Don't Worry... Be Happy!

My daughter started grade 1 yesterday, and was a little nervous about how it would all go. What better opportunity to bake a little sunshine for her to lift her spirits!


I made these ones from scratch, although a roll of ready-made sugar cookie dough from your local market would also do in a squeeze.

I love my sugar cookie recipe...soft and chewy or crunchy if you so desire and not so sweet you can't actually eat them - because where is the fun in that?

Try this little trick next time you'd like perfectly shaped cookies - after making your dough (or pretending to have made your dough ;)) eliminate distortion by rolling it out onto a parchment lined cookie sheet first.

(Remember! PARCHMENT paper not wax, nobody likes waxy cookies.) and then chill the whole cookie dough lined sheet for a little while.

Then cut... take away the extra dough...

leaving perfectly round circles of bite-sized goodness (and the odd BIG one to really sink your teeth into)!  

Into the oven for you!

 ...and then we wait ... ten to twelve agonizing minutes...5-4-3-2-1...annnnnd we're done, slightly toasted golden perfection I can leave a small dent in when gently touched. To the cooling rack you shall go where you will await your finishing garnishes.

Moving on, time to make icing.  I like royal icing, some people perfer to use the corn syrup laced glaze - I personally haven't had much luck with it.  I like my icing to go hard and withstand getting bumped around, no dents for me! (Plus it's SUPER easy to wash out of my mixing bowl after) Thanks to Antonia74 for her fantastic, super simple icing I stumbled across on cake central (a great baking forum for bakers new and old, starter to professional - all just sharing our works with each other).

...anyways -  mix it up, pour it in, beat it up and VOILA! Royal Icing. Store it in an air tight container until you need it. Letting it rest for a little while actually isn't so bad, the air bubbles that got whisked into it when you first make it tend to settle out, and help leave bubble-free icing on your cookies (that is if you can stand to let it sit).

Piping the retaining wall to keep the icing ON the cookie, not a messy pool around it - again, personal preference. Lots of folks will water down their full strength icing just enough that they can pipe on (or spread on) the icing without it spilling over the sides.

Fill it in.

I was brave this time, and took a run at piping on the black icing for the eyes and mouths before letting the base colour set. Turned out not too shabby! I did put a little cocoa powder into the black though to help from having it diffuse into the other colour.

Then, I set them aside and said good night...until today when I got up.  What a pleasant way to start the day with a bunch of little smiling faces stairing at me. I think they were begging me to eat them, really...I do think that is what they wanted most.

Don't Worry... be happy! Every little thing's gonna be alright!