dr. seuss cat in the hat cookies

A few months ago, my husband's coworker asked me to make cookies for a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower.  She sent me a few Dr. Seuss cartoon images, and I was immediately excited at the challenge!  We decided that I would make Cat In The Hat cookies, Cat's hat cookies, and One Fish Two Fish cookies.

The first thing I did was ask my husband to make me a Hat cookie cutter.  He's the best at making custom copper cutters!  (See my Superman, Thomas the Train, Dora The Explorer, Spiderman, custom Cat, and Standing Piggy cookies).  We even have an Etsy shop up for them!

After using my favorite cookie and royal icing recipes, I was ready to decorate my cookies!  I started by piping an outline and stripes on the hat cookies with stiff black royal icing.  Then I filled them in with red and white runny icing.

After letting them dry overnight, I finished them by using an edible food marker to draw on the details, to give them a "cartoon" look.

For the Cat In the Hat cookies, there were a few more steps.  First, I used royal icing to hand pipe each Cat onto waxed paper, let them dry overnight, and then used an edible food marker to draw on the face and the details.  Then after I baked rectangular cookies, I outlined and filled them with blue royal icing, peeled off the pre-made Cats, and dropped them on the cookies while the blue icing was still wet.

I used the same technique for the One Fish Two Fish cookies, which were inspired by the ones at Sweet Sugar Belle (love her site and her amazing work!).

These ended up being the most complicated cookies I've ever made!  But they were also super challenging and so much fun, and totally worth it!

dark cherry ice cream

Near the end of my pregnancy with my third baby, I started making a lot of ice cream.  Like, a lot.  Particularly, various flavors of ice cream with chopped Oreos.  And then my cousin suggested that I make black cherry ice cream.  I instantly set about to find the perfect recipe, and finally decided on David Lebovitz's recipe from The Perfect Scoop (what a surprise!).

The first step was to make candied cherries by simmering cherries, sugar, lemon juice, and water together.  They cooked for about 30 minutes until the cherry liquid reduced and became syrupy.

For the ice cream base, the recipe called for making a custard with egg yolks, sugar, heavy cream and milk that had been steeped with chopped almonds to give an almond flavor in the custard.  But since my 3-year old is allergic to nuts, I skipped that step and instead used imitation almond extract.  Then after chilling the mixture overnight, I churned it in my ice cream maker, and added the strained and chopped candied cherries during the last few minutes of churning.

Let me just say that once I tasted this ice cream, I instantly fell in love with it.  And so did my husband.  I must have made it at least 5 times during my last month of pregnancy!  This is definitely at the top of my list of favorite ice cream recipes!

cat cookies and onesie cookies for a baby shower

To go along with the purple cat cake for Leona's baby shower, my good friend Diana had also asked me to make cat and onesie cookies as favors for the guests.  Using the cat logo from the baby shower invitation (designed by Diana and her husband Gavin, owners and creators of Bumble Ink), I decided to make two versions of the cat cookies - the original cat logo, and also just the cat face.

 I asked my husband to make custom cookie cutters for me, and he created both of them in one night!  He's the best!

For the cookie dough, I used my favorite homemade sugar cookie recipe, but you could of course use store bought sugar cookie dough.  After rolling out the dough, cutting out my shapes, and then baking them until golden, I whipped up my royal icing while waiting for the cookies to cool.  Once they were ready, I piped outlines on the cat cookies using stiff purple royal icing, and then filled them in with runny purple royal icing.

Then I did the same for the oneside cookies, except with this onesie cookie cutter and with white royal icing.

Once all the cookies were outlined and filled in, I let them dry overnight before piping on the details. The onesies were outlined with sage green, and I finished them by piping a tiny heart in the middle.

For the cat cookies, I used white for the details on the face, and more purple to add a final outline.

I thought the sage green royal icing matched the invitations pretty well, although the shade of purple royal icing for the cats was a bit off.  But oh well, they still looked cute!

And finally, a few pictures from the english tea themed baby shower!

purple cat baby shower cake with petal sides

Back in December, my good friend Diana threw a baby shower for her sister Leona, and she had asked me to make the cake and cookie favors for the cat-themed event.  Diana and her husband, owners and creators of Bumble Ink, had designed the cat logo for the shower invitations, so we decided I would use the same cat logo for the cake!

The baby shower colors were to be purple and green, but after a few sketches Diana and I decided that the cake would look better with just purple and white.

Diana's sister had requested anything chocolate, so I decided to make a moist chocolate cake, filled with decadent chocolate mousse.  I split each cake layer in half horizontally, giving me four layers of cake, and three layers of mousse (with a cream cheese buttercream border so that the mousse wouldn't ooze out of the cake!).

Then I did a quick crumb coat with cream cheese buttercream, and let it set in the fridge before proceeding with the petal sides.

Once the crumb coat was set, I piped my petal sides, starting with the darkest purple on the bottom, the medium purple in the middle, and white on the top.  To see more of my petal cakes, see here, here, and here (you can also see the original tutorial over at Hungry Housewife).

After piping a congratulations message on the top, I piped the outline of the cat logo, and then filled it in with a Wilton star tip.

I finished it off with a Wilton tip #2 for the details on the cat's face, and then I was done!

At the baby shower, I loved that Diana's daughter spent some time just sitting and staring at the cake ...

... until finally she could finally have a bite!

Congratulations Leona!  We can't wait to meet your new little one!

blackberry oreo ice cream, and the newest addition to our family!

As some of you may already know, three weeks ago I gave birth to my third baby!  This explains why I've been M.I.A, in case you were wondering!  But in the weeks right before I gave birth, I became really obsessed with Oreo cookies.  Especially in ice cream.  Maybe it was because I was very pregnant!  Or maybe it's just because I love Oreo cookies.  In any case, I made lots and lots of coffee oreo ice cream, as well as mint oreo ice cream.  (Those are my two current favorites!)

But after making multiple batches of each, I wanted to try something new.  So I started flipping through my copy of Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, Bi-Rite Creamery's ice cream book (which was given to me by my good friend - thanks, Diana!).  And that's when a recipe for blackberry ice cream caught my eye.  Now, I've made Blackberry Frozen Yogurt before, but for some reason I have yet to make it in ice cream form.  So I decided to try it out - with a twist.  I've heard of blackberry chip ice cream before, basically blackberry ice cream with chocolate chips or chunks in it, so why not try it with Oreo cookies instead?

I started by cooking my blackberries with sugar on the stove for about 10 minutes, until the berries broke apart and the resulting fruity syrup had reduced.  Then I pureed it and strained it, and then made my ice cream base (the usual egg yolks, sugar, heavy cream, and milk, cooked on the stove to form a custard).  Once that was ready, I combined the custard base with the pureed blackberries, and let it cool in the fridge overnight.

The next day, I was ready to churn my ice cream!  I added my chopped Oreo cookies during the last 5 minutes of churning, and then I let it set in the freezer overnight.  And then it was time to taste it!  The blackberry ice cream was smooth, creamy, and tart.  At first I wasn't sure if the Oreo cookies went well with the blackberry.  And then I decided, yes, Oreo cookies go well with everything!  Or maybe that was just my pregnancy taste buds talking!

And now for a few pictures of the newest addition to our family, baby Micah!  He joins his siblings Matthew and Melodie, and together they are now referred to as The Three Musketeers :)