Gourmet Specialty's

St. Patrick sugar cookies

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Each year the New York Draw Horse Association has a Corn-beef and Cabbage dinner during the St.Patrick's Day weekend. This year the organizers requested a horse shape sugar cookies for each guest at the event. I had several horse shape cookie cutters and baked several of each shape.

I bake my cookies so that I can turn them over and frost the back of the cookie as it is a completely flat surface. I start by using a flood sugar as the base frosting and once this is dry, I use royal frosting to hand pipe the detail

Welcome Riley Lucas

The excitement of a new baby brings together family and friends to celebrate.

This shower cake serves 50 guests. The base tier is an 11" Red Velvet cake with Cream Cheese and the top tier is a 7" White cake with Buttercream filling. The cake is frosted in buttercream and features very very thin fondant pieces. (As the two mediums do not work well together, it is important to make the weight of the fondant as thin as possible so that it will not pull off the buttercream.) The momma and baby whale on the top are made of gumpaste and the white pearl border is made of fondant.

Congratulations to the new parents!

Clara Grace's Baptisim

A second grandchild for my first customer, Clara Grace.

This is a 13x9 sheet serving 20-25 guest. The cake was White with Strawberry filling. The ribbon cross was made of fondant and the pale pink roses are gumpaste. I used a rose tip to add definition between the shell border.

Ashton

Ashton is the lovely daughter of a women who trains at the same gym I do. Ashton and her family live the next town over from my home and her mom said every time they past my house she tells her mom she "wants her birthday cake done by that lady"

This is a standard 8" size birthday cake which serves 12 guest. It is a Chocolate cake with fudge filling. The cake was covered in fondant zebra stripes, the bow, ribbon roses and gift tag were also made of fondant. The bottom border was large size fondant pink beads.

( I completed this cake late into the night, therefore, the picture was taken under kitchen lights and unfortunately the picture does not have nice sharp color.)

Junior's 5

Our little neighbor boy is celebrating his 5th birthday. His mom said he wants a Hot Wheels cake.

This is a 1/4 sheet cake, half White with Strawberries and half Carrot with Cream Cheese filling. The top surface was airbrushed green and a fondant racetrack was shaped into the number 5. Three hot wheel cars are also made of fondant as well and the start and finish lines. A grass tip was used to create grass patches in buttercream and small little gumpaste flowers were added to finish the overall design.

Snow Globes sugar cookies

How cute are these!!!! 3-D snow globe sugar cookies.

I baked the ball part of the cookies on the back of the half ball pan and allowed them to cool completely. I then cut a baked the front face of the ball and the bottom plaque (which allows the cookie to stand).

Next I painted the inside of the ball with thin cookie frosting and applied dried-out sugarveil for the snow. When the cookie frosting crusted over I added the figures inside (Wilton) I then allowed this to dry completely while I covered all the other cookie parts in the thin cookie frosting.

As the cookies were drying, I cut snow flakes using a punch and frosting paper. I then applied gum glue to the snow flake and edible glitter. When all parts were dry, I assembled the cookies and trimmed them with royal frosting and dragees.

They were sealed in shrink wrap and taken to our grandchildren for Christmas in Tennessee.

Christmas Wreath sugar cookie

Christmas 2012 was so much fun!!!

I have collected cookie cutters for more than 20 years, and as I did not have any cake orders, I spent the free time making very detailed sugar cookies.

I saw this wreath idea more than a year ago while looking at cookie cutter websites. It consists of one large circle cookie (used to stabilize the entire design) Then the holly leaves are cut in three different sizes and the bow is a tear drop cutter and a swag cutter (two of each.)

All the cookies are baked and cooled. Using a thin green cookie frosting, the circle and leaves are all frosted and allowed to air dry for several hours. I then hand pipped the outline of each leaf in a slightly lighter color for contrast.

