Happy Star Wars Day!

May the Fourth be with you!

You know, I giggle EVERY time I say that.  Every.  Time.  And I've been bothering my coworkers ALL week.  In retailiation, *someone* plastered Star Wars stuff all over my cube yesterday.

I was determined to not miss it this year so Wednesday, I spent some quality time researching recipes.  That was kind of a bust, except I stumbled across a blog post of cookies in these great Star Wars shapes.  (On a side note, this lady does AMAZING things with icing.  I lost a couple hours wandering around her blog.  And I got a new tip - roll out on parchment paper, and turn the paper every few rolls.  Presto!  No more cookies stuck to my counter!  Yay!)  So then I wandered further and found someone else raving about the cookie cutters available at Williams Sonoma.  Holy crap, y'all!  I had NO idea!  I called the store nearest me, and they put the two sets I wanted behind the counter for me.  Also, they were on sale online so Sam left a note to match the price for me.  I picked them up on my way home that night.  So happy!

Last night, I did my typical play-online-procrastinate-procrastinate-omg-it's-bedtime-and-I-haven't-started-baking-yet thing.  Good that some things stay the same, right?  *snort*  Happily, my mom's sugar cookie recipe is pretty much impervious to screw-ups.  I was a bit worried 'cause it was HOT in my house last night but it all worked out okay.

Crumbly is OK.



Darth First!





Darth & Storm Troopers



X-Wings & Yoda

Normally I go all kinds of bonkers on the decorating but I was just too tired last night.  I knew this because I could not get the glaze to the right consistency.  I struggled and struggled with it, and used most of a new bag of confectioners sugar.   Nothing turned out right with the decorating, so please excuse how pathetic the poor things look.  They taste delicious, that helps, right??

My first step was making the black for Darth.  Thanks to a quick trip online to the Wilton forums, I had an idea of what would work.  I added about 2 heaping tablespoons of unsweetened coco powder to probably a cup and a half of glaze and mixed well.  Then I used Wilton's paste color in violet to turn it black.  That paste is intense!  It didn't take nearly as much as I thought it would.  (It just took a couple globs of the paste on a toothpick.  Seriously way less than a pea.)

Yes, I trash my kitchen.  I bake like the Swedish Chef.

At some point, I decided to add sparkle.  I have no idea why.  So I went for the black sugar I have for Halloween.  Instead of sparkle, Darth looks like he has mange.  Sigh.  I'll know better next time.

I used the glaze as-is for the X-Wings and the Storm Troopers.  Again with the sparkly - I scattered blue sugar on the X-Wings and called it a day.  I attempted to add black details to the Storm Troopers but the glaze was too thick, then too thin so I washed it off and called it good enough.

 

Poor naked looking little things.  I'm sorry.

  

They sorta look like X-Wings.  If you squint.

 To get the green for Yoda, I used the Wilton paste color in Leaf Green.  Again, just a small amount - I dragged the toothpick thru the glaze twice in probably close to 2 cups of glaze.  Then I added small amounts of the black, stirring well each time, until the green was close enough.

At least his color is close.

I left my kitchen in the shambles and stumbled off to bed while they dried.  This morning, I loaded them up on a platter and brought them into the sugar vultures at work.




Next year, I'll decorate them properly...

Anyway, have a great Friday and May the Fourth be with you!

Update:  Heh.  A coworker just emailed this: "Good these cookies are! Awesome you are!"  Totally made the lack of sleep worthwhile!