Spring Cookie Class

Last night’s class was Spring Cookie decorating at Sweet Heather Anne’s.  I have taken several classes there and it feels as if I’m right at home there in their kitchen studio.  I say studio because these ladies are artisans. 

rustic buttercream birthday cake

I initially fell in love with their cakes when they had a cake they were sampling at Elephant Ears in Kerrytown.  Elephant Ears is an adorable children’s clothing boutique in Kerrytown.   One bite of their cake transported me back to my wedding cake back to a hot and sunny day in 1994 in Virginia.   I have eaten many cakes and I had never tasted one that was like my wedding cake.   I knew that I had to keep them in mind for something special in the future.

Since I wasn’t planning on having another wedding, I decided to have them make my 40^th birthday cake last year.  I will tell you more about that at another time, but I have included a picture of my rustic buttercream cake.

As I mentioned, a gal of the 21^st century, I stalked  websites and blogs until I saw they offered classes!  YAY, classes!  My first class with Sweet Heather Anne was the Holiday Cookie decorating class in 2012.  

The Spring Cookie class was my third cookie class.  They share the recipes to make it at home but I like that the cookies are already baked and ready to decorate.  The instructor last night was Claudia, who is witty, beautiful, smart and talented.  She demonstrated how to make the royal icing.  I won’t tell you how – you will need to sign-up and take the class.  There is a “secret” to the lovely taste of their royal icing.  We get to see what the “right” consistency for royal icing.  That was an eye-opener for me!  I use to follow the recipes exactly (That’s what I do) for royal icing and it would be too thick and didn’t behave as to allow me to do the things I wanted.

What makes Sweet Heather Anne’s cookies and cake so beautiful is because these ladies are artist.  Heather has a fine arts degree.  The colors they create are a mixture of food coloring colors.  In class, Claudia squeezes for three different bottles of food coloring (These aren’t the small bottles we buy from the grocery store) These are 8-oz bottles!  I don’t remember the color—yellow, peach and some shade of blue.  The royal icing is a beautiful light, but not too light, coral color.

The icing is mixed and set into the piping bags.  She seals the bag with a rubber band.  Ingenious!  That’s another great thing about the class, all the colors are mixed and bagged.  Claudia shows us how to pipe—using your “writing hand” to be at the top of the piping bag and your other hand guiding the tip.  She floods the cookie, after outlining it—this is all with the same icing.  She picks out two other colors and pipes some lines in.  Then the magic happens.  She takes a toothpick and drags it through the icing and VOILA—different effects…feather or weave pattern.  Gorgeous!

San Street yumminess

During the class. I’m feeling like it’s getting late, it might just be my feeling and I feel this urge to pipe my cookies in record speed.    I would discourage trying to go quickly, but I wanted to get to Zingerman’s Event space for San Street Pop-In.  That’s another passion—my love for food.  I discovered San Street last summer through Mark’s Cart, which is located behind Downtown Home and Garden.  It’s Korean-inspired street food.  It’s delicious.   If I am out and San Street had a Pop-In, I’m on it.  I had told my husband dinner was after my class and I was bringing home San Street.  Last year we went to a Zingerman’s Roadhouse special event San Street Dinner.  Yum!

So instead of being totally focused on my lovely cookie decorating, I was hunger and bit on a sugar high, I ate some solid-chocolate Easter mini-eggs before leaving the house and the thoughts of trying to get to Zingerman’s Event space in a timely manner was messing with me.  The previous San Street Pop-In at The Bar at Braun Court, I got the last meatball entrée. That sounds fantastic but I wanted two—remember I was getting it for my husband too.  I didn’t want that to happen again!

My cookies decorating wasn’t as excellent as it could have been, but they still look lovey and of course taste delicious! 

Oh did I get my food at San Street?  At 8:20pm they were sold out of all the meat dishes!  They were kind enough to scrape enough of the sauce and shredded meat to get me a sampling of the entrée. 

I don’t know if this is because we live in a relatively small town or just simply great minds think alike, but a woman I just meet three weeks ago in my workout group, called Ann Arbor Stroller Strides, was there in the cookie decorating class!  The thing that is particularly interesting is that she’s good friends with someone I’m friends with from my original moms group.  I say original moms group because I have meet moms with each of my children and the “original “is the oldest group of friends I have in Ann Arbor and they got me through a lot of angst that comes with first-time parenting.   I find that happens more often than not, bumping into someone that I meet in one aspect of my life and our paths crossing again in another aspect of my life.   I have this believe of cosmic connections.  Realists like my husband would just say people who have the same interest will flock to the same events.  But that doesn’t explain our shared friendships and workout connections.

my tray of beautiful cookie