Tag Archives: royal icing

January 1, 2012 · 6:19 pm

Macy’s New Years Tea and Cookie Party

A couple of years ago Macy hosted a New Years Tea Party to celebrate with and get to know her new friends from school and girl scouts.  Besides having treats and tea, the girls decorated cookies and played games.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The invitation for the party was a sparkly paper cookie in a treat bag with metallic lined envelopes, super easy to make on thick watercolor paper and so fun for the girls to receive in the mail! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We choose traditional and chic New Years colors silver and gold and picked up just a few decorations at a Party City to decorate the table.  Metallic paper plates, doilies, stars, large sequins, party hats and confetti bursts.  I rolled metallic paper into cone shapes & decorated with glitter for the girls to use as mock megaphones.  Each girl had a glittered place card that we later used as tags for their cookie bags.  And since this was a tea party, Macy and I searched at a  few thrift shops for traditional tea cups for everyone.  For the rest of the table I used my real serving pieces for finger sandwiches and other mini snacks.  
 
 
After tea was served I demonstrated how to use royal icing in a piping bag for cookie decorating and we had several waxpaper bags filled for the girls to use.  Each girl got a circle, butterfly & a crown sugar cookie that Macyand I made the night before to decorate. 
 
 
As parents came for pick up we served coffee and my famous red velvet snowflake cake, it’s always nice to invite the parents to come back early at pick up to socialize and have a treat too.  I hate when pick up is rushed and hectic, I like to spend some time chatting with the other parents.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Macy was the Hostest with Mostest at her tea party, she made time to play with everyone and entertained from the head of the table.
 
I wish there was one more picture to share….I was just weeks away from having Hudson at this party!  At 35 weeks pregnant, I was running around in my party dress, apron and no shoes (I was afraid I’d trip over the constantly moving 7 year olds in my heels) serving tea and teaching the girls decorating tricks.  I’m sure I was a sight to see and sorry I dont have a good picture from it!
 
Wishing you a wonderful New Year!  Cheers!

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Aside

Snowflake Cake

One Christmas years ago, my husbands grandmother asked me if I would like to make the holiday cake for their family’s christmas dinner.  For as long as GranNana has had her own family she has made them a special coconut cake for christmas dinner.  So, YES I was very honored and nervous she was passing the torch on to me.  This was very early in my cake making life but my red velvet Snowflake cake knocked the socks off everyone!

Snowflake Cake by Nikki Berry

 
 I didnt want to try to recreate the coconut cake that my husband’s GranNana had made for over 50 years.  I needed to make something new and different and spectacular.  I knew that it would be white and red velvet, but it was a wedding cake covered in glistening snowflakes that inspired me to attempt a new decorating medium.   All of my cakes are a learning experience, I am self-taught in each technique I pick up.  This was my frist time using royal icing and although Im still nowhere near a pastry artist is piping skills, these simple snowflakes turned out just right.   The cake sat so proudly in my husband’s aunt’s antebellum formal dinning room and most of the 50 family member thought that years cake was ordered from a bakery.
 

Red Velvet Snowflake Christmas Cake

 
To make the royal icing snowflakes I traced images of illustrated snowflakes under wax paper.  I chose the best looking and unbroken snowflakes for the sides and piled full and partial snowflakes on the top.  It was a happy accident that it turned into a  lovely topper.
 
 

Royal Icing Snowflakes

This has always been one of my favorite cakes, I repeated it ( I dont usually repeat cakes) for Macy’s NewYears  Tea Party and plan to make it anytime I get the chance to show it off again. 

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December 1, 2011 · 10:59 pm