Last Monday night Ted picked me up from the airport and promptly deposited me at the Rochester Brainery for a cookie decorating workshop with the lovely ladies of Scratch Bakeshop.
{The two photos above are borrowed from Scratch Bakeshop’s Facebook page}
I walked away from the class with a great recipe for sugar cookies and royal icing, a ton of expert tips and tricks for baking, color mixing, icing, decorating, and storing cookies, a box of cookies to decorate (and eat) along with an adorable gold notebook and handful of super cute recipe cards….and they gave us champagne to drink while we mixed colors and iced and decorated cookies! Champagne! These ladies have my heart.
For two hours I very happily set to work exercising my icing and decorating skills, which – as evidenced by my final creations above, has never been my strong suit. And that’s exactly why I took this class. No shame in being a beginner! My ice cream cone and flower cookies were my favorite, several girls in class with me complimented the icing on my ice cream cone, and Ted was pretty pleased with the whale. I wasn’t in love with the three icing colors I created, but now that I’ve gotten more comfortable with the art of color mixing, I can easily whip up some colors I do love. When 8:30 rolled around, I was the last one still working and I couldn’t believe two hours had flown by so quickly! After a full day of airports and flying, this was exactly the fun and relaxing activity I needed. I’m also excited to have a great icing recipe and to have learnd some really neat decorating tips for my arsenal the next time a perfect cookie-making occasion presents itself!
The next night I whipped up a batch of homemade honeydew-lime-mint popsicles….and I’m pleased to report that they’re crazy delicious, easy to make, utterly refreshing, low in sugar, and perfect for summer! Definitely recommended! I should also add that they’d be extra tasty with a splash of gin or rum.
I also made some rhubarb mint popsicles. They, too, were easy to make and absolutely packed with flavor!
I brought a dozen of the honeydew-lime-mint popsicles as my contribution for our “Picnic in the Park” June Potluck at the theatre.
It was glorious!
The food was abundant and totally awesome, the weather was perfect (we’re talking sunny, breezy, mid-70s, and no humidity perfect!), the company and conversation were simply lovely, and I think we all could have quite happily lazed around on our blankets in the lush, shady, grassy park across the street from our wonderful theatre all. day. long….napping, laughing, and eating pasta salad and popsicles to our hearts content!
Alas, all good things must come to an end…
But seriously, make those popsicles. Delish!
{My red sandals above are the Seedless Romantic Flat from Modcloth. I only put this in here because I’ve already been asked many times where my shoes are from. They’re ridiculously cute and, after about 3 wears, break themselves in and are also super comfortable from there on out. They are my summer holy grail sandal!}
