Butterflies in my Tummy

Cheska, the daughter of one of my good friends since High School will be celebrating her 7th birthday this weekend.  Here in the Philippines, people make a big deal when it comes to a child's 1st, 7th, 9th (?) and 18th birthdays.  So as expected, it's going to be a big big party especially since my friend has this knack for organizing parties.

The party's theme is all about tinkerbell and butterflies (i think).  I'm not quite sure but several months back my friend already asked if I could come up with butterfly cookies for the party.  I almost forgot about it and since sugar cookies take so much time to decorate and are so dependent on good weather, I wasn't really sure if I'd be able to commit to making the cookies.  I was quite nervous about it so I purposely didn't tell my friend that I was doing the cookies until I realized that I had to let her know otherwise I might ruin her plans for the birthday.  But honestly, the butterflies were not just on my kitchen table but were also in my tummy.

Thank God that good weather prevailed!  Here's a sample of some of the cookies I made just for Cheska.

Have a wonderful 7th birthday, sweetheart!  And I hope you and your guests like these cookies....

Beginnings

I started baking sugar cookies on a whim.  I had intended them to be souvenirs for my daughter's baptismal party.  I thought it would be easy and little did I realize what was in store for me.  The baking part, although challenging was okay.  I've done a lot of baking since I was in High School and it was quite easy for me to follow recipes since I knew most of the basics.  The decorating part on the other hand was something I've never tried.

Lucky for me my SIL (sister-in-law) took up decorating classes and she was able to help me a lot in decorating the cookies.  Unfortunately, I was never able to take any pictures of those cookies nor the ones that followed after.  You see after the success of the first batch, we decided to give them away as thank you gifts to my daughter's doctors/surgeons and their secretaries.  Then during my daughter's first birthday, we made a batch of flower cookies to be given out to the children of my n@wie friends who hosted a party for her.

I knew I had to learn how to decorate on my own so once in a while I tried my best to dabble into a little decorating.  So this was how I started and these are a few of the cookies that I started out with:

because my daughter loves dogs

because my son loves elephants

and because it was Easter when I made these

Now these nicer ones were made by my SIL:

So the idea is to just keep on practicing and practicing until you get it right.  It also helps to do a little research on techniques and designs :)

My Kitchen Adventures

Ever since I was in grade school, I already had a thing for baking.  I remember distinctly how I'd bake brownies during weekends and my brother would begin eating them as soon as they got out of the oven.  Up to now, my brother has a fondness for brownies and I can only assume that it's because for him, it's comfort food.

My baking adventures ended when I got to college because of all the school work (and extra curricular activities) that I was into.

Recently, however, my love for baked goods has been rekindled and I've begun practicing on sugar cookies, cupcakes and brownies of different types.  I love the sugar cookies because they are almost always a big hit whenever I serve them.  The thing is, they require a LOT of attention and hard work especially when it comes to decorating.

My sister-in-law is good when it comes to the decorating part and normally, I just send the baked cookies over to her so she can come up with her spectacular creations.  Still, the challenge is there so once in a while, I try to do the decorations myself.

Through this page, I hope to be able to document my "creations".  Who knows, maybe I can push through with my dream of having a home-based business selling these goodies!