loser cookies

why does it seem like the lakers lose EVERY christmas day game?  oy vey!

it made it rather bittersweet to work on a cookie order for the day after christmas.  i'd been asked to do a hundred basketball-shaped sugar cookies in laker colors for an office open house, and with the bean asleep and the rest of the family off doing their own thing during the afternoon of christmas day, i got to work.

i'd made most of the dough earlier in the week, so i got to work on mixing a couple more batches before i started on the rolling and cutting.  it went pretty quickly, and the table i'd asked the hub to set up in our still-unfinished breakfast nook was perfect for spreading them out to cool and frost.

man, let me tell you - tinting the frosting in purple and gold was a bitch.  i'd busted out my kobe jersey to use as a guide, and i found myself using ungodly amounts of gel coloring to get it just right.  the gold wasn't too hard, but that purple - good gracious.  i mixed in drops of violet, regal purple, a bit of red, some navy blue, and a little black.  and even when i finally gave up, it still wasn't exactly the right shade.

i outlined all 100 cookies first, and then thinned out the rest of the purple frosting for the flooding process.  i am so not good at drawing perfect circles freehand.

i'd also thrown in some gingerbread cookies and trees for a post-christmas BBQ treat.  now those, i'm getting pretty good at.

flood!

i went back and drew on the lines for the basketballs, but when i was done i wasn't quite thrilled with them.  they just didn't look right, but i couldn't figure out what was missing.

but i was pooped.  so i cleaned up and went to bed.

the next morning, when i got up to check on my creations, i took one look at them and realized what they needed:  an outline in gold.  luckily, i'd saved the rest of the frosting.

somewhat better, right?  and lucky for me, they weren't being picked up until hours later.  so i turned on the ceiling fan to help move the drying process along and left them alone.

while i had the frosting bags out, i remembered that i'd cut out a few extra shapes with the leftover cookie dough.  look, mini lakers:

and laker cupcake cookies!

they dried fairly quickly, and when i was sure they were ready (and while the bean took her nap), i got them all bagged and tied with purple ribbon.

i just heard from my customer, and she said they were a big hit.  yay!  i knew they were tasty (duh), but i was happy to get confirmation.

now, let's just hope the lakers get their shit together and start winning again.