Nov 22, 2009

Lacing cookies

It appears that the last week or so it was "time to get ill" although not "ill" in the Beastie Boys sense of the word, more "ill" in the revoltingly infectious, night of the living dead, dawn of the dead, day of the dead , mid afternoon and tea time of the living dead kind of way. Bleugh! We're rounding the corner of this episode of the lurgi it seems, so we celebrated with a shed load of cookies.

We didn't have any fall themed cookie cutters, so I thought I'd try using a pair of pliers to bend a round cookie cutter into a turkey shape. It worked pretty darn well. I might have to stock up on a few round cookie cutters that we can customize to our own shapes in the future.




The kids cut out a load of turkeys and circles and even around their own hands with a butter knife to make our sugar cookie shapes. We don't have a surface in our kitchen that isn't tiled, so I have a large piece of plywood that I taped a clear plastic sheet to. We plonk that on our kitchen table to roll out icing, dough, pastry etc. It wipes clean nice and easily and is a piece of cake to stash away because it's light and very thin.





I got out a bunch of plastic letter and number playdough cutters that we found at a garage sale for them to try, but my three year old just wanted to arrange them in order rather than cut dough with them, which was fine and dandy. We did manage to stamp out their initials in each hand print cookie though.



I used a straw to cut out holes in the cookies like we did with our salt dough ornaments last year. I thought that it would make it interesting to try and make cookies that could be used as threading/lacing cards.



I found that once I had baked the cookies, the holes although still there had closed up a lot, so while they were fresh out of the oven and still soft, I just punched the holes again with another straw.





We had a packet of caramel flavoured laces from Ikea that were pretty long and looked like they would do the trick. Red laces would be yum too, although I've not seen those in the US.



The kids enjoyed threading the edible laces, and the cookies were strong enough that they held up to the lacing antics just fine. Then they squeezed some icing on them. It's not every day that mum lets you eat a cookie the size of your head!





The cookie cutter shape I made was supposed to be a turkey, but it sort of looked like a basket too.



Anyhoooo, the ages my kids are, we weren't going to be able to make such a detailed decoration, so they just painted the icing on them willy nilly with paint brushes to make rainbow cookies, so the turkey thing went out the window. It was still good to know that it's easy to make custom cookie cutters that way though. It would be lovely to make a fall leaf shape cutter and then paint on the yellow and red icing. Bet that would be really pretty!









Mmmm cooooookies. Sometimes food? Pah! Your're not fooling anyone Cookie Monster!

26 comments:

Sew Can Do said...

As usual I am wowed by your ideas. Had no idea Ikea had those laces either. Will have to get those!

Valerie said...

Those are adorable!

Leann Guzman said...

I love reading your posts, even though I rarely do anything so cool as this. Thanks for putting up such great ideas!

maryanne said...

Kitten Muffin, you must be one of the funnest moms in the world - this sounds like a child's dream activity!

silly eagle books said...

What a fun idea! Now I want cookies...

Myrnie said...

What a great activity! Those caramel laces look great, too (and you're right- I haven't seen licorice laces since i was a girl...)

Tania McCartney said...

How wonderful!

M for Short said...

Just lovely. Are the Ikea laces sold in the States, or did you get those abroad?

tracey (aka rainbowmummy) said...

http://belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/2009/11/the-biggest-list-of-turkey-crafts-for-kids-to-make.html

Did you see the hand turkey cookies there? I think your cutter looks like a shell :)

Liz said...

Oh how fun. I am quite impressed with your cookie cutter bending!

Lindsey said...

M, I got the caramel laces from a Californian Ikea.

R.M. I'd not seen those turkey hand cookies. They look goooooood! I'm a bit impressed that they have hand print cookie cutters too. We just mangled a butter knife around our own hands. You're right about our cutter looking like a shell. Maybe we can make mermaid cookies with it :)

Megan said...

Ahhhh, I HAVE seen red laces here in the US! I live in AZ though - if it turns out CA is devoid of red laces, I'll be super sad. I usually find them around the sort of discount candy section of gas stations - the candies in generic packages labelled "2 for $1" or something. I've been buying them alot recently, but CARAMEL flavored laces?!?! TO IKEA!!!

Vone said...

Great ideas - my oldest would love it.
I've nominated you for a Kreativ Award. You ideas are great.
http://bit.ly/8Oeuir

Marie said...

I love your site! I'm not a mom, but I do work at an afterschool daycare, and we had a lot of fun making cardboard flipflops earlier this fall while it was still warm.

Anyway, one of my recurring project themes is jewelry- with a finale of candy jewelry which is why its so popular. I've had the kids restring candy beads onto dental floss, but also was looking for some sort of lace candy. Hadn't run into caramel ones (have to check them out), but the closest I came was those Twizzler Pull 'n Peel things. They aren't too thin, but you can pull each rope into 9 strands that are small enough to go through Lifesavers and probably straw holes. They are pretty easy to find; I usually get them at Walgreens.

Anonymous said...

Please tell me you are writing a book.

Elise said...

Who would have thought that lacing could be so yummy. Such a neat idea.

Kylie said...

these are gorgeous, what a great idea!

Donna S. said...

You are seriously one of the most sreative people I have run across!
I waned to let you know Wall E made it to Roseville. Thank you SO much! I will be putting him in our window tomorrow! I wanted to take a picture of him in his new home to send in the thank you note... but I am moving slow, and wanted to say, THANK YOU!

Jenny said...

Very cute! I linked to you today because we did leaf rubbings.

Rachel@oneprettything.com said...

Whoa! That is super creative! I wish we had an IKEA within a few hours. That place is so much fun! I'll be linking.

Valerie @ Frugal Family Fun Blog said...

I love the rainbow-turkey-creature-things... how festive! Amazing what a pair of pliers can do. I never thought to do lacing with cookies because I thought they would be too brittle. Did you roll the dough out pretty thick? Looks awesome!

Iva Messy said...

completely adorable! I will have to give them a go with my son! ;)

Autumn said...

C'est Extraordinaire!

Je vous adore! demain nous aussi nous allons fabriquer des biscuits pour la saint Nicolas et les lacer!

Bonne Fêtes de fin d'année.

Native American Momma said...

this is a great idea, my dad works in a sheet metal shop and can probably make a bunch of round cookie cutter for me!

Sew Flippin Cool said...

You rock and I'm totally doing this! I've listed it in a Spring Break roundup on my blog, The Handmade Experiment. I've got tutorials on things to make and things to bake and a couple of cool etsy artists for things to take this spring break. Come on over and check it out and thanks for the inspiration!
http://emilyflippinmaruna.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/spring-break-week-things-to-make-bake-and-take/

Smita Srivastava said...

Aww so cute , jus love the lace idea !!! What a fun !!!

- Smita
@ Little Food junction