Newest Addition to Sweet Shop Natalie - Edible Images!!!

So excited to announce the latest addition to Sweet Shop Natalie! Another way to make any occasion you have special and custom.

Edible Images are now available!

The possibilities are endless and will make your event even more memorable by adding edible image cookies.

Here are just a few ideas to get the ball rolling.....

Business logo... want to promote your company in a "sweet" way? Your logo can be printed and put on any size cookie you want to hand out to customers at your event, business luncheon, or employee.

I even did my own logo and I love it! Maybe I will start using them as a business cards for special events.

How about a baby shower or 1st birthday, or any age.....

Customize your parents anniversary party by putting your sweet parents on a cookie....

Here is an example of a cookie you could do for Father's Day or a milestone birthday.... (this is my Dad, you got to love the lamb chops he had)....

Wedding or bridal parties: Take your event to the next level by having the lucky couple's picture on the cookie, you could put them on the dessert table, have it as a wedding favor, or even a thank you gift to your wedding party/guests....

Graduation time: Personalize your son or daughter's graduation party with their picture on a cookie mixed in with a themed cookie platter...

Christening/baptism.. Here are some cookies I did last month for a baby baptism, they were cookie favors for the dinner celebration party guests....

Another shot of logo cookies on a platter...

The cookies below are heat sealed in a cellophane bag that would be perfect for party favors!

Carpel tunnel - A cookie problem!

***tutorial video added further down in the post***

Do any of you out there who ice cookies have the problem with your wrist and hand hurting after squeezing icing bags and bottles? I sure do. I am totally amazed by those cookiers out there that put out dozens and dozens of cookies a week! My hand would be gone!! I have the tendency to already have carpel tunnel with out doing cookies and then spend a few hours squeezing out icing and I have to have my husband give me a hand massage. Not that there is anything wrong with that! :)

A couple of years ago Sugarbelle shared a blog post from Created by Diane and I thought it was an awesome awesome idea. You can see that specific post here. 

The first time I tried this out was on a huge corporate order I did over a year ago of 200+ cookies. There was no way I wanted to flood all those cookies so I just dipped them instead and then added an icing image. It went fast. I think the bagging and tying the ribbons took longer! :)

 

I have used these technique numerous time to save time and my hand!

Last month I decided to take some pictures of the process and thought I would share with you what I have found to be helpful.

First you need to thin your icing out to about a 5 count flow. If you need to know about icing count you can see The Bearfoot Bakers post on doing that here. She covers a bunch of different counts of icing.

I am doing just white in this pictures because I was lazy and did not color my icing so I just airbrushed my cookies after I iced them to get the colors I wanted. :)

It would be best to let your icing stand for about 20 minutes after thinning so that you can let the air bubbles rise but if you are like me you are too impatient and so I try to force my bubbles out right after thinning by pounding them out!

I take my container and just drop or better yet pound it down onto my counter to force the air bubbles up to the top and out.

You can put a lid on the container and REALLY go for it. The lid will keep the icing in the container.

After you got out some frustrations you are ready to go.

I take my cookie and then dip the surface of the cookie into the frosting just until it is covered and then pull it up and shake down slightly to help get off the excess icing. (If you have too much icing on your cookie when you flip it back over onto your drying surface the icing could spill of the edge of your cookie.)

Then I just cut off the flow on the side of my container.

Then lay it on your pan to dry. In this pic you can see I have air bubbles which are the biggest con to this technique, this icing I did not pound out the bubbles prior to dipping. Not that pounding will get rid of all possible bubbles but it is much much better if you do.

I just take a toothpick and pop the bubbles.

The other problem you may have is something that can be totally avoided by having a smooth surface cookie. Here is a a cookie that you can see did not have a smooth surface which is cause by my laziness in rolling and cutting the cookies.
See how the icing did not cover the crack that was in my cookie.

Once again I just take a toothpick and work the icing over the crack and all is well.

These 43 cookies were covered in about 10-15 minutes. If I recall correctly and my hand was pain free.

One day I did these Sugarbelle pie minis and I think there were 112 of them. I wanted to get these done fast and it took me just under 20 minutes to have the base covered. I have no idea if that is slow or fast for any of you out there but it sure did save my hand from the squeezing pressure. I then went and took a shower and got ready for the day and then I was able to do the details on these mini pie slices.

A few days later I had to do another 100 or so of these minis and I did the same technique.

Here are the pro and cons

PRO
Saves time
Saves your hand from pain

CON
air-bubbles
coverage problem (if surface of cookie is not smooth)


If you need to see the dipping technique take a look at this youtube tutorial. Or click here to see it on YouTube.

Some people may not like the look of this technique but if you are wanting to get the icing clear to the edge of the cookie or a capped look this is a great way to achieve that. I rather like the look.

Here are just some of the cookies I have done this technique on for flooding my base.

