Lace Sugar Cookies

A friend asked me to make some sugar cookies for a baby shower in Colorado.  This is the farthest my baking has traveled to date :).  The colors for the shower were burlap and lilac.  The mom-to-be was a fan of vintage lace.  When I googled lace cookies, I found a great tutorial and looked forward to these cookies with great anticipation!

I started with the purple border and flooded with tan.  I let them set overnight and spent over four hours piping the detail on 30 cookies.  I LOVE decorating cookies and was very pleased with the final product.

Half of the cookies had holes in them to string them with some ribbon and hang them from a tree branch.  The picture of the display is yet to come. 

Strawberry Cheesecake

I've never made a cheesecake before...at least not one that didn't come out of a Jell-o box.  A friend of mine had a birthday coming up, and her favorite dessert is strawberry cheesecake.  I found a recipe and did a bit of reading on how to successfully make a cheesecake.  It seems like it should be a very complicated thing.  The most important thing I learned was probably not to over beat once the eggs are added.  I topped this with stabilized whipped cream, and was pleasantly surprised at how well the whipped cream held up.  In order to get the hearts on top.  Before baking, place a teaspoon of the strawberry mixture around the outside and one in the center.  Run a knife through each glob making a complete circle.  Starting just above the strawberry glob in the center drag your knife through.  Though I marbled some of the strawberry in the cheesecake and added the hearts on top, I also served the cheesecake with strawberry topping on the side.  Pretty and delicious!