All Bea wanted for Christmas.....

... was her two front teeth.

It really happened. Bea lost both of her front teeth, just days before Christmas. She was all smiles showing her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

I asked her if she thought the tooth fairy might bring her a pink bunny Pillow Pet (since Santa had forgotten.. oops), and she said "Mom... the tooth fairy is too little. She can only carry small money."

Good point.

George Strait said it best.

I sure do like those Christmas cookies, sugar.

As the designated cookie-baker for my family, I always try to come up with a theme for my holiday treats. This year, I decided to bake one of the lyrics to George Strait's song: Christmas Cookies. Mostly because I wanted to surprise my brother, Kevin. He's a pretty phenomenal singer too, and this year, he professionally recorded a CD of Christmas tunes. Of course, Christmas Cookies was my favorite song on the album.

My brother, Kevin - singer & cookie-eater extraordinaire.

As you can see, it didn't take long for the nieces and nephews to eat their way through the batch. And make up some new words with the remaining letters.

Nephew, Tayler, rearranging the letters.

Bea, enjoying her mom's cookies.

Ice Skating Penguin Cookies

It's cookie-baking-palooza at our house.  Cookies for school parties. Cookies for office get-togethers. Cookies for family holiday gatherings. Cookies. Cookies. Cookies.

I made these ice skating penguin cookies for an office party at WSU this week. I used my favorite, simple, Kansas Sugar Cookie recipe, frosted with a light blue, lemon-y royal icing. The penguins are made from black licorice jelly beans. I added white chocolate eyes, bellies and skates, and used orange Nerd candies for the itty bitty beaks. If you look closely, you can see the little skate marks on the frosting "ice."

They made a fun & festive addition to our potluck party table.

* FYI... I made more of these for our family Christmas gatherings and couldn't find any more black jelly beans for the penguins, so I used Junior Mints instead. They were just as cute, and even more refreshing!

This made me laugh.

From Dog House Diaries, found on This Isn't Happiness.

The Good Life, with Guy Bower

I had the pleasure of chatting with Guy Bower today on KNSS radio. Guy hosts a talk radio program - The Good Life - every Saturday from noon to 1:00 pm, and I was his in-studio guest to discuss SheKnows.com and my recent recipe adventures with them.

What a great guy, that Guy! (No pun intended.) We visited like old friends and the hour just flew by. Amazing really, that we've never met before in this corner of the world called Wichita. There's a podcast available online, so click here if you'd like to have a listen.

This is the second radio interview I've done for my baking projects with SheKnows. Which seems kinda strange, since radio is all about hearing, and my stuff is all about seeing and tasting. Ha. Oh well. Who am I to question?

I hope the folks at SheKnows are happy with the interview. Guy did a phenomenal job of promoting their website as well as all of my projects. It's always enjoyable to see (and hear from) others who are excited about my crazy baking.

It was a lot of fun, and bonus - he even gave me champagne to drink! (His second guest was a woman from Barefoot Wine talking about their line of holiday bubbly, so it was only natural.) Don't mind if I do.

Cheers!

My view.

These two are pros. They were like a well oiled machine.

A glass of this at the beginning of the broadcast would have done wonders for my nerves.

I brought a few samples of my edible art.

Snowman Jello Shots

Snowman Jello Skewers?

Snowman Jello Kabobs?

Pina Colada Popsicles?

Frosty the Snowshot?

Holly Jolly Jello Fellows?

Call them whatever you want. I just call 'em fun.

Skewer up some simple snowman jello shots and serve a Christmas cocktail that's both clever and crafty.

Made with gelatine, rum and pina colada mix. Really easy. I swear. Check out SheKnows.com for the easy instructions.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Christmas Canine Cookies

Bow-WOW! These little Wiener Dog Santa cookies turned out almost cuter than I imagined. I bought a dachshund cookie cutter back in August, not knowing what I wanted to do with it, but I just had to have it. Glad I did. This idea hit me on a Saturday night, and by Sunday morning these pups were baked and assembled in my kitchen.

