Cardinal in winter - cookie featured in Food Network Magazine

Way back in August, I got a request from a Food Network Magazine editor to send them two designs of Christmas cookies (6 of each) for their December issue. They needed 4 inch circle sugar cookies, reflecting my home state. I was in trouble. I do gingerbread and I am Hungarian. I could not tell one Holiday thing that would be specific to Kentucky and I did not have a go to sugar cookie recipe either. But I like challenges, and this was one for sure.

Luckily I have great cookie friends who could help me out with the recipe, so this part was easy.
The design was a little harder, because it had to be Kentucky, Christmas and I also wanted it to reflect my style.

One day, I looked out the window and saw a cardinal on the tree. Cardinal is Kentucky's state bird. I figured the cardinal would be perfect for this design. I created 6 different lace base, then painted the bird on the cookies. I sure have to work on my painting skill. This was the firs time ever I painted on a cookie. Actually, I did not paint much since preschool at all. But I will learn it eventually. So here is my design, far from being perfect, but a little Christmas, a little Kentucky and a little me.

Probably I would have chosen the other design because of the imperfection of my painting, but the editors picked this one. 

If you have a chance, get the December issue of Food Network Magazine and check out this article! It's so much fun! It has a cookie design from each state, here is a sneak peek of the page where my cookie is featured:

They also have 25 cookie recipes in this issue.

Have fun and happy baking!

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3D winter scene - Santa's sleigh

I love 3D creations and always wanted to create a Santa's Sleigh. I designed a cutter set and Cookie Cutter Kingdom created it for me. Did you know, that they have a great custom order tool now? If you have a jpg picture of the shape you need, then your cutter is just a few clicks away. I love this tool.

First I baked all the pieces (using the recipe of the 3D hearts): 2 sides, bottom, back, front and the 2+2 reindeer. 

Used brown egg yolk glaze to color (see recipe at 3D hearts) all pieces and decorated the pieces using royal icing.

 I glued together the open legged reindeer with his closed legged buddy.

Now he has 4 legs.

This way it will be easier to stand him up.

Then I laid one side of the sleigh down and glued the bottom and the back to it.

I added the front panel.

Finally glued the other side on top. My icing dries pretty fast, after 30 minutes I could work on it.

I used bead border to hide the glue and to decorate the top.

I coated a cake board with a layer of icing for base and glued the parts on top. When it dried, I added a few icing lines to connect the deer with the sleigh and each other.

I hope you like this project! If you make it, please send me a picture. If you need the cutters, find them at https://www.etsy.com/listing/616162076/santas-sleigh-and-reindeers-cookie?ref=shop_home_active_1&sca=1.

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Chocolate gingerbread with snowy landscape

I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas with this video!

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Gingerbread candle holder

We don't always have a lot of time for decoration, but still want it to be beautiful and unique. These candle holders are truly pretty and they can be decorated really fast. They can make a nice little gift around Christmas.

For each candle holder I baked two snowflakes using my yummy gingerbread recipe.

When the cookies were still warm, I cut out a circle from one of the snowflakes with a round cutter that is large enough to fit a candle inside.

I let the cookies cool completely, then made simple white, piping consistency royal icing.

First I decorated only the tips of the bottom snowflakes (we don't see much of them). Then used royal icing to glue the second snowflake (the one with a hole) on top. Put a tea light candle inside and decorated the top snowflake.

If you look closely, you will see, that the middle is the easiest pattern ever. Just a few straight lines to make the snowflake, a few dots to fill the gaps and an outline. And still, how pretty it is?

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Big bell cookies with snowy landscape

Read the post at the new blog.