MMM...DONUTS...

This week's box is brought to you by The Simpsons and the letter mmmmm.... and the letter ooooooo....
My inspiration for said box started a few weeks ago, after finding some Simpson's gummy snacks at Michael's. I figured it'd be easy. I could throw in The Simpson's Movie, The Simpson's gummy snacks, those embarrassing and tacky Simpson's boxer shorts (you can find those just about anywhere), and some Butterfingers (remember those old Bart Simpson's commercials?) Of course, that's about all I thought of at the time, but I figured I'd think of more as time went along.  Well, I didn't think of much more, as that's about all the Simpson's items that inevitably ended up in the box a few weeks later.  However, my husband has requested I place individual snack bags in each box now, so there wasn't room for much more anyhow.  When considering cookie ideas for my Simpson's Themed box,  I thought about making beer mugs, beer cans, radio active symbols or a few other cookie ideas.  But there was no doubt I had to do donuts. We all know Homer loves Donuts, if you don't believe me, read the above post. Here is a step by step of this weeks cookie...

Step 1: Use a circular cookie cutter or a cup to cut out your cookies.  Then use a smaller circular item (like the base of an icing tip) to cut out the center hole.  Place on a baking sheet.

Step 2: Bake them (duh)

Step 3: Clean your mixing bowl so that you may prepare your icing for the next step.

Step 4: Pipe the outline of the donut icing with the thicker icing. Allow at least 1 hour of setting time before moving to step 5.

Step 5: Fill in the icing with the glacé icing and cover with sprinkles.

Who gives a hoot?

So this week's care package is still a secret, but here's a hint...I made the hubs some owl cookies.  These were not easy to make, I couldn't find an idea on google that I liked, so I had to come up with something all on my own.  I'm not a creative thinker like that, I need visuals!  I also decided to only make 7 cookies this week as opposed to the typical 2 dozen.  My husband is a health nut, he doesn't even eat these cookies, I'm pretty sure he gives most of them away.  But he enjoys the surprise of the cookies, and I'm just making them for fun. So what's the point in making 24 at a time?  I decided to freeze the remaining cookie dough for next weeks' cookies.   It was nice only having to decorate 7 at a time, but it left no room for error. Luckily, I only screwed up 1.  I wouldn't really say I screwed it up, actually I forgot to decorate it all together, haha.  Luckily, my son didn't mind disposing of the sad forgotten cookie.   The cookies are ready, the box is ready, but I'm not headed to the post office today.  I have another batch of cookies to bake tonight.  Yes, you read that right another batch for the non-cookie-eating, health nut soldier.  Well, I can't help it.  This recipe was perfect for the box theme, plus this batch isn't going to be for show, they're all about taste!  I have a feeling my husband won't be sharing these so much.  You can read all about the in my next post...leaving you won't hint closer to figuring out the theme to the mystery box.

For now, here's my hooters...

The Coolest Care Package Ever

Yeah that title is a pun, but you can take it literally too...because Penguins are awesome! You would already know that if you had read my previous post.  Anyhow, as I've already noted, my husband loves penguins, so I HAD to send him a penguin themed box this month.  To date, this one is my favorite :D  Honestly, I think the boxes just get better and better.  I've got about 9 stacked up in my office, every other day I'm adding a couple items to each box until they are filled.  I have a box that is just about filled to the top, so I just need to make some cookies this weekend and I'll have it in the mail Monday.  I can't discuss the details of the box yet though, it's Top Secret.  Well, really it's because I think my husband has been checking my blog lately, spoiling his themed box surprises.  So you'll have to wait until he sees it before I can discuss it.  But to hold you over, here's this week's box.

Christmas in July, maybe?

My husband's favorite animal is the penguin. I mean, can you blame him? When God designed these cute little wobbly creatures, he dressed them in a tuxedo.  They're also a bird that doesn't fly, but swims.  Ha, it's like a slap in Charles Darwin's face, and who doesn't love beating up on ole Darwin now and again?  So anyhow, when I first started this whole "themed box" idea, the penguin box was the first one I started working on.  It's taken a very long time to perfect said box, mainly because it's been my favorite box to date and I just looooved adding stuff to it, but partially because it's very difficult to find penguin items in July.  Well, last week I finally was prepared to send out the penguin box so I started working on my penguin cookies.  Here's the process and final product...

Look out! Here Comes the Spider Cookie

So this week I let my son decide on the theme of daddy's box.  After a short debate, he settled on Spiderman.  Since I've recently decided that each of my husband's themed packages must now contain a unique homemade cutout cookie,  I Googled some Spiderman cookie ideas.  I decided to attempt the ones I found on this site.  They didn't come out nearly as professional as the ones I found, but I don't bake cookies for a living.  So I'm still super proud. Here's the process.  First, I made a template for the eyes and placed parchment paper (I was out of wax paper) over the template and used black royal icing to pipe over it.  I filled in the black outline with white thin icing using the colorflow (or flooding) technique from here.  I let that dry for about 4 or 5 hours.  While waiting, I baked the cookies.  Once cooled, I outlined them in royal icing and again used the colorflow technique to fill them in with red.  Once dry, I piped a spider web.  To finish the cookies, I carefully pulled the eyes away from the parchment paper and placed them onto the webbed cookies using royal icing as a glue to hold them in place.  And there you have it! Spiderman cookies.

Picture Perfect Cookies

Tomorrow morning I'll be dropping off my husband's 4th of July care package.  So tonight is prep night :)  I've been feeling a bit crafty lately, so I did a little online research and found some tips on cookie decorating here.  Instead of just smearing royal icing over a cookie, I learned about flooding a cookie.  It requires a thinner royal icing. You can add more milk to your royal icing or look up a recipe for glacé icing.  The technique requires you to first outline the cookie with your regular royal icing and then use the thinner icing to flow out to the edges.  I used a toothpick to help direct the icing to the corners.  This is a pretty simple technique, hard to mess up.  They turned out super pretty!