{35 at 35: Biscuit Decorating, Check!}

When I spotted on the Glasgow Baking Club blog that Zoe Clark was coming to Mrs Jones kitchen to teach a biscuit decorating course I immediately signed up.

Last year I had the pleasure of attending a session in Mrs Jones kitchen where I made the most amazing birthday cake for my littlest's first birthday party. Have a peek at the cake here.

Anyway, 'learn how to decorate biscuits properly' is also on my 35 at 35 list and Zoe's cookies are just beautiful:

Zoe Clark's teapot & teacup cookies

This morning I arrived at Mrs Jones kitchen to be greeted with tea & a cake (perfect start to the day!) and I met the other ladies that were attending the course. Zoe was lovely and an excellent teacher. I'm amazed that we managed to get through so many designs in such a short space of time.

First we were shown how to whip up the Royal Icing. We then took a small amount of Royal Icing to which we added some colour. After taking some out for the outlining piping bag (for which we used a 1.5mm metal nozzle), we watered down the icing a little for the flooding piping bag (no nozzle was used, we just cut the end off the bag).

The blank cookies.

Piping in the Royal Icing outline on the birdcages with a 1.5 nozzle.

Flooding the cookie with a watered down Royal Icing - I chose a mint green colour.

The shoe cookies - they icing I selected for the shoes was grape violet, but the lighting in this photograph makes them look pink.

Getting there..!

Zoe teaching us how to over pipe the birdcage

Look at all the pretty coloured biscuits!!

Ta-da!!

My selection of finished biscuits... birdcages, cupcakes, teapots, shoes, dresses and heart lollipops.

These vanilla biscuits have a 2 week shelf life and will be ideal for the littlest's 2nd birthday party this weekend. What perfect timing!!

I'm keen to hone my technique and must try and get some practice in!! Biscuit anyone??

{Reindeer Cookies - Done!}

I had decided a wee while ago that I'd make some reindeer cookies for my son to take for his friends at nursery as a little Christmas treat.

Today we did a trial run of the biscuits and had great fun.

I used a recipe for Sugar Cookies from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (thanks Kath for the tip!) and I managed to find the instructions online here.

Preheat oven to 170 deg C.

Put 200g unsalted butter (I used Lurpak spreadable), 280g caster sugar and a 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract into a mixer (I used my Magimix) and cream until light and fluffy. Add one egg (I used a large egg as the recipe I had didn't state what size to use) and mix again, making sure to scrap down the sides of the mixer bowl a few times.

Add 400g plain flour, pinch of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar and mix again, but don't overmix. The dough should be light, soft and easy to handle.

Dust a work surface with flour and roll out the dough with a rolling pin.

Cut out shapes of your choice... we used a heart cutter as it was the closest thing I had to the shape of a reindeer head!

Arrange the cookies on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. I added pretzels for antlers and raisins for eyes.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes in your preheated oven until the cookies are very light golden on the outer edge but paler in the middle.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool (I don't have a wire baking rack yet, but it's on my Christmas list!).

I then added some red icing (from a tube at the supermarket) and stuck onto this a red sugar pearls which I had in my baking supplies. This became Rudolf's red nose. I also added a dot of white to the raisin to make the eye look a bit better (not sure it worked, but it was the best I could do with my limited baking stuff!). 

 End result - some delicious biscuits* that hopefully look like little Rudolph's.

I've not attempted to package any yet in their individual little bags - hubby is going to take these ones to his work tomorrow and in a week or so we'll do the proper batch for taking into nursery.

*In my opinion they were very yummy... I've had 3 already with a nice hot mug of tea!!

{Fabulous Finds: Christmas Gifts for Toddler's Friends}

Can you believe it's the 1st of December already!!!

For Halloween this year I made some spider chocolate lollipops for my son to give all his friends at nursery. I've been looking for something similar for Christmas, but I was wanting to try and find something that he could actually help me with as the spiders were a bit tricky for a 2 year old!

Kat over at The Organised Housewife recently shared a few ideas and I've found a few more too.

I think I'm going to make something similar to these cookies, but I think I'll bag them up individually with a little note from my little ones. I've also made some Moo stickers saying "love from {name} & {name} xx" which I might use to seal the bags. I'll probably do a trial run in the next week, so watch this space for more details. First I need to find a recipe that will be suitable. 

{image source}

I might also buy a suitable cookie cutter to make the shape of the reindeer face, like this set from Amazon, but I'd still stick the pretzels over where the antlers would be.

Cookie Cutters from Amazon

Here are some of the other ideas I've found...

Reindeer Lollipops {image source}

Reindeer Cupcakes {image source}

Reindeer Noses {image source}

Popcorn and M&Ms {image source}

Chocolate Marshmallows {image source}

Gingerbread cupcakes {image source} - I think it's Organix that do mini gingerbread men and I have some Monin gingerbread syrup for flavouring the frosting

I had also previously shared a few ideas I had found, such as the snowman tic tac holders, but they wouldn't be suitable for nursery age kiddies.

As always, I'd love to know what you think of the ideas I've found. Do you have anything planned for your little ones to give their nursery or school friends?