Pool Themed Cookies ... Starfish (Royal Icing)

My amazing and faithful customer asked me to make 80 cookies for her son's party. She picked starfish and swim trunk cookies. I'm starting with the Starfish since I became a bit obsessed with how they turned out! I just loved them!! I actually have a new order for a few weeks out that would like them for an underwater themed party!

 

If you're in need or cookies for a party or just to eat, shoot me a msg at SweetPea Cookie Therapy. Thank you!

 

What you Need:
Star Cookie Cutter
Royal Icing - Blue, Green and Uncolored White (see recipe below)

Pipping Bag (w/ white royal icing) 

For the starfish I took my star cookie cutter and moved the legs to look like a starfish. Once baked they stayed in this great shape. I used the dipping method with my royal icing. This speeds up my decorating time. You can pipe each cookie which is a little cleaner but I find the dipping method to be the best. You get your royal icing to the outline consistency and put into a pie dish (I find this is not too deep). BEFORE the cookies dry you add the details. I used a pipping bag of white to add a little detail on the starfish. A big circle in the middle and then smaller circles on each leg. The party colors was green and blue so I made these in those colors, it can be done in any color.

 Here are both cookie shapes made:

Click HERE to see who I link with.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Julie Usher, she has a GREAT YouTube video on how to make, color and make consistency adjustments. 

Royal Icing what you need:

2 lbs Powdered Sugar

1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

5 Large Egg Whites (or equivalent) 

Flavor to Taste

Gel Icing Color

Mix powder sugar and cream of tartar in your mixer, just to make sure it is incorporated in. Slowly add egg whites, then whip start of slow then go to very high speed. She says around 2 minutes, my friend had an older mixer so it took almost 10 minutes. You want stiff peaks that hold on and won't fall off the spoon. Add in your flavor, I would suggest you use a clear flavoring.  This would be the glue texture great for ginger bread houses etc.

Take 1 cup of royal icing in a smaller bowl then add your coloring, lightly mix so you don't get air into the the icing. I'm like her and like the gel coloring. 

For Top Coating - Add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 tsp Water (This is if you don't want to outline and flood)

For Outlining - Add 1/2 to 3/4 tsp Water

For Flooding  - Add 2 to 3 tsp Water

WATCH her video on How to Top-Coat, Outline, and Flood Cookies. YES it is around 7 minutes BUT if you have never done this technique it's a MUST she explains it perfectly.

 

BBQ Party ... Flip Flop Cake Pops

This past Saturday we had a End of the Year BBQ at my parents lake front.  WELL it was scheduled for last Saturday, but when I kept checking the weather and it called for 80% chance of RAIN, I called it.  Thank God since Noah may have picked us up for the party too, if you remember Caden's bday party did the same thing.  I think it's a new theme for my parties. 

I of course wanted to make theme things!  I found these Flip Flop Cake pops on Living Locurto.  If you have not been to this site you MUST from free printable's to awesome ideas for food!

NOW her's are so professional an amazing looking.  I didn't do the cake pops on a lollipop stick.  They were't all uniformed but I loved how they came out!

 What You’ll Need:

• Blue Candy Melts
• Lolliop Sticks (I skipped this part)
• Baked Cake & Icing. Flavor of your choice.
• Flower Sprinkles
• Candy Straws

Directions

Mix the cake and icing together in a bowl. Shape into a cake ball. Squeeze the middle to form an hour-glass shape.

Once you have your hour-glassy looking shape, you’re going to want to then shape it into your “flip flop” form.  Just smooth the edges and form it to make it look like a flip flop.

Dip in melted candy before it dries place the strap onto the flip-flop.

Next, put a small dot of chocolate on the strap and attach your flower, or decoration.

They turned out pretty darn cute if I say so myself!

Thanks for stopping by

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

Beach Bingo ... Beach Themed Cupcakes (Coconut Drink & Beach Ball Toppers)

And we wrap with the last two cupcake themes I made for the party.  These last two ideas came from Party Pinching and a post featuring beach themed cupcakes on a budget!  These again are so easy and cheap (oh yes you know my motto cheap and ahhh dropping).  

If you missed yesterday's post. I started with making 2 batches of cupcakes using my favorite homemade yellow cake mix and 2 batches of my favorite sturdy buttercream frosting.

This post will feature:

The first to show off (or technically the third if you're reading this after yesterdays post) is the super easy and I think the coolest looking one Coconut Drink Topper.  Don't we all want a fruit drink while sitting on the beach?  Why not have a cupcake that will give you that same feeling with out the alcohol since I was serving kids!

What you Need:

Frosted Cupcakes

Whoppers

Icing

Twizzler Pull Aparts

Sprinklers (I used little stars)

Umbrella's (optional but I thought it added character)

Take a sharp knife and cut of just 1/8 of the top of a whopper (mostly just the chocolate part of the top).  Add a little swirl of icing to the part that you just cut off, I made it look kind of like what a drink looks like.  Cut a little strip of Twizzler pull-apart for your straw.  I added a star as a little fun topper, I've seen some with regular sprinkles but I wanted something fun. I then added to a frosted cupcake (I had some Peanut Butter Sturdy Buttercream left over from another recipe (post to come) so that is why this frosting looking brown vs. white).  I topped with an umbrella because it felt like they needed something.

And last on my list to do was the easiest one to make, Cole actually put these together for me.  Yes Control FREAK mom actually handed this cupcake over!  These are to look like a beachball with an umbrella.

