Wedding Cakes and Cookies

It's pretty exciting when your only daughter comes home from a vacation and informs her mother that she's engaged. It's even more exciting when her fiance (very foreign word) is someone who you know will make your daughter happy. After all, I've had 7.5 years of having him around to get used to him and appreciate him as a perfect match.

After a couple of days of burning up the telephone lines and hearing "Sunrise, Sunset" playing in my head, the reality of logistics started moving to the front burner. After all, 75% of the guests will be coming from out of town (myself included). Helping with coordinating this event is a tougher task and largely done by telephone and pictures. I'm thinking I should create a slide show of the different engagement ring options, the samplings from potential restaurants, dresses in styles and colours and ideas for flowers. It does work - thank goodness for the internet.

One of the events we planned was a welcoming buffet and Psychgrad thought that having our blogging friends help contribute with ideas for what would make a smashing buffet would be a fun Tried Tested and True - Wedding Edition Event Submission are due by February 20th - What will we prepare? Ack!!! I definitely need some help!! Yup, this is me begging... (how pathetic am I)

I tend to obsess (should come as no surprise to Psychgrad) and a wedding is pretty high end on the obsession scale for me. What to do? What to prepare? Ok, I think I figured out that I'd like to do something a little different - at least different to me. Here is my submission to Psychgrad's wedding event.

If you're looking at it and saying "what the hell is that", you wouldn't be the first. It's a towel wedding cake that's pretty jammed with small goodies that every bride should have. Let me clarify - Psychgrad and I don't always agree on what she needs.

You'll notice in the front are a couple of cookies, heart shaped, in bride and groom configurations. I borrowed this recipe for sugar cookies that came from Katie of Good Things Catered that came from another friend - clearly a great recipe. They really are the most fabulous sugar cookies. I'm not a fancy baker and working with Royal Icing is a little daunting, messy and a whole day job.


Royal Icing

4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar
3 Tbsp meringue powder
5-7 tablespoons water (dependent on the humidity factor of your kitchen)

1. Mix confectioner's in stand mixer with paddle attachment starting on low and adding water 1 Tbsp at a time up to 4 Tbsp and then smaller amounts to achieve desired consistency. You'll need 2 consistencies - 1/2 the batch for piping outlines in the cookies (medium consistency) and 1/2 the batch thinner for flooding the cookies. Adding food colour should be in a clean metal or glass container. Anything that is even remotely greasy (plastic is a good culprit unless it's new) will break the royal icing.

2. The key to good icing is all about practise, understanding consistencies and having a steady hand. I'm still working on all of it and hopefully I'll get it right by June. If not, I'll be giving away tons of wonky looking sugar cookies.

3. I used a #2 Wilton tip for outlining and a small metal spoon for flooding the cookies.

4. After the first step of icing dries on the cookies (overnight) I went back over the bride cookies to add more decoration.

Note: Royal Icing dries faster than nail polish - be sure to cover it with a damp cloth when you're working with it.

With all the stressors people face on a daily basis in their lives, isn't it a fun thing to celebrate!!! Please join our celebration.