Palentines: I get by with a little help from my friends

So, this happened:

Palentines 2013.  It was my 3rd annual evening of sugary goodness in celebration of friendship, inspired by Leslie Knope's Galentines.  For past Palentines baked goods, look here, though this year things are on a whole other level. A few weeks ago I found a jadeite platter at an antique market, and I thought it would look nice with some pink macrons, and a theme/colour scheme was born.  (Note: "almond meal' sounds gross, and in the end I decided to not even make any macaroons).

I finally had the perfect use for the conjoined twin cookie cutter my friend Julia picked up fro me at the Mutter Museum a few years ago:

 

Owl cookies

Heart cookies:

 

 

 

A....different type of heart cookie.  My mom made me the  cookie cutter.  That's right, she MADE it.  I wish I hadn't run out of steam and had the time to properly ice the cookies...

 

Butter cake  the Miette recipe has never failed me:

 Marshmallows.  Yes, MARSHMALLOWS. Inspired by Gesine Bullock-Prado's work in Sugar Baby.

 Glitter Cookies:

 Owl cupcakes:

Cookie Dough Truffles:

 

Chocolate lollipops.  I couldn't find the light green chocolate wafers anywhere in Ottawa, and Rushika, who tragically no longer lives in the same city as me, earned the title of the Patron Saint of Palentines by picking some up at her local cake supply store and mailing them to me. Though if I got to choose, I would have picked her over the green chocolates.

 

 

 

 

Meringue hearts, which didn't quite turn out like these ones:

Mini candy buffet!  The Candy Store was the perfect resource for this.

Treat bags for the candy buffet, from My Sweet Life:

Cups, with sticker designed by Modern Zebra

Lovely, lovely, lovely banner from Unicorn Parade:

Garland by Scout and Acadia.

Pompoms by Pomtree:

And more, more, more:

 

Whole Lotta Love

I love Lotta Jansdotter's work.  I have her work stencilled in my kitchen and bathroom.  And a lot of my snail mail is sent with her stickers, in her envelopes. I have her framed postcards up on my wall. Her designs are gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.  When I found out that she had a CAKE STAND, I knew that I had to have it.  Even though shipping to Canada was more than the cost of the stand.  And even though my apartment is quickly running out of storage space.  Some things you are meant to have.

Even prettier with a cute little cake on it:

The shipping provider and I have very different opinions on what are considered "convenient" pick-up location and times.  But rather than fight with them, or make a pilgrimage an hour outside of town, I had the parcel redirected to a friend's house, where it could be dropped on the front porch instead of held hostage at the postage centre.  For his trouble and the use of his front porch, I made my friend a little thank you cake:

Forget Me Not

Inspired by the Springsteen cookie project, I tackled another royal icing technique I hadn't done before, and made icing petals that I attached to an already iced cookie, for a 3D effect.  I used Sugar Belle's sugar cookie recipe again, and while the cookies baked, I got the icing ready. I was making forget-me-nots, which are typically purple or blue.  I cut up little pieces of parchment paper and attached them to a flower nail with a dab of icing, which allowed me to rotate the work surface while building the flowers.  GENIUS (not my own, but still...).

 After a few blobby disasters (uh....not pictured), I got the hang of things and made 120 of these little guys in about an hour.

While the flowers dried, I iced the cookies to get a nice, smooth palate.  I realized how much I like the ivory gel-based food colouring from Americolor when doing some of my holiday baking this year, so I tinted the base colour ivory instead of white.  PRETTY.

When the base coat dried I attached the flowers with another dab of royal icing.  EASY!

This cookie project was more than figuring out new ways to play with sugar. The symbol of the Alzheimer Society of Canada is three forget-me-not flowers, representing the person with the disease, caregivers, and society:

At the end of this month I am participating in the Alzheimer Society's fundraiser, Walk for Memories.  If you are interested in sponsoring me, you can do so here.  And if you live in Ottawa, I will give you one of these cookies. It's win-win.