Spider-Man! Does whatever a spider can!

Spins a web! Any size! Catches thieves just like flies!  okay enough of the theme song.  I found these amazing, beautiful, adorable Spider-Man cookies at Bake Greek and wanted to make them so badly but I held off.  I wanted to get a little closer to the release of The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3rd) and I knew they'd be challenging because I'd use the same technique of tracing the eyes through wax paper and applying them.  So there were measurements and all that jazz but they still came out different.  I won't rag on them because they're not exactly how I wanted but they're still okay.  I guess that's just how stuff turns out sometimes.

That spiderweb cutter is monstrous, though.  I mean it.  Like 6" inches, point to point.  It's like four cookies in one.  Good thing I only made two.

So. I've found I have a pattern to my cookie decorating.  I get through the mandatory ones and there's always stragglers that I'm never sure how to decorate.  This time it was the spiders.  Didn't want them all black so I did a few other colors.  Then, as I'm looking at them I think, well. How about some eyes.

I swear to you, the second I put those murderous, beady eyes on, my skin started to crawl.  What the hell??  It's just instinct.  I didn't even want to look at it.  It was looking at ME!  So I tried making them bigger.  GO BIG AND CUTE.  But it didn't work.  I actually considered for a split second making it accurate and putting a couple of those hideous eyes on it and shuddered at the thought.  I hate them so much, it makes me want to cry.

Needless to say, none of the rest got eyes.

So I'm going to see the new movie because Spidey is my second favorite hero ever! (Wolverine #1 baby!)  AND Andrew Garfield (the new Spidey actor) does a lot of his own stunts!  I love that.  He's so wiry and bendy! So I'm excited to watch him flying around! Wee!

Source: andrewgaarfields.tumblr.com

To him, life is a great big bang up! Wherever there's a hang up, you'll find the Spider-Man!

"Are you going to live in an igloo?"

I moved to Alaska when I was 10 years old and I remember quite vividly saying goodbye to my 4th grade classmates.  I remember showing them on the globe how far away Alaska was from Texas and one of them asked me, straight up, "Are you going to live in an igloo?"  I knew it was ridiculous but the fact that I still remember that question makes me wonder if, at the time, I wasn't quite sure myself.

I'm kidding. I laughed in their faces. Pfft. 10 year olds.

So even though I spent the rest of my youth here, moved away then would eventually return, I still don't think of Alaska as home. Isn't that weird?  I'm not FROM Alaska; I just live here right now.  That doesn't mean, however, that I deny it's beautiful landscapes or quirky residents or wonderful summers.  That's all grand.  But it's the damn winters...

But I digress.  I did not, as one might suspect, make these in response to the Texas cookies I shared with my fellow Texan family a few weeks ago.  I actually made them to share with my Alaskan coworkers at a bake sale being held at work.  I thought they'd appreciate these familiar sights over any old design (or especially Texas. Imagine: feeding Alaskans Texas cookies! The horror!)

I used Sweet Sugar Belle's recipe but I've made a few tweaks and they're working for me (learning my wonky oven temperature is the biggest plus).  This is the 8th batch of cookies I've made and I'm finally getting to the point where I've got a routine and it's getting easy!  Yay!

Ready for a bake sale!

Texas, Our Texas

There is something about being Texan that very few others experience. I'm not saying we're better or worse (okay, some Texans are totally better or worse people) but it's a unique and distinguishing identity. Texans are a proud people. I was raised with the endless mantra of how beautiful and separate and special Texas was. We moved to Alaska when I was 10 and brought the pride all the way here. You can never take the Texas out of a Texan.

In search of cookie ideas, I stumbled on some University of Texas themed cooks and, being my alma mater, I fell in love. I started planning Longhorns and little states and the Hook 'Em hand sign. Just as I was about to order the special cutters online, my birthday rolled around and my mom got me a set of Texas-themed cutters. It included this huge 5 x 5 state and I knew I had to make it ASAP. The Horns would have to wait!

I found these beautiful designs from Deb's Crafty Cookies and the search was over. I can't thank her enough for sharing the lovely design with us all!

These are the little Texases I had from who knows where. I love finding cutters I forgot I had!

Then came the search for bluebonnets. Now, again, as a Texan, fields of wild bluebonnets are such a staple in the land we're raised on that every time I see them now, my heart just swells. It's hard to describe. It's like looking at your childhood home and it brings up every safe and happy memory you ever had. So looking through bluebonnet pictures might have been my favorite part of this exercise.

I'm happy with how they turned out.  I stuck to Sweet Sugar Belle's sugar cookie recipe and, my favorite because it's been so good to me, Lizy B Bakes' royal icing recipe.

Now on to the next theme... Here's a hint: he's got a movie coming out verrrry soooooon... (spins a web, any size, catches thieves just like flies...)

LOKI'D

There's a moment when you're decorating that you survey your work and just throw up your hands and call it a loss.  I pretty much did that with these cookies but I have a pretty legit source for my frustration. The god of mischief has struck, determined that I not render him in cookie form. I guess he's not keen on being devoured by mortals.

First, I found these adorable action figures and immediately decided I wanted to make them into cookies.  I quickly realized they'd be the most difficult design I'd ever attempted and grew wary... Almost dreading the decorating, to be honest.  But I'd committed myself (and already made the cookies) so I couldn't back out.  So I went into it with trepidation.

But to back up really quick, as I'm mixing the dough, adding the flour to make it come together, my poor Kitchenaid starts straining with some severity. I turn it off, only to see the pin holding the head to the base almost completely worked out. I try to maneuver it back in place - hell, I took a hammer to it (not Mjolnir, unfortunately) - and still nothing.  And suddenly I realized what happened.

UGH. FINE. See if I make your cookies again, prankster!! (JK; I love you!)

So he broke my mixer.  I borrow my mom's to make the icing and decide to try a new recipe that looks super simple from the popular blogger's video. I make the colors and sit down to decorate and it is absolutely WAY too thick. I don't understand; it looked fine in the bowls! I give up and wait a day, go back and thin all the colors and start over.  Slightly better but now it's almost too thin! UGH, THIS ICING IS TOO FICKLE. And then I realized...

By the end of this whole ordeal, I'd mostly given up. They didn't come out as I'd wished but I've learned some things: that freakin icing is not for me.  And if designs look difficult from the word go, they're going to be freakin hard.

My one amusement from this batch was this.  The multiples of Loki!  It makes me laugh.  So many Lokis!  Which one is real?  I'll never not fall for that, right, Thor?

See the icing consistency from the first try (on the lightning) and the second day, after thinned on Mjolnir? 

Mjolnir turned out to be my favorite.  I used an edible marker/pen to detail it so it's the only one with any definition.  I attempted to detail Thor and Loki's helmets as well and they came out junk so I nixed that quick.

Game of Thrones: Winter is Coming!

Like most chefs I know, my cooking adventures too originate from seeing something and thinking, 'I wonder if I could do that...' I've seen hundreds of beautiful, intricate and amazing sugar cookies and I never thought twice about trying them. And one day it was just like, 'Hey... SUGAR cookies...'

Also, I'm crazy into Game of Thrones right now and I really wanted to geek out about it. Hence, decorated cookies. (The best part? At random intervals, such as coloring the red icing, I'd just suddenly think, "A Lannister always pays his debts." WEE!)