Sunday, February 7, 2010

Julie, Julia, and Amanda (Part 1)

Now I've done it. I've cut the dickens out of my finger!

(Not really. But who doesn't love that skit?)

Anyways... this weekend I was invited to a little shindig. Here's the deal (broken down like those invitations you wish you got to the popular kids' parties in middle school).

What: Julie & Julia Dinner Party

When: Saturday, Feb. 6, 6pm until...

Where: Blair's

What to Bring: A Julia Chid dish and copies of the recipes to share.

Sounds simple enough, right?

And it was...

Until I woke up the morning of the party (alright, alright, it was 11am... which is still technically morning) and decided that - in addition to my Julia Child recipe that was mostly ready - I needed to bake and decorate Julia Child cookies.

Once I had a plan for the day that involved baking, decorating, and (most importantly) no paper grading, I jumped out of bed and into action.

I rolled out the leftover Brownie Roll-Out Dough that I had frozen the other day.


And I asked Twitter to spot the theme. For the record... no one even came close.


While the cookies cooled, I made the royal icing and got to the delicate, precise work of outlining the cookies. White first...


And here, dear readers, is the danger of using Ziploc bags instead of decorator icing bags. How-ev-er, this explosion can be easily avoided by putting less icing in the bag and double bagging those suckers. This one explosion was my only one all day.


But don't you worry... I made the absolute most of that one explosion by dropping the squooshed out royal icing in the eye of the stove. Brilliant, I know.

Back to the cookies... six hours after I sprang out of bed and into action... I had a collection of Julia Child themed cookies.


Et voila!

Hopefully, hoooopefully you can identify fish, onions, pots or cleavers (your choice), French flags, and wine glasses.

I for one was pretty pleased with the cookies. I know my royal icing skills aren't perfect, but I think they are serviceable and I'm having a lot of fun getting creative with the stuff. Next time I make and decorate cookies, I'm going to make one or two shapes and cut down on the ridiculous variance. I don't want to jump the shark.

Now, for those of you keeping track, I still haven't told you about my actual Julia Child recipe. That is a project for another day. Stay tuned!

14 comments:

kmari03 said...

Wow! They look awesome!! Especially the flags and onions. I need to try that brownie roll-out deal. And pipe icing instead of obsessively rolling it on with toothpicks...

Evan said...

Very nice. The onions do look really good.

Amanda said...

The onions were my absolute favorite. When I saw how well they turned out, I wished I had done all onions and created a massive pile just like her chopping breakdown.

Ash said...

These are friggin' amazing! I would have not guessed this was the theme!

I've been decorating cookies all weekend, luckily I've just stuck to hearts and two colours.

I have to agree and say the onions too are my fav.

Liesl said...

How cute! Great job Amanda!! What a great idea to bring to the party, and I bet that party was so much fun!

How To Eat A Cupcake said...

Hurray for Julie & Julia!

Soooo... I had the same thing with the Ziploc bag happen to me the other day. Only I was using one to drizzle ganache on top of Josh's perfectly frosted birthday cake. It was frosted with whipped cream, so you can imagine my horror when the bag exploded all over the cake....... NOT CUTE! :(

How To Eat A Cupcake said...

Oh and PS: If you ever run out of heavy cream... don't try to use the Redi-whip stuff in a can to pipe rosettes on top of a cake. It deflates in about 45.8 seconds and becomes a watery mess! =/

Anita said...

Beautiful cookies!!

A Slice of Concentrated Love said...

Nice work. You're giving me more cookie ideas!

Eva said...

haha I could not figure out what a fish, wine glass and a cartoon talking box had to do with each other. At least your decorating stayed! I did it once where I didn't make the icing thick enough and it ran out everywhere. I mean everywhere.

How To Eat A Cupcake said...

yo girrrl i made yo cooooookies!

Kathleen said...

Very fun idea! Great tip about double bagging!

kitchen koala said...

Those look great! I totally couldn't guess the theme either.
Onion cookies = awesome.

Amber said...

I am SO blown away by this. You are the master, for reals.

I laughed out loud at the squirt in the eye of the stove. Story of my life!