Fall Sugar Cookies & Cookie Decorating Class

A few weeks ago when I posted the fall cookies that I had made I said that I would upload the video of my Instagram stories with the how-to/instructional videos I posted. So here is the 14 and a half minute video in all of it's glory. I do not claim to be a master cookie decorator or vlogger, but there are a lot of good basics covered in the video.

The blogger that I mention a few times is Sweet Sugar Belle I use her cookie recipe, royal icing recipe, and I used a tutorial of hers for the fall icing colors.

These are the finished cookies from the video:

Cookie Decorating Class

Now I have also had quite a few people ask about learning how to decorate cookies and I thought why not put together a little class before Christmas. As I said before, I am not a master cookie decorator, but I am able to teach the basics so that you could go and decorate cookies on your own. During the class/workshop you will learn about the basics of cookie decorating: coloring icing, icing consistency, piping, flooding, wet on wet decorating, marbling, and wet on dry decorating. I will bake cookies and make royal icing ahead of time. We would decorate Christmas cookies that you could recreate on your own before Christmas and because Christmas cookies are some of the most fun to decorate! 

These are some of the Christmas cookies that I made a few years ago. We would be learning the techniques needed to make similar cookies. You would be going home with similar designs of cookies.  

My plan is that you will go home with:

• 6-10 decorated cookies (along the lines of those pictured above)

• Cookie and royal icing recipes

• A few basic cookie decorating tools

• The skills to decorate your own sugar cookies!

I am thinking of a Saturday morning 9-12 and then if people want to stay longer decorating cookies there is that option and if people have to go then that works too. Right now I am thinking either Nov. 25th (Saturday after Thanksgiving) or December 9th. This is a link to a survey to vote on a date if you are interested. I would charge $30 to cover the supplies and ingredients. Feel free to call, text or message me if you are interested!

Our Winter Vacation

Gavin and I were super blessed to be able to take a whole two weeks off of work to travel to the west coast and spend a week with each of our families. We started our vacation off in California by visiting some breweries with Garret. Our first stop was at Russian River in Santa Rosa. At Russian River we were able to get a taster of every beer they had on draft and I even liked a few!

The bar at the brew pub

Garret and Gavin tasting beer

Gavin and Garret had been collecting rare and interesting beers from all over. They had collected 48 beers to try over the week that we were in Oakdale. There were a total of 13 adults there for Christmas and anywhere from 3 to 9 people trying the each different beer, so the twins weren't trying to drink 48 beers on their own in a week. It was a fun week for everyone to try a lot of new and different craft beer!

All the beer the twins had collected to try over Christmas

It was so nice in California that we often spent afternoons outside just enjoying the warm weather and sunshine. It was such a refreshing change from the weather in Nashville! Also you can see our sweet niece Harper in the picture below. We loved being able to spend more time with her playing and getting to cuddle with her.

Also I got to have aebleskivers (or ebleskivers) for the first time! They are a Danish type of pancake that Gavin's family have made for a long time. The inside ends up hollow and you can fill it with jam, jelly or Nutella (my personal favorite). They are really delicious! 

Making Aebleskivers

We also went to a local park by Gavin's parent's house that has a historic covered bridge to take some family pictures. The covered bridge was pretty and it is awesome that the bridge has been kept in tact over the year.

Inside the Covered Bridge

Gavin, his siblings and his parents

As is the normal at Sturgis family gatherings, we did some shooting! I have really grown to like shooting and always enjoy it.

Gavin shooting while his brother Andrew instructs

Another normal at Sturgis family gatherings is food, lots of really good food. 

The Tapas Spread

Dates wrapped with prosciutto and stuffed with cheese. Yummmmmm

Then soon it was Christmas morning!

All of the stockings waiting to be opened

Precious Harper sleeping beneath the Christmas Tree

Although the picture above was really cute Danica put Harper in her pretty Christmas dress and we had a little photo shoot.

Yep, she is cute!

We gave Garret a kettle to brew beer in!

