Baby Shower Cookies

My little sister is gonna be a mom in less then 3 weeks! I'm so excited for her! But sad that I'm not in town to be there for this life-changing event! I won't even get to meet my nephew until he's over a year old. (But hooray, I'll finally be an Aunt! Haa.)

So my sister is going to have a baby shower this coming Saturday. It's gonna be in one of her friend's backyard cuz she wanted to have a garden party. It is summer in Vancouver and backyard BBQs are the best way to enjoy the osome weather. Here's the party invitation made via PowerPoint. My sister and her husband love whales :) The baby's blanket has the same white & grey chevron pattern, and my sister decorated the baby's dresser with a couple of blue whales! I like how we're on the same wavelength.

I've been dying to use these Baby-themed cookie cutters I bought on sale way back in 2010. And finally, here's the perfect opportunity to use them! 

I knew right away when I looked at this cookie cutter that I wanted to use it. But not for its original shape! In fact, at first I couldn't even figure out what the cutter was for. (It is suppose to be a baby being carried in a cloth of some sort...) 

But of course, that's not what I pictured when I looked at it. With a little manipulation (ie. cutting off the baby's head & curling his legs up) we have ourselves...a whale! 

re-purposed cookie cutter

But these cookies were almost a disaster. Almost. They poofed up & spread out in the oven and I couldn't figure out why because I did a trial run with the exact same recipe a couple weeks ago and those came out just fine.

Super poofy cookie on the right, re-cut after baking

Of course, it took me re-reading the recipe 3 times after the fact, that I realized I used baking SODA instead of the baking POWDER that the recipe called for. Go figure. That's what happens when you try to make cookies while the baby is fussing. I managed to salvage them by re-cutting the cookies after they came out of the oven. Magic! Haa. I didn't bother to re-cut the whales because they actually look better spread out! I'd say it was a win-win situation, with a little extra work.

sugar cookies, fresh from the oven

It was my first time decorating sugar cookies using Royal Icing. I usually use cookie icing made from corn syrup and icing sugar. But I needed these babies to dry rock hard so that they'd be sturdy enough to be shipped! I used Wilton's Royal Icing mix (with a bit of clear vanilla extract added to it) because I want my sister to be able to eat them. (Royal icing is usually made from raw egg whites). Using the same blue, white & grey scheme as the invitation, there was enough royal icing to decorate 50 cookies. I used "15-second" icing consistency to outline as well as flood the cookies. The freshly iced cookies have a nice gloss to them.

The cookies took about 6 hours in an air-conditioned room to completely dry. They have a matte finish when they are dry, and the icing is nice and hard. I drew the whales' eyes and mouth using an edible marker and added a heart sprinkle at the edge of their smiles.

Now, how to get them to the baby shower which is 10,000 miles away? Luckily I was already thinking of this back in June when I schemed up the idea to make cookies for the party. Groupon happened to have an offer for DHL express worldwide service. Boom, problem solved! But of course, simply placing the cookies in a box would probably result in cookie crumbs being delivered. 

Decorated sugar cookies

I bought a bunch of bubble wrap from Daiso (hooray, blue bubble wrap!). It's cheaper than the post office. Each sugar cookie was individually wrapped in a protective layer of bubble wrap, and then 2-3 cookies were placed into sandwich-sized Ziplock bags to keep them fresh for their 24-hour journey to Vancouver! I made sure to put cardboard & a sheet of bubble wrap in between each layer of cookies. I really hope at least half of them survive intact!!

packing in progress

one of three layers

all set & ready to ship!

The cookies are suppose to arrive by the end of the next working day. Will let you know how it goes! I'm so excited for my sister :) 

The cookies that didn't fit into the box are for my tummy... Haaa.

fingers crossed that they make it intact!