more cookies than i ever imagined

i opened instagram one day to find that i had a message from one of my friends, who'd forwarded me a post that she thought i might find interesting.  it was from someone who's a cast member at disneyland, asking if anyone knew a baker who might be available for an order of 500 cookies with a pretty short turnaround time - as in, it was a monday with delivery the following friday.  eek.

the story had already been posted for an hour, and so although i figured that they probably had already found someone i responded anyway.  because why not, right?  and wonder of wonders...they got right back to me asking for pricing and confirming that the quick turnaround was doable.  they sent me a couple of photos with the designs they wanted:

i was internally freaking out at the idea of doing 500 cookies all at once, since the biggest order i've ever worked on is probably more like 10-12 dozen.  i mean, we're talking about FORTY-PLUS dozen cookies here.  and add to that the fact that these were definitely for disneyland - because they used their official work e-mail address to respond to me.  like...WUT.

and even more amazing?  I GOT THE GIG.  the cookies were going to be given to cast members to commemorate the new lion king stage show that was premiering in the fantasyland theater, as well as the re-release of fantasmic!, which hadn't returned since the parks reopened after the covid shutdown.  because of licensing issues, they couldn't use actual disney graphics and that's why the designs they sent me are so generic-looking.  i was SO excited.

but what i haven't mentioned yet is the fact that the delivery day happened to fall on the day after the bean's junior high graduation - which meant that i was going to be working like crazy that entire week.  a week where there was some sort of school-related event or function almost every day.  holy crap.

but as i studied the photos a little more i realized that i could work on this order in stages, spreading out all of the prep work over the next few days so that everything would be ready and i could just concentrate on decorating the cookies in one sitting.  breaking it all out into little bite-sized pieces of work would make this daunting task a little less overwhelming, and i started making lists and creating a schedule of how it was all going to go.

between smart & final, costco and my local baking supply shop, i gathered up the supplies.  i've never had these quantities of cookie ingredients in the kitchen all at once before:

the next step was to mix all the dough, wrap it tightly and store it in the fridge.  this isn't even all of it!

on another day, i made a batch of royal icing - something i don't typically enjoy using because i don't think it tastes all that great nor do i love how rock hard it dries on the cookies.  but in this case, i was going to pipe out all of the lion heads onto parchment paper that would be completely dry so that all i had to do was peel them off and plop them onto the freshly frosted cookie.  kind of like making a sticker, see?

i guess they kind of looked more like winnie the pooh before i added the little crowns.

for the cookies with the moon and stars, they wanted the background to be a dark blue with a white moon and gold stars.  i decided that the easiest way to handle that was to make the moons and stars out of fondant.  on my first try, i rolled out a chunk of fondant and used my airbrush to paint it with a shimmery gold:

but that was a bust, because the "paint" made the fondant too sticky to cut out without ruining the shapes.  boo.  and so instead, i rolled out another ball, cut the stars out and then hit them with the airbrush.  luckily, this time they turned out as i'd pictured.

because it was graduation season, i had other orders to work on.  and so while i was rolling, cutting and baking for those orders i sucked it up and baked those cookies too.  i was pretty amazed that my calculations for how much dough to make actually came out almost exactly right.  i ended up with zero leftovers even after throwing in a handful of extras to account for possible errors or breakage.  woohoo!

thank goodness for the extra freezer we have in the garage, because the one in the house definitely wasn't big enough to hold all those bags of cookies.  in they went for a few days, until it was time to start decorating.  first thing that morning, i pulled them back out and mixed up the frosting while they defrosted.

once i had all of the components ready to go, i started with the first one.  and while it wasn't as perfect looking as the example they'd sent me, i think it came out pretty well:

twenty dozen lion heads later, i switched gears and got the moons and stars out and ready for action.

as i started assembling them, the hub and the bean both came over to see how things were going and commented that they rather looked like smiley faces.  and i hated to admit it, but they were right.  UGH.  the bean came to my rescue, though. after looking over my supply of sprinkles, she picked out some small gold dragees and added a few to each cookie.  of course, since she's an artist, it was exactly what they needed to look right.

the hub came in as i was just about done and snapped some photos of the action, all the while commenting on how crazy it was to see cookies covering almost every surface in the kitchen and dining room.

they dried overnight, and then after the bean's final awards ceremony at school i managed to squeeze in time to cut the ribbons and get every last one of those cookies bagged up and packed for delivery.  there were no less than five of these boxes, all filled to the brim with cookies.

i was so relieved once it was all over, and delivering them to disneyland the next day went smoothly.  i did get some feedback from my contact there that the cast members said that the cookies were cute and tasty, which is always good.  and of course, despite the fact that it was probably the most stressed i've been in a long time, i made sure to let them know that i would be happy to take orders again in the future if they found themselves in a similar situation.

it's been awhile now since that all went down, but it still amazes me that I MADE COOKIES FOR DISNEYLAND.  I DID THAT.

woohoo!  there's a bucket list item checked off that i didn't know existed.

keeping up the christmastime traditions

we spent last weekend sharing more of that wonderful holiday cheer with lots of friends.  the bean's girl scout handmade gift exchange kicked it off, and i love how these three are literally BFFs.

on saturday morning, they continued the fun as they walked the glendora christmas parade together.  as we usually do, we dropped the bean off with the group and then headed on down to the end of the route to watch the parade and meet up with her again for pickup.

since we always have time to kill before we have to get there, we hung out at the local coffee bean & tea leaf with her friends' dads while the moms ended up walking the parade with their little sisters.  by the time we made it to the end of the route, the parade was about halfway finished.  we still got to see a few fun things, like this group of dogs and their owners who'd just graduated from the very pricey local obedience training center.

and then it wasn't too long before we spied our girls, carrying their troop banner and looking really excited about it.  heh.

