An Apple a Day....

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.......well what about a basket of them?

When I think of Fall I think of pies and of my favorites is an apple pie. Which then causes me to think of that movie Baby Boom.....you know the one where she inherits a baby and moves to Vermont on an apple farm and makes applesauce all day long. I know it's not pie, but it's what I think of.....can't help it.

When I saw these adorable

apple basket cupcakes

on Pinterest, I knew I must make a cookie version.  So off to the drawing board I went.

 I didn't have a basket cutter so what to use, what to use.  I tried to think outside the box and decided to use the cupcake cutter.  It can be made into many different cookies.  I cut out the cupcake shapes then cut off the top.  I'm sure you could leave the top on and just have a higher pile of apples, but I chose not to.

cupcake or basket cookie cutter

light brown royal icing

red royal icing

#3 tip

With #2 tip and light brown royal icing outline basket

Add handles. Let dry about 30 minutes.

With 20 second light brown royal icing fill in every other section of basket.

 Let dry several hours.

After first layer is dry, fill the remaining sections of basket with the 20 second light brown icing.

Let dry several hours.

 Next take 20 second red icing and randomly pipe dots for apples, leaving spaces between. 

If some run together like mine did, it's okay. Those will be covered later. 

Allow to dry for several hours. 

Repeat randomly adding red dots with the 20 second icing. Working in layers, drying several hours between each layer and filling in any empty spaces.

Continue to do this until your desired number of apples are piped.

Then for a little more detail take the light brown royal icing (not your flood icing) and pipe a line at top and bottom of basket.

Allow cookie to dry overnight.

Easy Acorn Cookies

It's finally FRIDAY!!!!

I love the weekends. Not because I do anything exciting and fun.  I don't go out clubbing and get alcohol  spilled on my expensive shoes, get hit on by desperate men, or wake up with a mean hangover.

No, that was last month....this month is different......haaaa Just kidding.  You would have thought last month wasn't as lame as this one, but it was.

 I spend most of my weekends baking something, catching up on TVshows on my DVR, and just doing mommy things. It's actually very enjoyable. I'm not bored at all. Quite frankly, I'm never bored.  I keep busier than most people.  I really NEVER stop.  I'm OCD like that.  My friends think I must have superhero powers like wonder woman or something, but I don't.  I'm just super busy and hate to keep still.....although as a kid, I did think I was Wonder Woman....but that's another story (with cookies).

Well my OCD got the best of me with my sprinkle collection.  I say collection because I have 83 different sprinkles. Well for an OCD person the different bottles were getting to me. Especially when they are displayed on a shelf now. In the quest for finding jars to put my sprinkles in...that I love, I became extremely disappointed.....and cheap. Okay, I'm not cheap, but I am extremely impatient. So when I couldn't find jars in this small town, I opted to buy small candles in a jar, with lids. They were the perfect size and just what I wanted.....at least for now.  I can promise you I will decided on something else before the end of the year.  I'm just like that. Things get changed often.

Hubby came home with 22 candles the first time.  He had bought all they had at the store. We melted the wax down and removed it from the jar. Washed the jar out and added sprinkles to each one.

Well do you know the darn power went out at 2 am.  Hubby wakes me up and starts laughing...he tells me how ironic it is,  after buying all those candles, that he can't find one candle to light in all the darkness.....but we have sprinkles! I couldn't help but laugh with him......and tell him I'm so gonna blog about this.  My family is always on guard. You never know what mom's gonna blog about, so look out.

I did manage to find him a few candles that I have for such an event as the power going out. Life around here isn't all sprinkles.....well not for them. 

The rest of the candles have been bought.....all 83 jars, and are in the process of being de-waxed.  It's quite a process to be honest....and not the neatest process either.  I've spilled wax.....A LOT!

Well......on to the cookies.  I made these super duper easy acorn cookies. These are great for a beginner cookie-er.  They can be done with our without the sanding sugar.

First, with a #2 tip, outline the bottom half of the acorn in a medium brown royal icing. Then fill stem.

Next fill the bottom half with thinned medium brown royal icing.

Next outline and fill top half of acorn with  dark brown royal icing.  Let dry about 30 minutes and then fill with thinned dark brown royal icing.  (sorry for lack of picture)

If you want sanding sugar apply to top half when it is still wet. If not just allow to dry.