My daughter is having a skating party today, so I decided to whip up a quick batch of cupcakes.  I realized too late that I didn’t have a large enough star tip so I used the biggest one I had.  I still think they came out very cute!

Becca is my ice skater.  She’s been skating for a year now and it’s amazing what she’s learned in that time.  Just today she learned the toe loop.  Don’t ask me what that is, I know it’s a jump but other than that, I can’t really say.

Tomorrow we are having family over and I need to be at the dojang in the morning, so that meant that today I had to make her cake.  Usually I make the icing from scratch but I just cleaned the kitchen and I really didn’t feel like cleaning up powdered sugar for the next two days.  So I bought a couple tubs of icing from Wilton.  Each tub says it can ice 10 single layer cakes, but I call bullshit.  That stuff could cover 10 cakes if they are maybe 6 inches in diameter each.  This cake is made from 2-8″ squares and 2-8″ circles and I used a tub and a half.  Surprisingly it’s very level.  However it is listing ever so slightly to the left.  Still, to date it’s probably the most evenly leveled and iced cake I’ve ever made.  I’d love to say that I made something in it from scratch, but no, I do not have that kind of time, so cake mix it is.    The skater is made from buttercream and sparkle gel.  I made a quickie buttercream transfer (and it shows), and was dismayed to find that the gel never really froze.  Luckily it didn’t make a huge mess and I was able to go back and fix it once I had the transfer on the cake.

For the sides I thought it would be fun to have a “snowball” border with trees and snowflakes on the side.  I decided the trees would look sort of snowflakey.

I am super pleased with how it came out and Becca absolutely loves it.  I even managed to quell the shakes when piping the lettering.

Last year I tackled linzers for the first time.  They were ok, considering I used pre-made sugar cookie dough *cringe*.

This year I did them right and they came out beautiful, moist and tasty.  I’d love to say I slaved over them, but using an inexpensive linzer cookie cutter made it a fairly speedy process (and no off center cutouts).  Generally, they are an easy cookie to make, but the one thing I really could use is a rolling pin with guides so I can roll out the dough evenly.  I tend to be a bit fussy about how my cookies look and I know if I could master getting them all an even thickness I could get all obsessive and neurotic about more important things, like exactly how much filling I need for each cookie to be filled equally.

LINZERS Heat oven to 350^o

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon orange extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

FINISHING
Raspberry and/or apricot jam
Powdered sugar

1. Combine butter, powdered sugar, orange extract and salt. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Reduce speed to low, add flour and beat until well mixed.
2. Divide dough in half, shape each half into a flattened ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
3. Roll half of the dough out on floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut and and place cookies 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets (I use parchment paper). Use a linzer cutter or small decorative cutter to cut and remove the centers from 1/2 the cookies.
4. Bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. (Oven temperatures vary, I suggest keeping a fairly close eye on the first batch so you get an idea of how long it takes in your oven). Remove from oven and cool for one minute on cookie sheets. Move to cooling racks and cool cookies completely.
5. Place top of cookies (with center cut out) on waxed paper and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Spread bottom half of cookies with 1/4 teaspoon jam. Top with center cut-out cookie, powdered sugar side up.

Note: Instead of orange extract you could substitute almond or rum extract. The center cut out of the cookies can be baked to make little bite sized cookies.