The bow was frosted in white and then I applied frosting paper which was printed in a plaid design (I scanned a piece of scrap-booking paper for this.) I then trimmed out the bow in white royal frosting. While all of these were drying, I cut out two size circles of red fondant to represent the holly berries and one large circle for the center knot of the bow.

To finish the wreath I assembled all the leaves (approximately 3 dozen) with royal frosting onto the large circle cookie. The berries and silver dragees are the final touch.

Kaitlin and Adam

The final wedding cake for 2012 was as beauty. The reception was held at Quincy Cellars Winery and the cake was displayed on a wine barrel.

The design was replicated from a cake the bride had seen in a magazine. It features an 11"x 6" Almond cake with Almond mousse, 9" Almond Joy cake (rich dark bittersweet chocolate cake with the traditional Almond Joy coconut filling and a layer of fudge); note that this layer is only 2" high. Designs where the layers are different heights give a truly dramatic look to the overall cake. The next tier was 7" x 5" White cake with Italian buttercream and the top was 5" x 4" Almond cake with standard buttercream.

All tiers were covered in an ivory fondant and the flowers are small roses in relief made both in deep aubergine and lavender colors. The greenery is hand piped in royal frosting. Around the base of each tier is a royal frosting pearl border and the couple monogram was the final touch.

Ella's 2nd Birthday

Ella's cake was an 8" Almond cake with fresh Raspberries and buttercream frosting. The letters, ribbon, bow, number and Elmo are all made of fondant.

Jack-O'-Lantern

As our children are grown, we no longer carve pumpkins for Halloween. I looovvvveeee Halloween, so this year I decided to make sugar cookies that I could light-up in the house.

Using my favorite sugar cookie dough, I rolled out and cut my pumpkin, as well as three small squares. Once the pieces were cooled, I frosted the cookies, then using isomalt I filled in the eyes, nose and mouth. Royal icing was used to glue all the pieces together and allowed to dry overnight.

Here he is all lit-up using a tea-light candle :)

Brenda and Rob

The brides design was one found on the internet in black and white. However, she changed just about everything from the picture to create an original design just for her big day.

Colors of Tiffany and Brown.

Being a A-type artistic personality, I usually keep all things in natural color to represent the beauty of nature, i.e. flowers. With that being said sometimes fake color works better and this cake was just one that worked. These flowers are based on a poppy and impatiens. First I made small cone centers in several sizes and painted them tiffany blue or brown. I then wrapped coat-thread around my fingers several times to make the stamen which were tapped into place. These were allowed to dry overnight.

Next I cut the petals and took a center down through the middle of each flower. When all the flowers were complete, I typed the wires to create a cascade of flowers for the front of the cake. I added spiral wire in brown to give the final design a little edge.

The cake board was initially white and to much of a contrast to the flowers so before assembling the cake I airbrushed the lace a tiffany blue.

This cake features a 12" Chocolate Peanut Butter cake with Peanut Butter Mousse, a 9" Red Velvet cake with Strawberry compote and a 6" Spice with Apple Butter Cream Cheese filling. The couple also had a half sheet cake of Marble cake with Fudge filling.

Bernice

The couple was married in Sedona, AZ, on Bear Mountain and returned to Erie Pennsylvania to celebrate with those who could not make the trip.

I had a lovely conversation with the mother-of-the-bride (Bernice) who placed the order.

She requested a two tier design and emailed a picture of the centerpieces another daughter had made for the tables. The centerpieces where small pails with a Saguaro Cactus in the center and red and yellow desert flowers all around. The pail then had a raffia bow tied around its middle.

Using the Fat-Daddio paisley cake pans (as a representation for the mountains), the bottom tier was White and the top tier was Chocolate all with a Strawberry Compote. The Saguaro Cactus are sugar cookies, the desert flowers were gumpaste. I airbrushed the surface of the cake the color of the raffia. I then added a warm sun-set sky, and candy pebbles all around. I also made a Sugarveil bow this same color as the raffia to tie around the base of the flowers.

A full sheet of Marble cake with Strawberry Compote made a grand total of 150 guest.