To make them stand upright, I frosted two, molasses-sugar-cookie dogs together. Added some candy eyes and noses, a few Tootsie Rolls for the ears, and the festive hats & scarves are made out of red, white and blue Airheads candies. You can find the complete instructions at SheKnows.

They just make me smile.

Cheery, Cherry Gingerbread Man Tarts

I'm not a huge, gingerbread-lover. But when I thought of this idea - to make little hand-held, gingerbread man pies - I never imagined how delicious these two flavors would be together. Gingerbread + cherry = AWESOME! Especially warm. 

I call them Gingerbread Man Tarts, because they're more like a Poptart, than a true pie. Pies have lots of chunky filling. This filling is more puréed. I tried making these the first time using whole cherry pie filling, and they turned out more like Tumor Men - a little too lumpy and bumpy. Trust me, not very appetizing. Kind of comical, actually. But the second time, I put my pie filling in the food processor to make it smooth and lump-free, and it worked perfectly. I think cherry preserves would work really great too.

If you want to make some yourself, check out my recipe and how-to photos at SheKnows.com. The gingerbread crust is really easy to make. (Pie crust in general kind of intimidates me, but not this none. It's fool proof.)

Edible, Colorful, Christmas Tree Cookies

They may look too pretty to eat, but believe me, they're delicious. And easy to make. (I created some beehive cookies, based on this same idea, back in September for my Bea's birthday.)

Make your own little forest of sugar spruces for a holiday table or cookie exchange. The recipe and assembly instructions are available at SheKnows. 

I think they'd be super-cute, packaged in individual clear boxes or tubes, with a tiny snowdrift of sugar on the bottom. Hummm... maybe I need to get back into the kitchen and explore that idea for my office gift exchange?

 

Cheese to Please

I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of copywriting students at WSU today, and I brought them a little snack - slices of pumpkin pie made out cheddar cheese wedges, assorted crackers and ranch dressing-flavored cream cheese.

The topic of today's presentation was: How to think visually. So naturally I shared a slideshow of my food art attempts and tried to explain the concepts behind the creations. After all, great creative always starts with a solid concept, right?

I'm not sure if I taught them anything, but at least I fed them.

UPDATE: In 2013, I created a simple tutorial for these pumpkin pie cheese appetizers. You can find it here, at SheKnows.

* The crackers I used were Triscuit Thin Crisps Chile Pepper (triangles), Chicken in a Biskit (rectangles), and Chex Mix Bold Party Blend (wavy sticks). I attached them to the cheese wedges with dollops of ranch dressing-flavored ream cheese.

Macaron anyone?

The first time I successfully made my first french macaron, I was hooked. Those crazy, cool, sweet & crunchy morsels of joy are are addictive. In more ways than one.

The folks at She Knows just posted a gallery of my many macaron adventures. Take a tour. I hope they inspire you to try them yourself someday. If not, I hope they at least make you smile.

P.S.

As I went through all of my photos last month, gathering images, it suddenly occurred to me how many FREAKIN' macarons I've made in two years. Geez. No wonder my house is such a mess. ;)

Mashed potatoes & gravy for dessert?

Yep.

Here's an easy idea to amuse (and possibly confuse) your Thanksgiving guests: cheesecake mashed potato bites with caramel gravy and chocolate pepper flakes.

The best part: you don't have to bake a thing, if you don't want to. I bought a cheesecake, some shortbread cookies and a bottle of caramel sauce, and assembled these in less than 30 minutes.

Find the instructions and how-to photos here, at SheKnows.com.

Make plenty. They'll want seconds.

Peekaboo Pumpkin Pound Cake

You say "Pumpkin!" 
I say "Pound Cake!" 
Pumpkin!
Pound Cake!
Pumpkin!
Pound Cake!

OK. Enough cheering. Let's eat. 

This is an easy-peasy, pumpkin-pleasy dessert with a surprise baked into every slice. Wanna know how I did it? Hop over to She Knows for the recipe.

P.S. The brown butter icing on this bad boy is my all-time favorite. That Martha Stewart knows her stuff, y'all.