Gavin gave me a tripod that went along with the DSLR camera he got me! I was a happy happy wife!

I gave Gavin a book written by the founder of Stone Brewing about brewing and cooking with beer.

I also enjoyed playing with my new camera!

Gavin and Garret decided to use all of Garret's Christmas presents and brew the first batch of Sturgis Bro's Beer!

R: Garret steeping the grains in the water. L: Gavin pouring in the malt extract.

Gavin and Garret pitching the yeast into the carboy.

The beer has now been bottled and Garret has tried the beer and....it is good! We should be getting a couple of bottles soon. Gavin is really excited to try it soon.

We enjoyed our relaxing week in California with Gavin's family, but soon it was time to head North to Oregon. The first thing we did after getting into Portland was go to one of my cousin's wedding. We go to catch up with one of my other cousins and aunts and uncles.

 

The next morning we had our second Christmas morning with my parents and my Aunt Kay and Uncle Terry.

I wonder what was in that box?! Hint: Oregon Gear!

My parents gave us a bottle of the wine they made.

I had seen a photo of a dog positioned in front of Christmas trees or Christmas lights and I really wanted to try to recreate it. I personally think it turned out pretty well!

My Bailey dog posed supper well

We went to three breweries in Portland over a couple trips up there. The first trip we went to Deschutes Brewery and Cascade Brewing. 

I got to catch up with my roommate from UofO. She is actually going to come out for CMA Fest!

At the Deschutes Public House in Portland.

In California I had discovered that I liked sour beer and Cascade Brewing and Barrel House is a mecca for sour beer. I liked all but one or two of their beers. If you are ever in Portland I would 100% suggest that you visit Cascade even if you don't like beer!

Outside Cascade Brewing

 Another day we went up to Hair of the Dog Brewery. This was actually one of the breweries that the show Brew Dogs suggested visiting in Portland. Brew Dogs is a show about these Scottish men brewing beers in conjunction with different breweries across the country in crazy ways.

With my parents at Hair of the Dog.

Later that evening we met Lynn at Santiam Brewing in Salem. Gavin liked most of the beers at Santiam and I even liked a few too!

After Santiam we headed to a new growler fill and tap house place in West Salem. Overall, we got to try a lot of new and interesting beer while in Oregon.

One of the last days in Oregon we went over to the coast and it was one of the nicest winter days on the Oregon coast I have ever experienced.

The Newport Lighthouse Gavin and I toured

Oh, how I had missed the ocean.

The bridge in Newport is pretty cool.

We also visited the Rouge Brewery while in Newport and even went on a tour of the brewery.

The newest Rouge and VooDoo Donut beer being bottled

 The sunset that night was stunning over the ocean.

We also were able to visit with friends and enjoy resting and relaxing at home in Oregon. I was so so thankful that we were able to spend a week with each of our families and know that we were super blessed to be able to take that much time off from our jobs. We are already looking forward to the next time we can visit the West Coast and even next Christmas when we get to be with both of our families again.

4th of July

Our church had an early 4th of July celebration out at a retreat/summer camp. They asked people to bring sides or a dessert so you know I had to take something Pinterest inspired!

I love to bake and decided to make a patriotic cake. It was red velvet and cream cheese frosting, I mean we are in the south now! 

Just a quick note on the recipe I used: I always use box cake mix to make my cakes. It is just so much easier and I am all for simple. However, I always make my own frosting from scratch. Homemade frosting tastes so much better than the frosting from a can. I don't know what they do to that stuff to make it taste so terrible. Plus using homemade frosting somehow makes the cake taste more homemade. Don't ask me know, but it just does. Also I have had quite a few people not believe me when I tell them my cakes are from a box. Like I said, it is all about the homemade frosting. 

