar Belle!

And, speaking of being thankful (timely, don't you think?), thank you for providing such a creative and inspiring blog, allowing me to pursue an interest I never even knew existed several months ago.  You are a real artist...with the tastiest of mediums.