the next day i got up early to get the house ready for one of our favorite traditions - one that we'd had to miss last year due to a serious inability to coordinate schedules.  luckily we were able to pull it together (thanks to a cancelled cheer competition), and so our annual dancey-dance girls' cookie party was on for 2019.

i was a little nervous about how it would go this time around - the girls are a lot older now, with most of them in junior high, and it had been two years since we'd gotten together.  while their moms said that everyone was super excited to be able to do it again, i had concerns about how it would go.  only one of the girls is still dancing, and the rest are into soccer and volleyball (and cheer, in the bean's case).

and because i've done aprons for them several times in the past, i figured i'd make them something that hopefully they'll like enough to use year-round - hand sanitizer and lip balm cases, with a matching zipper bag.

i made a few of those infinity scarves with a hidden pocket for their moms, but i somehow managed to forget to snap a picture of them.  just imagine plaid flannel scarves in neutral colors...it wouldn't have made for a great photo anyway.

after i set the table i realized that i probably should have made something for the bean as well, because her place looked pretty sad and empty.  she didn't seem to mind though, which is pretty much what i expected.

once everyone arrived the girls all made a beeline for the back yard, where i'd put the puppies so that they wouldn't get in the way or try to jump up and eat their cookies.  and it seemed that cocoa and teddy made for the perfect icebreaker, because while it may have been ever-so-slightly awkward in the first couple of minutes, in no time at all the girls were all giggling and chatting like no time had passed.  phew.

they were having so much fun, in fact, that i ended up poking my head out the door to ask them if they even wanted to do the cookies at all.  the reminder worked, because they came inside right away and took their places to get down to business.  it was really nice to see that they really did still want to decorate their cookies, and seemed to have a blast doing it.

later, we gathered them in the back yard again for a group photo:

and then brought them back inside to recreate the annual shot.  check it out - this was their first one, a whole six years ago (the old lady was super bummed to miss this):

and now.  look at the difference!  holy cow.

i got the moms together for a picture too, because we so often forget to take ones of ourselves:

and it came to an end all too quickly.  none of the girls wanted to leave, and we were all so happy to have found the time to get together and save the tradition.  every year we talk about doing it again in summer, at least once, and then the usual scheduling issue always gets in the way.  hopefully we can break that streak in 2020.  fingers are crossed.

the annual dance girls cookie party tradition continues

the annual cookie party we throw at the house with the bean's OG dance class girlfriends is a tradition we've come to adore.  only two of them are still taking dance lessons (in two different studios) and because everyone has such hectic schedules year-round, this is really the only time we get to see each other.  we'd originally settled on a date that worked for everyone, but as a couple of the girls' soccer teams advanced further and further in the ranks and went on to playoffs and finals, we had to scramble to reschedule.  and we got a christmas miracle - another day that worked for everyone to be able to come over and have our party.

i like to change things up so that the girls aren't doing the same thing year after year.  i guess it might have been more fun to actually stick to one thing that they come over to do, but maybe we can start repeating some of the past years' activities.  you know - we did gingerbread houses, gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies.  all were fun and everyone had a great time.

this year, i thought it might be fun to make a few different kinds of dough so they could make their own cookies and then take home a nice assortment of treats.  with the bean's help, we settled on thumbprint cookies with either strawberry jam or nutella to fill them with, classic snickerdoodles, and peanut butter blossoms.  i decided to prebake some cupcakes too, and filled a few piping bags with cream cheese frosting and set out a bunch of sprinkles and other decorations.

they had a great time working on shaping the cookies and rolling them in sugar and all that jazz.

and these two took on the task of unwrapping and pressing a hershey's kiss into the tops of the peanut butter blossoms as they came out of the oven.

usually the novelty of the cookies wears off relatively quickly and then the girls disappear into the bean's bedroom to play with her toys.  this year though, i noticed that their attention was held a bit longer with the different types of cookies and the cupcake decorating.  and while they did go into the bedroom for a few minutes, they came up with a new activity:  making slime in the garage.

the hub had been hanging out in there, away from the chaos and craziness, so i felt a little bad when the girls invaded his quiet space.  but as is his nature, he didn't mind a bit and got them all set up with a table to work on.

we'd also gotten the old lady to stop and do her usual photobombing of the group photo before she and her special friend disappeared for the weekend (it was his birthday, so they weren't gonna stick around for a kiddie cookie party):

i mean, look at how much everyone has changed over the years!

i'm just so happy and grateful that the girls aren't over this cookie party yet.  i know that may come in time, as they get older and have lots of other holiday activities to do, but for now i love keeping up this fun little tradition.  it helps that i adore their moms too, and while we keep up with each other on social media, this annual GTG is something i look forward to every year.

christmas cookie partyin'

we continued our annual tradition of hosting the bean's dance friends for a cookie decorating party this weekend.  instead of trying to figure out something new to do, i decided we'd stick to tried and true - basic sugar cookies, white frosting, and lots and lots of sprinkles.  but this year, we threw in a little twist:  each girl got a rolling pin, a cookie sheet, and a ball of dough to roll and cut out their own shapes.

there was a bag on their chairs to place all of their goodies in at the end:

and i busted out new aprons for them...and got to use my fancy schmancy new embroidery machine to customize each one.

the old lady made us some oreo cookie balls, which were super delicious:

and everyone brought something to munch on.

most of the girls don't really see each other much aside from this yearly party, but it never takes them long to get reacquainted and start having fun right away.

here's a few of their fun creations:

and then we got them together for a group picture in front of the christmas tree (i'm so excited that we finally got a flocked one this year!).

look at this...our first cookie party, way back in 2013:

2016.

yup, i totally made the old lady photobomb the new version.  i crack up every time i look at it.

such a fun tradition!  see ya next year, girls!