What you Need:

Frosted Cupcakes

Gumballs

Paper Umbrella's

YUP easy frost a cupcake plop a gumball on and top with a paper umbrella.  OH yes I told you it was simple but they were so stinking cute!

And was a quick add on I made this super quick umbrella centerpiece.  I wish I would have had two boxes of the umbrella's but my dollar store only had 2 and I used the other for the cupcakes.

What you Need:

Foam Circle / or Floral Circle

Paper Umbrella's 

Open up umbrella's be careful not to break them, I gave them a little loosing up and then let Caden open up the umbrella's and we stuck them around the floral circle we picked up at the dollar store also.  Would have been nicer to have it fuller but it was perfect and CHEAP for the theme!

We had a great time and everyone had such nice things to say about the food and the cupcakes.

A BIG thanks to my helper Cole who bagged & tied them for me.

As I keep saying the idea to put the cupcakes in a plastic cup, a clear bag and tie with a ribbon has been the most used and AWESOME idea I have ever come across on Pinterest.  Whoever thought of this needs to win the award of most awesome person and helper to mom party planners.

Have a Beach tastic Day!!  Hope you give one of these a try!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Beach Bingo ... Beach Themed Cupcakes (Fondant Beach Balls & Popsicle Sticks)

Now onto the cupcakes made for the party!  NOW don't shake your head I didn't go totally nuts this time around I ONLY made 4 different types of cupcakes.  I'll feature two here today and then two tomorrow not to overwhelm you or make one heck of a long post.

While searching the internet for pool themed food I came across Party Pinching and a post featuring beach themed cupcakes on a budget!  I narrowed down my list to only four to make, well three they featured and one I made up on my own.

I started with making 2 batches of cupcakes using my favorite homemade yellow cake mix and 2 batches of my favorite sturdy buttercream frosting.

First on the list to do is Fondant Beach Ball Cupcake Toppers.

As you know I'm now in LOVE with this rolled buttercream fondant, that is super simple to make.  Click the name and it will take you to recipe, trying not to repeat the same thing over and over and have you all do an eye roll on me.

I wanted to do something fun and this fondant is so easy why not make beach balls with 3 colors!  I took my fondant made 3 balls, I then dyed each a color of the beach ball I wanted using Wilton Food Icing Color.  I then rolled out 1" strips of each color and pressed them together with my pamper chef roller.  It came out perfect, I then took what I think is a whiskey glass to make perfect circles (yes you can laugh we got them for our wedding & of course what do I use them for baking ... lol). I would try to get 3 balls out each time and then I would change the color line up. (blue, yellow and then green.  Next time Yellow, Green and Blue and so on).

I frosted each cupcake and then my helper topped them with a fondant Beach Ball.  We then put them in plastic cupcakes, a plastic bag and tied with ribbon.  

What you Need:

Baked Cupcake

Frosting

Fondant (3 Balls)

Wilton Icing Color

Wilton Cut and Roll Mat (or any mat)

Circle Cutter or Glass

Next on my list was the easiest cupcake ever!!  I made little Popsicle toppers to go on top of cupcakes.

What you Need:

Baked Cupcake

Frosting

Mike & Ikes

Toothpick

Break toothpick in half, take the broken half and shove into the fatter side of the Mike and Ike (one side is thin like a top of a Popsicle and other end fat like the bottom).  And your done!  I added two of the same color to the top of a frosted cupcake.  Again we then added cupcakes to a clear cup, clear bag and tied with a ribbon.

I must say serving cupcakes this way has been the BEST idea I have ever used off pinterest.  When the people left the party they were able to take a cupcake home with out worrying about it getting everywhere.  And since NO one RSVP's these days I had no clue how many would show so I made 36 cupcakes to be on the safe side.  LET's just say parents and kids each took a cupcake home that day!

Have a Beach tastic Day!!  Hope you give one of these a try!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Beach Bingo ... End of School Year Swim Party Food

A few weeks back I posted an invite I made for a end of year swim party for the boys and their classmates.  It was originally scheduled for this Saturday but due to a change of Rick's schedule we had to bump the party up to last weekend.  We had a few kids show but it was a lot of fun and really when compared to other parties I do this was VERY low key.  I made a few cupcakes and found food that went with the theme.  We were so blessed one of the dad's actually maned the BBQ and cooked up all the hot dogs, while Rick gave all the kids rides on the Jet Ski and I played life guard watching the kids in the water.

Here is a quick glimpse of the food that we did, the following two days I'll show the cupcakes I made in the theme.  Food was really simple and the food labels were a FREE printable on Hostess with the Mostess.  She was so sweet and had it in a PDF or  JPEG file.  I used the JPEG file and copied into a word document that I then added a text box and added the fun wording.

Cole Helping me get the labels together:

Here is how the table looked:

Food to Munch on:

Cupcake Station:

Hot Dog Station

Veggie Dip

Gummy Circles

 Gum Drops 

Pool Noodles

Gummy Life Savers

Beach Themed Cookies I bought

Cut Fruit

Tiki Punch

If you're looking for the invites I did here is the post.  I'll include a picture of the invites I sent out.

My little munch kin enjoying the day:


And my trial run of my swimsuit and cover up went well I think.
Sorry for bathroom picture it truly is the ONLY mirror I've ever allowed in the house.
And I didn't have time to have someone take my picture.

Hope you have a GREAT day and get the grill on!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.