Fireworks Cookies

For our 4th of July trip to Traverse City, I tried my hand at making Martha Stewart's fireworks cookies. Basically, they're just round sugar cookies with royal icing swirled into a "firework" pattern. I didn't have high expectations, but these cookies wound up being my new favorite sugar cookies. They were flavorful, stayed moist for days, and the dough was easy to work with. I'm thinking about this recipe again because I'm planning on making these cookies for tailgates, but instead of using red, white, and blue royal icing, I'll be using maize and blue frosting. :) These cookies would be a great addition to any college tailgate if you just change the color of the icing (blue and orange for Florida, blue and white for Penn State, purple and yellow for LSU, etc).

Ingredients for Cookies:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
2 cups white sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Ingredients for the Royal Icing:
1 cup water
1/2 cup meringue powder (or equivalent amount of egg whites)
2 lbs sifted confectioners sugar
gel paste food coloring in chosen colors

Directions:
Sift flours, baking powder, and salt into a small bowl. Set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Add the vanilla extract and mix until combined.

Place the dough into plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

After the dough has rested, dust a clean surface with flour and roll the dough out to approximately 1/4 inch thick. Cut out circles using a round biscuit or cookie cutter. Place cut cookies onto a baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 more minutes.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake cookies for approximately 17 minutes, or until edges just start to brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Once cookies are completely cooled, make the royal icing. Whisk the water and meringue powder until soft peaks form (about 3 minutes if using a stand mixer). Add the confectioners sugar and mix until the icing is the consistency of glue.

Transfer icing to squeeze bottles or piping bags. Tint the icing with the food coloring until colors are as desired. Make sure to leave one portion of icing white.

Pipe white icing in a circle around the perimeter of the cookie and then flood the center of the cookie with white icing. Using colored icings, pipe a dot in the middle and then concentric circles or alternating colors. Use a toothpick to drag the icing from the center of the cookie to the edge of the cookie, creating a "firework" pattern.

Let icing dry completely before packaging.

My cookies...they don't look quite as good as Martha's but they're close!

*Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Living Magazine, July 2011

Bowtie Baby Shower

Two Saturdays ago my friend Erin, my mom, and my mother-in-law threw a very cute baby shower for JRM III and me. When Erin asked what I would like for a shower I suggested a bowtie theme since I'd seen some cute examples around the web and since Joe happens to have a passion for wearing bowties. Erin spent a lot of time with ribbons and construction paper making all sorts of bowtie decorations.

She even had several custom bowtie onesies made that were part of the decorations, but are also something that JRM III will be able to wear.
For the second time in two years, I had a bowtie cake. (My first bowtie cake was the one I ordered for Joe's groom's cake at our wedding.)

For favors, bowtie sugar cookies were given out. They were made by Erin's Chicago friend Sari's Sweets.

I received lots of wonderful gifts including monogrammed blankets, a custom bowtie quilt that my aunt made, car seats, baby clothing, story books, baby toys, and lots of other items off of our registry. Thanks to everyone who came and to everyone who sent gifts!