I hope everyone had a nice (cold) Easter weekend. Seems like winter wanted to see what Easter was like in many locations, including Chicago. At least we didn’t get rain.
I spent Saturday making the cookies pictured above. The carrot cookie cutter had been sitting on my kitchen counter, taunting me, since March 1 or so. My original, Martha-esque plan was to make and decorate thte cookies during the week while my son was at school. Funny how that didn’t happen. I woke up at 2:30 Saturday morning, obviously thinking about this project. Could I pull it off? What recipes should I use? I got out of bed (at 2:30 am!) and printed off a cookie recipe from the Williams-Sonoma website. By the time I woke up again, I was much less stressed, and chose a different recipe. I went with Ina Garten’s recipe for shortbread from the very first Barefoot Contessa cookbook. The recipe for royal icing is courtesy of Martha Stewart, because when you’re decorating cookies, she is the go-to source. (The secret is meringue powder. The second secret, equally important, is disposable pastry bags.) I am quite pleased with the results, both in taste and appearance, though I can’t recommend the 11th-hour aspect. I will start earlier next time.