Saturday, February 7, 2015

Valentine Treat Preview

I just finished packaging my last batch of cookies for tomorrow's Valentine Sweet Sale at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and am happy to say everything is looking great and I'm anxious to start selling and raising funds for Hunger Ministries. 

Here are a few pictures from a busy week preparing for the sale and a few previews of what will be for sale tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon in Kempton Hall at the church (147 NW 19th Ave, Portland Oregon). I hope to see you there!

I dedicated Thursday and Friday to cookie baking and decorating. These brushed embroidery cookies were the first design I tackled.

I also had to include a heart design. I used a heart cookie cutter to make an impression in the cookies before baking. The first step in decorating these was to paint the heart with pink royal icing.

These cookies demonstrate the three steps to decorating the heart cookies.

Finished cookies that just need to dry before packaging.

Of course I also had to make some French Macarons. I thought cherry would be a good choice for Valentine's Day.

I filled the macarons with a Morello cherry buttercream.

I also made some salted caramel macarons because they are always well received and I thought they would look nice packaged alongside the  cherry macarons.

The final touch in packaging the macarons was a homemade tag and some butcher's twine.

Saturday morning it was truffle packaging time. Here I am filling truffle boxes with Dave who with his wife Cheryl made all of the truffles. Our friends Cindy and Terri also came by to help with the packaging.

Each five-piece box contains three dark and two milk chocolate truffles.

The final touch to the truffle boxes was adding a pretty bow and a paper heart. Terri and Cindy tied all of the ribbons and did a wonderful job. I love the way the boxes turned out and I have my friends to thank. If the bow tying was all up to me, I'd still be struggling — it's definitely not my talent.  But like Terri said today, "many hands make light work." It was a team effort and I'm grateful.

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