rainbow unicorn sugar cookies with royal icing

To go along with the rainbow unicorn cake that I made for my daughter's 8th birthday, I also made these rainbow unicorn cookies as party favors, and also to pass out to her classmates on the actual day of her birthday.

For the cookies, I used my favorite sugar cookie dough (recipe in my book!), rolled it out to about 1/8 inch thick, and used these adorable unicorn cookie cutters from Cookie Cutter Kingdom to cut out my shapes. Then I baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.

While the cookies were cooling, I whipped up my royal icing (recipe also in my book!). Then I used a disposable pastry bag fitted with a small round tip to outline each cookie with stiff white icing, before filling them in with runny white icing. Then with the rest of icing, I used Americolor gel-based food coloring to tint them yellow for the horn, and rainbow colors for the mane and tail.

I had originally planned to do each unicorn with several rainbow colors, but after icing a few, I didn't like the way they looked. So instead, I chose one color for each unicorn, and did multiple colors that way.

I wrapped each cookie in cellophane favor bags and tied with closed with raffia, so that they would be easy for her to hand out to her classmates (and so they would fit nicely in her party goodie bags!)

Happy Birthday, Miss Melodie! Hope you enjoyed your unicorns!

rainbow unicorn cake with fondant unicorn horn

Last year for my daughter's birthday, she requested a unicorn cake. (She always requests unicorns!) So I had made her this one, with a buttercream rosette mane and a handmade fondant golden unicorn horn. 

Well, this year she asked for the same thing! But pink. And with a rainbow mane. So I obliged!

As usual, she wanted a vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream, so I baked up my favorite vanilla cake (recipe in my book!) in two 8-inch round cake pans, cooled them, and then sliced them in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream, and fresh sliced strawberries.

Next I covered the whole thing with pink cream cheese buttercream frosting (recipe also in my book!) - first with a quick crumb coat, then 30 minutes in the fridge, and then a final coat of frosting, which I smoothed out with a long metal spatula. Then I let the cake chill in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, I was ready to decorate the cake. I used black frosting in a disposable pastry bag, fitted with a small round tip, to pipe the eyes on the front of the cake. 

Then I tinted my "rainbow" colors with Americolor gel-based food coloring, and used a large tip to pipe the buttercream rosette mane. I only had enough frosting left for three colors, so I divided the remaining frosting and chose blue and green to go with the pink cake.

The final touches were the handmade fondant unicorn horn (you can see how I made it in this post) and the white fondant ears. Although, in hindsight I should have made the ears pink. Doh!

The last color would be white, for a few "pops" of small rosettes.

At least the white rosettes kind of match the white ears?

Anyway, she loved the final cake. Even though blue and green don't actually equal rainbow. But whatever, close enough!

For her birthday party, we just invited a few of her closest friends for a small party, and we had movies and pizza and video games. And cookie decorating. And unicorn cake, of course!

Happy 8th Birthday, Miss Melodie!!!

yin and yang kung fu cupcakes

My two older kids are learning Kung-Fu, and last summer (or was it the summer before that? I'm really behind!) for the annual picnic I signed up to make cupcakes. When it came time to actually make the cupcakes, I had no idea what to do! Piped Kung-Fu frosting figures on the cupcakes? Chinese characters? And then when I looked at their Kung-Fu uniform, it came to me. Yin and Yang cupcakes. (It was printed on the sleeves!)

So I started by baking up my favorite chocolate cupcakes (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), as well as my favorite cream cheese frosting. I added dark cocoa powder to half of the frosting, and left the other half white, and then used a disposable piping bag fitted with a small round tip to pipe my Yin and Yang design.

I added the dots (chocolate dot on the white site, white dot on the chocolate side) to complete it.

The cupcakes were a hit, although when one of the Si-fu saw them he asked, puzzled, "Yin and Yang?" I just smiled, but I wanted to say "Yes! It's on your uniforms! I didn't know how else to decorate cupcakes for a Kung-Fu picnic!"

Anyway, all the cupcakes were eaten, so that's a good sign. Ha ha! The End.

minecraft cookies

To go along with the Minecraft cake that I made for Matthew's 10th birthday, I also made these Minecraft cookies to include with the party favors, as well as to pass out to his class the day of his birthday at school.

For the cookies, I made my favorite sugar cookie recipe (from my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), chilled it, and rolled it out to 1/8 inch thick. Then I used a set of nested square cookie cutters to cut out shapes (I originally got mine at Williams Sonoma, but they don't carry them anymore so these cutters are pretty close), Then I baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes until the edges were golden brown.

For the icing, I made a batch of royal icing (recipe also in my book!), and tinted the majority of it green (I used a combination of leaf green and forest green to achieve the perfect Minecraft green color!). Using stiff green icing and a small round tip fitted into a disposable pastry bag, I outlined each cookie, and then filled it in with runny green icing.

After letting the icing dry for several hours, I used stiff black icing (colored using Super Black) to pipe the creeper face on to each cookie, and then filled it in with runny black icing.

Then I let the cookies dry complete, and they were done!

I wrapped each cookie in individual cellophane favor bags and tied them with raffia, and Matthew passed them out to his classmates at school.



I also included the cookies in each favor bag at his video game birthday party at home.

Hope you had a happy birthday, my Matthew!