I have to start off by saying, there is not much I fear about cookies anymore. I guess it would be different if I had a business selling my cookies and needed to accurately make whatever my customer asks for. But since I mostly make them for fun, or for friends who give me a lot of creative freedom, I am able to pick and choose what and how. And when and where for that matter.
There was one last thing, NOT a cookie, that I had feared so I conquered that instead. I had always been afraid to make anything that required a candy thermometer. A few weeks ago, I made caramels, and in honor of this month’s challenge, I made marshmallows. Ok, so the marshmallow recipe I used didn’t call for a thermometer, but it DID involve boiling sugar, which can be a little scary and anyway, marshmallows were on my baking bucket list. Check.
I chose to use this challenge to make cookies based on a book that I REALLY wanted to “cookie”, that if it hadn’t been for this challenge, I wouldn’t have had a reason to make them. To make things difficult, I used a technique I don’t really use. I painted them.
“Have you ever heard of Mickey…..” who falls into a dream, and strait down “In The Night Kitchen”? I really kind of love this book by Maurice Sendak. The illustrations are bright and colorful and the story is ADORABLE.
Mickey falls into The Night Kitchen and strait into the batter of the cake about to be baked by the three bakers. They mistake Mickey for milk, and mix him in then pop him into the oven- ready to bake “a nice Mickey cake”. Mickey bursts out of the oven crying “I’m not the milk and the milk’s not me, I’m Mickey!”- (Ben’s favorite line by the way). Then Mickey makes an airplane out of bread dough and flies into the sky, dropping down into the giant milk bottle.
Before waking up from his (trippy?) dream, Mickey scoops up some milk from the bottle and pours it into the cake batter, thus saving breakfast. As the bakers bake the REAL breakfast cake, they chant “Milk in the batter, milk in the batter, we bake cake and nothing’s the matter!” (Another favorite line. In fact the other day, we made coffee cake for breakfast just so the kids could add the milk to the batter while singing that nothing’s the matter!)
I can’t possibly, with my description or cookies, do justice to this book. If you have littles, I highly suggest it. (Try to ignore the fact that when he isn’t covered in cake batter, Mickey is stark naked. If that bothers you, this book isn’t for you.)
To make the cookies, I base coated squares and a scalloped circle in white. After they were fully dry, I painted the background onto the cookie with food coloring, a bit of water, and a clean brush that I only use for cookies.
Once the backgrounds were dry, I brought out the white icing again, and piped and flooded the shapes I wanted to make pop. After that dried completely, I painted the 3D areas.
It was really fun to make these cookies based on a book I find adorable. They weren’t easy, but I LOVE the end result!
Sadly, this was the last month of Melissa’s (Simply Sweets by Honeybee) and my year long inspiration challenge. We really enjoyed doing this and working together each month to come up with a new source of inspiration and challenge ourselves to stretch our comfort zone. Mostly, we enjoyed seeing what you all linked up when you played along! Don’t forget you have the whole month of May to link up your challenge.
Just because we are not continuing to play every month, that doesn’t mean we won’t be coming up with random projects here and there! And in the meantime, use the things you find around you for inspiration, take a picture, and link it up to Simply Sweet Saturdays, every week at Simply Sweets by Honeybee.
Thank you to everyone who played along!
(I will be updating this post with links to all of the past projects when I have a few minutes to organize things….)
