Eye of Newt and Essence of Spider.......

Halloween brings so many fun things. There's the candy....we all love that.  There's the costumes where we can dress up like we are still kids......or a sexy version of a Disney princess/fairy tale character, which seems to be the choice costume among women today (giggles). 

For the cookie/cake decorator it brings some NOT so fun things....like dark colors that do NOTHING for your nails.....seriously my nails were horrible from the black food gel.

Saturday I took the day off from decorating and went to have my nails done.  I brought Miss B and  

Miss P with me and made a girls day out of it.  Hey, a girl's gotta have nice nails.....and cute shoes.  That's a RULE in this house.  It's the one rule my daughters DON'T complain about :)

BUT......from now on it's gloves when coloring icing. 

Now.....on to the cookies.

You will need:

Wedding cake shaped cookies

orange royal icing

black royal icing

piping bags

#1 tip

#2 tip

First outline your cookie in orange royal icing.  Let dry about 15 minutes then fill with orange flood icing.  Let dry about 2 hours.

next pipe on spider and web with black royal icing using a #1 tip.  Outline cake layers in black royal icing.

Next pipe white dots on bottom layer of cake using a #2 tip.  Make various sizes of dots.  Be sure not to make dots to close to each other like I did or they will run into each other. Then take black royal icing and #1 tip and place dot on top of white dots to make eyes.  

Next pipe vertical lines with black royal icing and #2 tip.  Allow cookie to dry 6-8 hours or overnight. 

For another cute eye catching treats check out:

Confessions of a Cookbook Queen's Peanut Butter Eyeball Truffles

Sweet Sugar Belle's 3-D Witch Hat Cookies

Stars and Stripes cake

It's such a beautiful day.......and I have the best husband in the world.  I can't begin tell you how lucky I truly am.  There aren't many good men out there anymore....no seriously, I think I may have gotten the last one. 

I am so proud of him.  He's an American soldier.....what's not to love right?  He just got back from his second deployment. It's so good to have him home. It's with him in mind that I make most of my desserts. 

This patriotic themed week in memory of 9-11 was near and dear to my heart.  I have such a deep love for my country and those who serve it. 

It was a great pleasure to do this project in memory of 9-11.  I'll never forget that day nor will I forget those who lost their lives and those who make sure something like this will never happen again. 

I was so excited to make this cake. I always love baking and creating something pretty, but this time was different. This time I got to use my new Cricut cake machine!

As always my husband buys me the neatest little gadgets. I guess it's the only thing he can enjoy in the cookie/cake making process.....other than eating all my creations. So it should have been no surprise when this new toy of mine showed up at the door.

It sat on the shelf a month in my baking supply closet.....secretly I just didn't feel like reading the instructions.

My husband is always trying to do things for me.....guess he's working on brownie points or something, I'm not sure. Well I didn't have a star cutter small enough for the stars I needed. So my husband got the new Cricut machine out for me and set it up......he even read the instructions, which to men I believe is totally taboo. He even cut out the stars for me....that did earn him brownie points.

The machine was easier to use then reviews I read online. The fondant didn't tear or get jammed up. Guess I should have tried it out a while ago instead of believing what I read somewhere online. I did stick the sheet of rolled fondant in the freezer for a few minutes to harden just a tad.

How many of you have one of these handy little machines? Don't you just love it?

If you don't own one you can get one 

here

.

 I highly recommend purchasing one. They are very easy to use....after all my husband was the one who used it to cut out the stars.

I can't wait to use it for other treats I whip up in my kitchen.

~Throw on your heels and get to baking~