So, now that I have sold you on making your own frosting (I did right? If not go back and reread that last paragraph) I should probably give you a recipe! I tweaked this recipe from all recipes to make it stiffer in order to be able to decorate with it. Now I didn't write it down but it was something along these lines.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 8oz packages of cream cheese (room temp)

1/2 cup butter (room temp)

1 teaspoon vanilla

4+ cups of powdered sugar, (original recipe calls for 2)

1. Cream together cream cheese and butter until smooth and fluffy.

2. Add vanilla

3. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time. If you want the frosting to crust (be able to hold its shape) you will need to add more powdered sugar. It should hold peaks and not fall off of your spoon. You may end up adding 6 cups of powdered sugar. That is fine! The frosting will be sweeter and more sugary the more powdered sugar you add (this seams obvious, but just thought I would throw it out there).

So if you want your frosting to really taste cream cheesy add less powdered sugar, but just know it might not hold its shape as well.

*Note sifted powdered sugar is ideal, but sometimes there isn't time for that and that is ok!

On to the decorating!

Fill your cake and stack it. I did a light crumb coating just in white. 

Take the remaining icing and divide it into three bowls. You will want the most blue, then white and then red. Tint your icing preferably using gel icing colors, but if you only have the grocery store liquid ones you can use those too. If you are using the liquid ones you might want to make your icing a little stiffer since you will be adding more liquid when coloring.

I used this tutorial from cake central to learn how to do the petal technique. I am not going to explain it here because she does a great job! Just go watch the video!

Are you back from the tutorial? Great! To create the flag effect I just did two dots of white, two red and then two white vertically and then went around the whole cake. Easy peasy, but a little time consuming. Just put on your favorite Netflix series and you will be good to go!

The stars on top are the sugar sheets from Wilton that you can find at the local craft stores. I used some star cookie cutters in different sizes to make the stars for the top of the cake. Done!

Also I just want to say that making the perfect cake does not matter! We are not perfect beings (only Jesus was perfect!) and thus we cannot make perfect things. So have fun with it!!

This fruit salad also easy peasy. Get a star cookie cutter and cut watermelon into slices that are slightly thinner than your cookie cutter. Then just cut out some stars and throw in some strawberries and blueberries. Festive and yummy!

This is Gavin and I with two of the women in the church. We are so thankful to have found a church where we can serve and grow! What a blessing!!

For the actual day of 4th of July we went up to Nashville for a Hot Chicken Festival and a free concert! Oh Nashville and your free concerts how I love thee!

Striking Matches started off the evening!

To finish the night The Band Perry played!!

They really are such a fun group to see live. So much energy in their performances!

The fireworks were set to a recording by the Nashville Symphony and were great!

The only thing that could have made the day any better was if it hadn't rained. I could not believe it rained on the 4th of July!! Even growing up in the Pacific Northwest I had never experienced a rainy 4th of July. Well there is always a first for everything! Here is hoping that next year is much sunnier and drier!!

He is Risen! Amen!

Happy Easter! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday rejoicing in the fact that Jesus paid the ultimate cost for each of us and then rose from the dead to be seated in heaven! It is celebrating times like these that makes me think I should make it a priority to be celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus every day of my life. For it is through Him that we may have life!

The young marrieds group that we have joined at church had an Easter egg decorating afternoon a week before church. Everyone was asked to bring a side and I decided to bake and decorate a cake. I got the idea of how to decorate it off of Pinterest (of course) and ran with it. All of the decorations were made out of chocolate melting wafers and it was fairly simple. Also I am happy to report it went over really well with everyone. The cake itself was lemon cake with strawberry filling and homemade buttercream frosting. Yummm!

Gavin and I had a great day yesterday celebrating Easter with our new church family and just the two of us at home. After we got home from church I had a few surprises up my sleeve! I had played Easter Bunny earlier in the week and made us Easter baskets as well as picked up some plastic eggs to have a little egg hunt. We ended up hiding eggs for each other around the apartment and had fun reliving our childhoods. 

For dinner I made rack of lamb with thin parmesan potatoes and green beans. It was my first time cooking rack of lamb, but Gavin and I thought it came out really well! I made a fresh herb crust and then roasted it in the oven. We even got a little fancy and broke out the china for dinner. Overall, it was a great Sunday celebrating the work of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection!