Southern Livin'

Hey Ya'll! Shortly after finishing the spring semester I went on a week long vacation to North Carolina to visit my best friend and fellow blogger Melania from LUSH-ous Baking. Since she moved down to the south I've truly missed our girl-time together where we would craft, eat good food (and bad-for-you food lol) and watch movies together. So that's what our vacation was mainly about, just doing things like in the good ole days where we were just a 15 minute walk from each other.

On one of the days during the vacation we were inspired by the southern cooking queen herself; Paula Dean. And here are the results:

Southern Red Velvet cake recipe from Boozy Baker

 First we decided it was only appropriate to make something "Southern" so we chose to do Southern Comfort Red Velvet cake from the new baking book The Boozy Baker that I gave to Melania for her birthday. (I love that the author's name is Lucy Baker!)

Preping

 We had to make a run to the ABC Store. For us Yankees who don't know that's what the liquor stores are called in the South. They can't buy hard liquor in grocery stores like we do! I don't know how a Wisconsin girl could live that way...lol.

If you've ever watched Paula Dean in action you know no matter how messy she never takes off her rings!

Don't forget your BLING ladies!

Always tell your Kitchen Aide mixer how much you appreciate it!

Bunny Shaped cake forms; cause why wouldn't you?

I shocked Melania with my speedy decorating skills!

I felt it needed more cream cheese frosting...and got a delicious ghost bunny out of it.

RAWR! Bunny taste GOOD!

Also if you're curious to know what we did with the rest of the Southern Comfort bottle we made a grand discovery that it is amazing with another Southern treat: Cheer Wine! Try it now! Remember it's 5 o'clock somewhere!

I chipped my tooth and I think I ate the piece that broke off!

Today's blog title is brought to you by my former classmate Janice after I made everyone decorated molar-shaped sugar cookies for the last day of class; out of context it sure does sound like a shocking statement!

 

 

 

Janice's "chipped" tooth!

Sugar cookies are something I have a lot of practice with at work. I've literally made dozens of dozens of various shapes and designs for holidays, sports and events. But when I do it at work it's easy; the cookie dough is premixed and so is the royal icing. So rather than take the easy route and give everyone in my class just the 'run of the mill' mass production cookies I thought I'd give myself a little challenge and make my own cookie dough and icing. It was easier than I even thought and tasted 10x better than the ones I make at work (it's cause love is a flavoring you know heehee).

Here is a wonderfully and simple sugar cookie recipe:

1 Cup butter (room temp)
1 Cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 Cups sifted flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Cream butter. Add powdered sugar. Blend in egg, almond, vanilla, salt and flour. Chill dough in refrigerator until firm. On a lightly floured surface roll dough into 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters, or if you're crazy (and cheap) like me you make your own template out of cardboard and cover it with plastic wrap and use a knife to individually cut out each one.... 0_o
Place on greased cookie sheets and bake 8-10 minutes. *Cookies should NOT brown*

After the cookies have fully cooled, now comes the the tedious and sometimes a bit frustrating decorating.

Royal Icing recipe

4 Cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons meringue powder
5 tablespoons water

Combine all ingredients in stand mixer. Mix on low speed until sheen has disappeared, about 7-10 minutes. Will have a matte appearance. It will be incredibly thick; if it seems too difficult to get out of the bowl or even attempt to hand mix, go ahead and add one tablespoon of water at a time until it is manageable. Transfer to a container with a tight lid to prevent icing from becoming hard during decorating.

Add enough water (one tablespoon at a time) to get it to pass through your piping tip of your pastry bag. I used a Wilton #4 tip. Outline all  your cookies, this serves as a border to hold in the rest of the icing. Now water down the rest of your icing until it's very smooth but remember just a little bit of water at a time. If you do get it too watered down you can add more powdered sugar but it's easier if you just don't get to that point. The icing should be to the consistency of where you pull the spoon out when it drips back into rest that it dissipates in about 2 seconds. The next step is called "flooding" where you fill the space inside the border you created before. Where I have gaps I just "shake" the cookie back and forth to smooth it out or use a tooth pick if there's air bubbles.

Outlined

"Flooded"

Now comes the boring part, you let them dry...and you wait and you wait and wait and wa...you get the picture. You're probably going to have to do those other things that you've been putting off, but we all know if you're like me you'll probably watch a movie or two instead. And then it's still going to take awhile...take a nap too.

Okay so now that you've been so patient you can decorate them more with other colors or if you like them just as is you can put them in individual cellophane bags. I decided to write each one of the girls names on them, because I'm a glutton for punishment. So I took my left over frosting (which don't worry you'll have enough plus a little more to do all these steps the way I did) and I mixed a tiny bit of purple coloring and put it in the piping bag with a #3 tip. After you're done with your decorating go back to waiting a long time again because you don't want all your hard work to get smeared or smashed when you go to package them.

Finished product. (That lumpy heart one was a practice cookie)

Tips:
*These take much practice, don't get frustrated if it doesn't work perfectly the first time. This is a trial and error project for sure.
*Give yourself a few days ahead of time if you're making these for a special occasion. They take a very VERY long time to dry!

Happy Baking! =D