Pinata Cookies

Clear your calendar, because you are going to want to make these cookies and it is going to take a while!  Boyfriend and I spent the week making these treats for his companies holiday bake sale.  BF is the creative mind behind these cookies.  He saw this post from "She Knows" and thought they would make a great holiday cookie.  We also thought that they would bring a pretty penny at the bake sale and raise lots of money for Hurricane Sandy Victims.

The process was simple, but involved.  It took us three days to complete these cookies.  You could finish these in one day if you devote the whole day to it.  BF and I worked on these at night after work for a few hours.  For someone who does little to no baking/cooking, he was a great kitchen helper.  I made the dough on my own and he helped will all the remaining steps.  Give these cookies a try if you are looking for a fun project!

Here are a few step-by-step instructions for preparing these steppy treat!

Not shown, prepare your dough and divide it up into three balls.  Place each dough ball between two sheets of  plastic wrap.  Roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness.  Place dough on a cookie sheet and put dough in the fridge for 1 hour.

Line your baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.  Preheat the oven to 350 F and grab your chilled dough from the fridge.

Lightly flour the countertop and remove plastic wrap from the dough.  Stamp out dough with your desired cookie cutter.  Be sure to choose a cookie cutter that is large enough to punch a hole in the middle.  And remember, for each pinata cookie you will need three cookies, so stamp out cookies in multiples of three.  Using a circular cookie cutter, punch a hole in the middle of every third cookie.

Place cookie dough cut-outs on the prepared baking sheets.  Chill the baking sheets in the oven for 30 minutes.  Bake the cookie sheets for 10-12 minutes, depending on the size of your cookie.

Remove cookies from the oven once they just begin to turn golden brown.  Let cool for 1 minute on the baking sheets on a wire rack.  Remove from the baking sheet and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Now would be a good time to call it a day.  You don't want to ice the cookies until they are completely cooled.  Once you are ready to design and draw, make a batch of royal icing (I used Bridgets from Bake at 350, no changes required because it's an amazing recipe!)

Since BF and I went with snowmen and snowflakes, we didn't have to worry too much about icing colors.  We piped and flooded the cookies with white icing.  The snowmen got black hats too!  Day two was completely taken up by piping and flooding the cookies.  Let them sit overnight or a few hours until the icing has dried.  Remember, you only need to decorate a third of the cookies.  Do not decorate the cookies with a hole in the middle.

We used parchment paper cones to add the final touches to our snowmen.  Check out this helpful video if you want to make parchment cones for icing too.  I made tiny ones and we used them to pipe the carrot noses.  Okay, to be honest...  I piped the scarves and noses.  BF gave them eyes using a toothpick.

While your final decorations are drying, begin the cookie sandwiching.  Take the completely undecorated cookie and the cookie with the hole in it.  Pipe some royal icing on the back of the holey cookie.  Place the holey cookie on top of the undecorated cookie.  Do this for all of your cookies.  Let the icing dry for 30 minutes.  Now fill the hole with mini M&Ms.  Don't overfill, just a single layer of M&Ms should do it.

To finish your pinatas, pipe some more royal icing on the top of the holey cookie.  Place the decorated cookie on top and gently press down.  Ta Da!  Sandwiched, snowman, pinata cookie!

Maybe you want to see it done with the snowflakes?  These bad boys were edged and flooded with white royal icing.  Once the white icing was dry, some stiff icing was tinted blue and piped onto the tops of the cookies.  You don't have to be perfect, remember, every snowflake is unique!

We got a little fancy with these cookies and piped the holey cookie too.  Just a little...

Here comes the M&Ms!!!

This time we offset the cookies when sandwiching them together.  The icing on the center cookie shows through to the top and makes our snowflakes extra special!

I hope all of BF's coworkers like these cookies and they help raise lots of money for Hurricane Sandy victims!  All I know is they smelled delicious and I wanted to eat all of them.  It was difficult to let them leave the house without me!

Green Velvet Cupcakes

Sorry mom, I’ve been bad this week. I haven’t eaten dinner all week. I know, I know, I’m terrible but I have some really good excuses! Let’s go through my week.

Sunday – Travelling back from New Jersey after a long weekend of unpacking boxes and moving furniture. My huge, strong, girl muscles were tired and it was all I could do not to fall asleep on the train. Making dinner was near impossible, so I decided to eat a brownie. Not even a good brownie, one that I had bought on Friday and was in my purse all weekend. I’m gross, I know.

Monday – Girls night! Okay, I actually did eat dinner Monday night, but it was not of my own doing. Recently I’ve been hanging out Monday nights with some awesome ladies from my department. We eat dinner, we gab and we watch silly girl TV. It’s excellent and a fantastic way to start the week. There are usually baked goods too, awesomeness.

Tuesday – I finally made it to the grocery store! I had big plans to leave work by six o’clock. This way I could walk home, get my car and be to the grocery store by six thirty. Thanks to a major accident on the highway, (right before my desired exit!) I didn’t make it to the store until seven thirty. Grocery shopping (plus a much needed trip to TJ Maxx!) done and I’m home by nine. Dinner was a banana. No, I’m lying; it was those rice crispy treats I showed you on Wednesday. They were delicious.

Wednesday - I’m now halfway through the week and you’re thinking I haven’t had a single real meal. Not true! The first two days of the week I had lunch at the food carts. Chicken and veggies over rice , it’s like having dinner for lunch. Which is good, because Wednesday I had Lettuce for dinner. The reason? I had grand plans of heading to the gym. With my gyms shoes on I get ready to head out the door and I glance at my computer. At some point in the evening I had picked up some malware and my computer was all jacked up. I spent the next two hours trying to restore my computer. Gym and dinner plans are thrown out the window.

Thursday – I decided I’m just going to start over next week with real food and I had toast for dinner. I slathered it with my own raspberry-peach jam. Then I made these, which will be quickly devoured by my coworkers. Then everyone will have green tongues. So festive!

Don’t worry mom, Friday comes with big plans! I’m taking the train to visit boyfriend and we’ll go out to dinner. I’ll have some protein and a whole lot of vegetables. I’ll even pay! I’m such a good girlfriend. Let’s not pretend that we’re going somewhere fancy though. Boyfriends new apartment is right around the corner from Panera and I’m going to get a salad.