Pink & Gold Star Cookies

I can't believe my god-daughter Amira is almost a year old! I last saw her in Vancouver in June. She's grown so much, and she's already walking before her first birthday! She's gonna be a little troublemaker, but a cute and sweet one!

Star cookies sprinkled with gold leaf stars

Amira is going to have a Twinkle Twinkle Little Star themed birthday party, in a pink and gold colour scheme. Since I can't be there for her party, I wanted to surprise her with special sugar cookies, decorated to match her party theme.  I SO would have loved to bake her a cake, just like the Olaf cake I made for her sister's Frozen-themed birthday party. 

Star cookies glammed up with sugar pearls

Yes, Amira is 10,000 miles away so you're probably thinking how am I going to get these cookies to her? I had great success last time I sent cookies to my sister via DHL for her baby shower (well, turned out that the baby came early so they were welcome baby cookies instead...) So the plan was this same this time around. Hooray for DHL Groupon voucher.

Amira is ONE!

The sugar cookies are decorated with Royal icing, which was made using Wilton's royal icing mix since some of the party guests may not want to consume raw egg whites (which is what Royal Icing from scratch is made of). This shade of pink was achieved using a couple drops of Americolor Electric Pink. I love the Electric Colours from Americolor. Really makes things pop! The gold royal icing is dyed with Americolor gold. 

Star cookies arranged in a star!

I wanted a variety of designs on the stars cuz it would probably be boring to just have plain gold stars and plain pink stars. To make the cookies a bit fancier, I sprinkled some gold leaf star sprinkles on some of the stars. Other stars had silver and pink sugar pearls added on top to glam them up a bit. And to make the gold cookies really sparkle, I painted them with gold luster dust and a little vodka (don't worry, the alcohol evaporated off.)

a couple of smaller stars for my kids to sample ;)

One batch of this sugar cookie recipe yielded about 38 cookies. I made two smaller stars out of the last bit of cookie dough so that my two monsters could gobble them up. There's no way they'd see these stars when they come home from school and not whine until they get one.

Seeing stars!

all ready for a pink and gold Twinkle Twinkle Little Star party

Each cookie was individually wrapped in bubble wrap (hooray for pink bubble wrap!) and then placed in separate Ziploc bags to keep them fresh for their journey. I lined the DHL box with more bubble wrap too for extra cushion. 

Packing sugar cookies in progress

I was able to fit 27 cookies in a DHL size 3 box, and the package weighed 1.888 kg! Nice number, eh? Crossing my fingers that they all make it to Vancouver in one piece! 

Happy 1st Birthday, Amira!!

Wishing my sweet god-daughter Amira, a very happy first birthday! Stay happy, healthy and cheerful, you smiley little potato! Have an osome Twinkle Twinkle Little Star birthday celebration with your family and friends!