And This is How the Cookie Crumbled

Part of being Self-sufficient or Self-sustaining is being willing to do whatever you can on your own because, let’s face it, the less you have to have someone else do, the cheaper it should be on you and as you learn you potentially have the opportunity of taking the skill you’ve developed and making it into a profitable one later on.  Take baking for example... only take it more humbly than I did!🤦‍♀️😂

One of my many favorite things to do is to decorate cakes & cookies so with my Father's 90th and my Mother-in-Laws 80th Birthday Parties on the agenda for June, I needed to come up with some really nice cakes.  My Nephew, Zac's, Birthday was on the same day as my Mother-in-law's and since I knew he would be at her party, I wanted to make something specifically for him as well.  

While I didn’t stress too much over the rest of the cakes, for some reason I spent days stressing and trying to figure out what to make him.  He loves sugar cookies so that was the plan only would it be one large cookie or several small cookies and why did it matter so much?  Zac is this wonderful young adult who would be pleased with anything!  After days of thought I decided to make him a large sugar cookie cake and flood it with royal icing.  Now that the decision was made my next move was to do research on how to flood a giant sugar cookie.  I went to Pinterest, I searched the Internet, and anything else I could think of and guess what?  I came up empty!  Has not anyone ever tried to flood a giant cookie?  Apparently not!  At least I wasn't finding it!

Most normal people would give up at this point but not I... for I am my Fathers child.  I might not have inherited the ability to create from absolutely nothing like He did but I definitely got His desire to create and I was determined to figure it out!...  it was no longer about who I was making it for but the challenge that it could be done!  This happens to me a lot by the way🤷‍♀️

My first decision was to decide how to bake this giant cookie.  I decided the best way was to cook it in a large tart pan.  Here is a link to the type pan I used https://amzn.to/3e9F0Sm.  This pan worked out well because the bottom comes out which came in handy for two reasons.  With the bottom out I was able to just roll the cookie out on the bottom round and then cut around the edges before putting it back in the ring and once the cookie was cooked and cooled, I took the bottom of the pan with the cookie out of the ring and set it on a cooling rack.  This way I was able to just pour the icing over the cake and let it set up that way instead of trying to pipe flood it.  If you do decide to try this some day remember to put something under the cooling rack or you will have a big mess!

My second decision was what kind of decorating I wanted to do on this cookie.  My Nephew was turning 23 and loves to hunt so I decided to put a duck scene on another cookie and place it on top of the giant cookie.   As you can tell by the picture, I ended up flooding the cookie with royal icing that had a camouflage look to it.  To accomplish this look I took white royal icing and added a few drops of green gel food coloring to it and just swirled it a bit with a knife.  Then I did the same with some brown gel food coloring.  Once I got it to the desired affect I stopped and poured it over the cookie.  Here is a link to the food coloring gels I use https://amzn.to/3d7EIKk

After the cookie dried I put the smaller cookie with the Duck scene in the middle of the flooded cookie ( I used some royal icing between the two to help it stick together) and then I put a thicker royal icing border around that cookie and put back in the tart pan round just because it looked nice that way.

And Yes!, as you can see by the picture, I did it!  Go me!  

Only after that point reality set in and it was like God was is saying... Go you?  Really?  So... I “go” over to my Mother-in-laws house to set up all of her cakes for the party, all the while being so proud of myself for that accomplished giant sugar cookie, only to hear her say that Zac wasn't coming to the party.   What!  Not coming? No way!  I have stressed for days over this cookie and he's not even going to be there!

And that’s not even the icing on the Cake! Or should I say Cookie!, because transporting this beautiful creation  to the party to give to Zac's parents met with a small disaster!    I had his cookie secure and safe in the car, or so I thought, along with 2 of my beautiful Grandchildren and my Daughter-in-law, but when I opened the car door to get the cookie out, there was a diaper bag sitting on top of it.  It didn't totally ruin the cookie but it did put a dent in it.  You know the Proverbs that says “Pride goeth before a fall”   🤷‍♀️. 

And this is how the Cookie Crumbled😉

If you are interested in which Sugar Cookie and Royal icing recipes I used you can click on the following links

For the Sugar Cookies: https://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/1318325032/cookie-best-sugar-cookie/

For the Royal Icing: https://unsophisticook.com/simple-royal-icing-recipe/