My Moonlight Cookies: Birthday Bouquet (March 2014)

Growing up in a house with two younger brothers, at times I would be jealous of my friends with sisters...someone to understand all that girl stuff plus double the wardrobe to share, right? Well, it's not like I don't love my brothers, but I admit that I feel lucky to have some pretty awesome sister-in-laws (all of whom also grew up as the oldest with only brothers as siblings...there's an unspoken bond there for sure :)

One of my sister-in-laws just had a milestone birthday, and although she is still younger than me, I won't disclose her age just in case. However, we had a little family celebration, so I definitely wanted to contribute some dessert...cookies.

The flowers were pretty straight-forward using, well, flower cookie cutters both big and small. I used The Cookie Artisan's Springtime in Paris cookie platter as inspiration, but I wanted to add leaves to the some of the cookies for a little variety.

I used different sizes from Wilton's leaf fondant cut-out set, and I overlapped the flower and leaf with the dough prior to baking. I think the double-leaf flowers are my favorite (but they were pretty big!).

Using the same colors, I had some fun making the monogram cookies, although it took a bit of trial and error. Originally, I had photocopied some monogram initials I liked, put some wax paper over the paper, and piped the icing on top of the wax paper. However, next time I'll need to choose a thicker font and be more patient in the drying process, as they all broke when peeling them off the wax paper. Ah, live and learn.

I ended up free-hand piping the letters on after some practicing. And, although each "R" looked a bit different, they all got the message across. :)

I liked this little design so much that I made "M" and "C" monogram cookies and placed them each in a favor bag with accompanying flowers for other friends in gratitude and for celebration.