Cookies as Wedding Favors

Our niece got married over Memorial Day weekend.  Since she lives in NC, there was no way it would be possible for me to do her cake for her.  Instead, I made her wedding favors - sugar cookie wedding cakes. 

I used my sugar cookie recipe and flavored it with lemon extract, instead of vanilla.  Again, I pre-cut the fondant to use as an icing layer.  Once the cookies were baked and cooled, I started the process of piping the cookies with royal icing and adding silver dragees. 

The finished product was put into a cookie bag and topped with cutout cardstock that I made beforehand.  Overall, I really like the look and feel of this method of bagging the cookies.  More work than the way I usually do it, but I think I will take the time to do this on my Christmas cookies this year. 

Kickin' it with Key Lime

You've heard of Key Lime pie, right?  Well, I was recently reading through on one of the many cake blogs I follow and ran across someone who made this cake.  It sounded wonderful and refreshing, so I thought I would try it. 

I made a trial run on this cake for my mom's birthday.  On that cake, I followed the recipe to a "T" and only had two layers of the cake.  The flavor of the cake was great, but the cake was very, very dense.  I much prefer a moister, "fluffier" cake.  The key lime flavor of the icing was very good as well - just a little lime tartness.  After the trail run, I decided I needed to tweak the recipe a bit for the cake, but left the icing alone. 

The second cake (pictured above) I added another layer and adapted my Orange Dreamsicle recipe, substituting orange juice for key lime juice.  This helped quite a bit in making the cake less dense, but I think it still needs to be tweaked a little more.  I think I will try adding some meringue powder to the batter next time and see if that helps. 

Overall - this was a quick cake to make!  The icing is great in flavor, but it does not pipe well in heat.  Don't allow your child to bake brownies at the same time you are icing your cake!  ;-)