Results: Harry Potter Cookies & More

Dear self,
In the future, buy supplies and mix/bake cookies the night before.  Then begin decorating right after breakfast so you don't run out of time and end up with the cookies below.
Love, me

Yep, I didn't quite get as much done as I'd hoped.  I didn't realize I'd have to go to Michael's for cake decorating products; I'm 24 and have never really done this so I figured I could pick up everything I needed at Target.

False.

After making shopping lists of everything I'd need for the cookies and researching online to find out where I could buy it, I decided to start at Target and then make a trip to Michael's, if needed.

Let's just say Target doesn't carry specific decorating tips, squeeze bottles, specific shades of food coloring, etc.  They do, however, carry the break-n-bake cookie dough, so I popped the cookies in the oven when I got home from Target (4 mins away) and asked Real HouseMom to take them out of the oven when the timer went off.  Meanwhile I raced to Michael's (12 mins away), which ended up being a mecca for those who are craft-oriented (or pretending to be).

Long story short, once I got home I made royal icing, mixed the food coloring into it and outlined the cookies.  It took about 4-5, um, unique cookies before I finally got the hang of it!  .....sort of.

The outlined cookies (stop judging)

While the piped outlines dried, I added water to the royal icing and put it in the squeeze bottle so I could flood the cookies.  It was working well!  Until my friend K showed up so we could go to dinner.... About 8 cookies after she arrived, I ran out of watered-down royal icing, so I decided we'd go to dinner, let the flooded cookies set and then I could finish when we got home.

The filled-in cookies (and the ones that were left after I ran out of flooded icing)

Welllllll we got home from dinner (Buffalo Wild Wings boneless Thursday!) and only had a few hours to go, so I made the executive decision to forgo finishing the cookies in favor of watching Deathly Hallows: part 1 and painting our nails in Gryffindor colors.  For about $1 each from Target (duh), I got "scarlet" (New York Color in #228 Chelsea) and "gold" (Sinful Colors in #955 Pull Over).

My first experiment with polka dot nails could've been better... but probably could've been worse

About 10:30, we decided to head to the theater to get seats and oh my goodness was it packed!!  The theater near my house (across the street from my Target, actually) is a 30-screen jumbo theater-- and Deathly Hallows: part 2 was playing on 17 screens.  No joke, over half of the entire place was total HP mania!

The movie was really good (the book was better, duh!) and the people at the movie were a little over-the-top (aka I wanted to throw some of the chanting, screaming not-yet-lost-my-baby-fat tweens & teens down the stairs) but overall we had a great time!

And for the future, I now know that seriously decorated cookies need some advance preparation...

Again, here's what helped me make these cookies:

• Harry Potter character cookies from Bridget @ Bake at 350
• Super duper unfortunately, I didn't see her recipe for BUTTERBEER cookies (OMG I know) until the next day, otherwise I would've attempted those too! =(
• A weird cross-check of royal icing recipes from these three sites:
• Royal Icing 102 or 201 or whatever [also from Bridget]
• Royal Icing recipe from Wilton [the main one I followed]
• Royal Icing recipe from JoyofBaking.com [this one was mostly just to cross-reference measurements]

Another future note-to-self: when halving measurements, write down what the new measurements will be.  I ended up halving the powdered sugar but not the water and couldn't figure out why, after 20 mins of mixing, I still didn't have stiff peaks.  Figured it out pretty quickly after that.

Have a great Monday =)

-Jules

Learning to.... Bake & Decorate Cookies

Growing up, Real HouseMom would usually have some kind of baked good around the house as an after-dinner treat.  The most common desserts were brownies-- Duncan Hines, I believe-- or chocolate chip cookies from scratch.  Real HouseMom is definitely more than competent in the kitchen, baking and cooking (sometimes at the same time!) with the greatest of ease.  The problem with this was that she and I weren't the only people around.  The two of us could stretch a batch of brownies to last a week-- but with Soccer Dad and Little Bro in the house, it was a different story.  Between the two of them, at least half the pan of brownies/cookies/cake/whatever would be devoured that day.  And the remaining half would be gone by the following night.  With those two in the house, homemade desserts never last 48 hours.

The most common treat at our house, always frosted =)

Because of this, Real HouseMom never went through the trouble of decorating anything.  Cookies and cakes always go so fast that any sugary artwork would go completely unnoticed-- so I never learned how to decorate any sweets, beyond the occasional "Happy Birthday" that looks like it was written by a six-year-old.

Now that I'm 24, I've decided it's time to learn to be a pastry artist.  Not professionally or full-time or anything crazy like that!  Just for the occasional party, holiday or birthday.  And I'm going to start by making a batch of Harry Potter cookies for the midnight launch of 'Deathly Hallows: Part 2' (which, of course, I'm going to see at midnight).

The cookies I will be attempting later this week!  [details below]

Here's the story: our next door neighbors just sold their house and will be moving in the next few weeks, so Real HouseMom and I decided we're going to throw a going-away-slash-block-party in our cul-de-sac.  Me being the overly ambitious planner I am, I decided we're going to have some great decorations and some fabulous desserts.

I decided some cute shaped & decorated sugar cookies would be a fun treat for everybody, so I Googled "frosting cookies" to find a how-to guide.  What I found was this awesome video from Bridget of Bake at 350.  Confession: I can't get enough of her blog!  First of all, the video was super helpful to someone like me, who's completely kitchen-challenged.  Then when I went to her blog, I saw these adorable cowboy boot cookies!!

I think these are insanely precious but I just can't think of an occasion when cowboy boot cookies would be appropriate here in Chicago... I might throw a western-themed party just to make these!

Below those cute boots were three "You might also like" posts-- and one of them was for Harry Potter cookies!  [Side note: I'll do a Harry Potter post later this week, to explain why these cookies have just become the highlight of my life]  So I've decided that my first attempt at piping and decorating with royal icing is going to be this week when I do my best to make the Harry Potter cookies.  I promise I'll post pictures!

In the meantime, I'm trying to find anything related to North Carolina (where Mr. & Mrs. Next Door will be moving) so I can get cookie cutters and icing colors that pertain to the party.  Let me know if you're from the Charlotte area (or even NC in general), I'd love some ideas for the decorations and food!

Have a great Tuesday =)

-Jules