      

  

This may not be for everyone but it is something that I love because it saves my hand and I hope to be able to make cookies for many more years! Hopefully this info will be helpful to someone out there in cyber land!

Who is Westlife?

After I did some edible images on some cookies a few months ago my friend asked me to do some cookies for her aunts birthday in December. She told me she loved the band WestLife. I had no idea who that was so I googled them and found out it was a "boy band" from Ireland and they have been around since the 90's.

Well I planned to do two different pics of them but the bakery who printed out the edible images for me would not do the other picture for me because it said the band name on it and they said that was a copyright issue. Makes no since cause they printed out this one and I got them both off the internet. Oh well, they were made just to be eaten.





I threw in some stars and microphones to round out the platter of cookies. After a very stressful day that day I think they came out great.





Oh my friend also wanted some salted caramel cupcakes so I snapped a pic of them as well.

3 days = 200 cookies

Thanks to another fellow cookier that found me through the CookieCon Facebook page. I got a to fulfill a 200 Logo cookie order. It took me 3 days to do it and I was happy when it was all done. :)



The company was having a corporate event and wanted there Logo on 200 cookies. With this Logo the only way to go was to make edible images. It was quite the task to get the right color of orange it needed to be.



This is what 200 cookies look like all bagged, tied and boxed up.

“You’re Killing Me Smalls! - Joshua

Josh is the second child of my sister Kristine. Right now he is serving an LDS mission in San Diego California. I had planned to mail his cookies to him, but right after I had baked his cookies, I read his weekly email he sends to his family, and he just got transferred into the middle of the desert and he only gets mail once a month now! That really put a damper on my plans of mailing them to him, because I am not sure when he actually gets the mail so I just decided to put the un-decorated cookies in the freezer and I decorated them before I came down south to visit my family. So Josh did not get to enjoy these, but his siblings and parents did instead. :)

Josh is a pretty big kid and I think it might be because he can down a couple of gallons of milk all by himself in less than a week. His poor mom spends a lot of money on milk when he was living at home. So I had to do some milk cookies!


And of course since he is serving in California right now I did some state of California cookies.


My memory of Josh is why I did the next cookie. My sister and her family live in the same town as my parents, and every Sunday those that are in Kanab also go to my parents for Sunday dinner. Seriously, it is the best day of the week. We get to enjoy each other's company and my mother's home cooking. Well while I was living at home probably during a summer break from college, I remember every Sunday the Barton clan would arrive and Josh would come running in and first thing he would do was stick in a video tape into the VCR and watch a movie. That movie was "The Sandlot". This is a great movie and if you have not seen it or your kids have not seen it you should rent it or Netflix it. It is a cute funny show and it was also filmed in my home state Utah.

So many great quotes from this show.

"The kid is an L7 weenie!" or my favorite "This pop isn't workin', Benny! I'm bakin' like a toasted cheese-it! It's so hot here!"

Josh could sit in front of the TV and act and quote every line of this movie as a little kid. When he gets back maybe we will have to see if he can still do it. :)



And of course some Super Heroes! Josh loves all superheroes. I couldn't go wrong in which ones to do because he supposedly loves them all! I recently got the Williams Sonoma Hero set so I tried out these three guys.


The whole group.
Happy Birthday Josh!

One tough cookie... Sydnee that is, not the cookie :)

Holly cow, this week was crazy and so I am a little slow at getting this post up. This last week was Sydnee's birthday. Syd is the 5th and youngest child of my sister Kanani.

Sydnee just turned 12, and I think she is one tough cookie!!

I am not sure if she wants me to share this, but I was totally impressed with her ability to be tough. I am an esthetician, an esthetician is a skin care specialist so I deal with all things skin. Her mom drove her up to me for a few facial treatments. Most women and especially men complain during chemical peels and extractions, but Syd just winced a few times and took it like a trooper.

Sydnee is also a tough competitor which is no surprise growing up in the Wells clan, although she does not swim like 3 of her older siblings, she is totally in love with the sport of soccer. She has been playing on a team as long as I can remember, maybe I should have my son go live with them for awhile to get him interested in sports. When he plays soccer he just piddles around on the field while his teammates kick the ball. :)

Sydnee loves cinnamon rolls so I thought I would just make some to look like the delicious pastries minus the cinnamon smell!

Her favorite soccer player is Fernando Torres. He plays for Spain. I was lazy and did not want to make his face out of icing so I had him printed on a sugar sheet instead.


Her favorite colors are blue and pink, so pink and blue soccer balls it was, and her favorite number is 13!



And she is totally obsessed with the boy band One Direction. Her favorite is Harry, he is the one on the far left! Yes I printed these out as well on a sugar sheet. I was lazy!

Then I forgot to take a picture of them all together so my sister was kind enough to do that for me and send it to me. She also said that Sydnee squealed when she opened the cookies and said, "mine are the best she's ever made"!  Thanks Sydnee I will give you a big hug next time I see you!