Now that Christmas is over, so is my Christmas baking. There is just something about the Christmas season that makes me want to bake a bunch of things. I tend to go a little crazy but it is worth it because we always have a lot of yummy treats.

Right before Christmas I made some peanut butter blossoms (which are my favorite) and then used this peanut butter chocolate chip recipe to make some yummy cookies. I got both of these recipes from Bake at 350 which I think is my new favorite baking blog!

Then the day before Christmas we made Christmas cookies. I used two recipes. The first one Alyssa at Near Normalcy told me about from Cake Central. This one tasted good and it dried really fast. I didn’t make it quite thick enough though. The other recipe was also on Cake Central called Antonia74 Royal icing and it had a lot of great reviews. It turned out well but I really wish I had a KitchenAid mixer or something besides a hand mixer. Hoping that can happen sometime in 2012.

I am still unsure about the icing dripping out like that. I am guessing I will figure it out with more practice.

The boys helped me with this batch so we made some fun interesting cookies this time. It was a lot of fun watching them come up with different designs. I love my happy face.

Since one of my goals for 2012 is to lose about 30lbs, I really have to make sure I am not tempted to eat so many of the treats I want to make. I am going to start off working on one batch of cookies and making one cake a month. Most likely I will make it for some event or for someone else. I want to keep practicing without always having a ton of sweets in the house.

So a few weeks ago I heard about making cookies with Royal icing.  I am sure I had eaten it before but now I knew what it was and how to make it.  Since my son was having a Christmas party I thought I would make some Christmas cookies he could take to the party.  I have made Christmas cookies many times but I have never made Royal icing.   I read a couple of blogs that helped me figure it out.  The Sweet Adventures of Sugar Belle had an awesome Sugar cookie recipe.   She also had some great tips about working with Royal icing.  Bake at 360 had a lot of great tips too.  I saw these Christmas tree cookies and used them as a guide to make my own. I decided to use the Wilton’s Royal icing recipe to see if I would like it or not.  It seems like it has received mixed reviews.  I did add a little vanilla to it though.

The icing itself was not hard to make.  I divided it up into four different colors.  Green, darker green, red and brown.  I used this idea (this is a video) from Karen’s Cookies to make it a little easier for myself.

With Royal icing you use different consistencies for different things that you want to do.  I made some with piping consistency and some with flood consistency for each color.  I think the green turned out the best.  I think I messed up on the red and brown.  The red was hard to make the color I wanted it to be too.  I still have a lot to learn about making this stuff.

I put the flood icing in these bottles.  Picked them up for cheap at Walmart.

The piping consistency icing went in the bags.

Making the outline

I was excited to figure out how to make the dots.

Who wants a cookie?

I am really excited I decided to attempt to make these.  I admit I was a little overwhelmed but it was fun.  I plan to make another batch for Christmas and then something fun for New Year’s Eve.  I think the next time I make them I will only stick to one cookie cutter.  I also tried to make Santas, reindeer and a few other things.  I just think it might be easier to make all of one type.  I also think I will stick to a max of three colors.  I want to play around with some other Royal icing recipes and see what I like best.  The Wilton one was okay but I want to see if I can find something I like better.

What are you baking this week?

Today my husband graduated from WLC!  WLC stands for Warrior Leader Course.  I am so proud of him!  He has been waiting to go to WLC forever it seems.  For one reason or another it hasn’t worked out until now.  Baby J and I were able to attend the graduation ceremony today.  I sadly didn’t see Ben during the actual ceremony.  I just knew he was in the back row and he knew that we were there. It gave me chills when all the men and women started singing the Army Song.  What a great feeling that was!  To know Ben was apart of something like this.  That he was entering into a different role in the Army.  That he will be moving on to new responsibilities both when he is at home and when he has to go to war again.

After the ceremony they gave us 10 minutes to spend with the soldiers but it took me about that long to find him.  When I did I gave him a hug and a kiss and told him congratulations.  I am glad that the training is over.  It will be great having him around for dinner again.