Notice the difference in the looks of the blue bell (Royal Icing) and the white bells (Tobia's Glaze).

The recipe made a huge batch & I go a lot of cookies decorated using it. However, happily, I still have almost a full batch of cutout cookies left. That gives me the perfect excuse to try Tobia’s Glaze.

Like the Royal Icing, it has a very short list of ingredients. The glaze mixes up very nicely. It’s a bit runny so I let it sit for a short while. That thickens it up some so I add some to my decorating bag.

Personally, I think it tastes better than Royal Icing. It flows really easily. A bit too easily so that I’m going to have to spend sometime learning how to work with it. If you get too close to the edge of the cookie, it flows right off the side of it. That’s something though that practice will cure. The glaze dries nicely and sets up hard enough to stack the cookies.

The thing I like best about it is the transparent effect the glaze has. This icing has lots of possibilities! Definitely the thing to use if you’re decorating a window or anything you want to have a crystal look.

Off to a horrible start. Decided to start with the RI. Big mistake!! Does anybody have any idea what a horrible mess you create when you accidentally grab, measure & use gum paste powder? You DON’T WANT TO KNOW!!!

It didn’t look right to me on any step of the procedure. I spent a LOT of time checking on this site to see if anybody else had had problems with the icing. Nothing but the highest praise. Ok. Maybe it will look different once it’s thinned properly. Oh no. It’s still a mess. Check the boards again. Everybody loves it. So easy to fix, etc. Decide to start again. Oops that isn’t what that container is supposed to say. Hmmmm I think I know why it doesn’t look right. lol

The best part is that now I can’t do anything until I go to the store. I don’t have 5 tablespoons of Meringue powder in the can. I used the last of my hand dish detergent to clean my equipment squeaky clean because we all know what grease does to RI.

Now that you’ve, hopefully, picked yourself up off the floor where you fell laughing so hard, this icing better taste better than regular RI or I’m REALLY going to be mad.

Here I am again, much later in the day. Made the trip to the store & now have enough Meringue Powder to try mixing up the Royal Icing. Oh my, it works so much better without gum paste powder in it. LOL Actually it does mix up very nicely. So now I start deciding what to ice first. Things that are white are a no brainer as all I have to do is thin the icing down just a bit & fill a decorating bag.

Gingerbread stars iced with Royal Icing.

The Royal Icing outlines the cookies very nicely. Thin it down a bit more to do my fill in & finish the cookies. In no time, the stars & snowmen are done. I’m very pleased with how this icing handles. Pipes easily & coloring it is no problem. Doesn’t taste all that good, but it is Royal Icing. Royal Icing is better known for decorative value than taste.

The recipe makes a huge batch of icing so I’m not at all sure I’m going to be able to try out the glaze recipe after all. This batch may be large enough to ice all 3 batches of cookies! That impresses me. I’m tired & decide to go to bed after icing about half of the cookies.

Pumpkin Spice Cookie dough mixed up & ready for the cooling down period in the refrigerator.

I have a gingerbread recipe that I’ve used & it makes alright cookies. Frankly, I’m not that crazy about them; doesn’t have enough taste to them to suit me. Hopefully this gingerbread cookie recipe will be more tantilizing. The chocolate chip cookie dough will hopefully satisfy the chocaholic in me. The pumpkin spice cookies should have a nice fall taste to them. We shall see.

Mix the chocolate chip recipe first & put it in the refrigerator to cool. It uses mini chocolate chips so hopefully it won’t be very hard to work the dough. In the meantime, I mix up the pumpkin pie spice dough & set it the refrigerator. The dough doesn’t seem very sticky so it shouldn’t take long for it to be ready to roll.

The chocolate chip dough was a bit of a pain to roll out. It didn’t want to stick together. Not bad tasting just not sure I like it. Will see what other people think of it before I make a decision on it. Will make a note on it though & if I make it again, I’ll use a bit less flour.

Aren't these sweet? The chocolate chips made it "interesting" to roll out & cut out the cookies.

The gingerbread is another matter. It rolls beautifully. The taste of the cookies is definitely an improvement over the recipe I have been using. This recipe is a keeper. I look forward to making many more cookies using this particular recipe.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies cooking on wire rack.

Not quite sure about the pumpkin pie spice cookies. Suspect that like most cookies of that type, it’ll have a stronger spice taste after a day or two. Just like the gingerbread, it rolled out nicely which is a plus in its favor. The verdict is out on whether I’ll reuse it.

This lollipop came out of the mold in 1 piece.

Being rather stubborn & not at all inclined to give up on the candy, I decide to take a different approach today. Get off to a good start when the cupcake sucker comes out of its mold in 1 piece. Still leaves a thin layer behind so while it’s in one piece, it’s not nice & shiny.

Armed with my candy decorating markers I bought last evening, I start off again on the quest to conquer candy molds. It’s a bit of a pain to get the markers to soften up enough to use. You place them in a pan of hot, not boiling water to soften & knead them until the candy inside is completely melted. This works much better than the squeeze bottles for details. It still is hard to keep where I want it so I believe the next time I’ll use the parchment bags & decorating tips methods. That is what I believe it takes to get the control I want for doing fine details. The markers do fairly well for the sprinkles on the cupcake lollipop, but no way am I going to try to do the buttons on the snowman with them.

This was the pack of candy decorating markers I bought & used.

Top the molds off with the main color of candy melts & place the molds flat in the freezer. Leave them in the freezer for approximately 5 minutes. Pull them out & gently tap the mold on the table. These babies start flying out of the mold onto the table. I’m getting somewhere now! This is fun. This way I can actually see making these little babies without making a sailor blush with my language. Every bit of the candy comes out of the molds & the pieces have a gorgeous shine to them. The cupcake sucker? It pops out just as easily as the small pieces.

This is the sucker that popped right out of the mold.

The candy molds are a different thing altogether. Besides the possibility of selling the candy, candy can be very useful for decorating a cake or cupcakes. Never have done this so figured this should be interesting. I’ve made taffy & fudge, but they’re an entirely different breed of candy.

Well, I was right. It was interesting. First, keep in mind that I don’t just jump into this. I read & research at several different websites including cakecentral.com before doing it. You want to know a way to do it? Can’t help you. You want 4-5 different ways to do it including contradictory ways? Now, you’re talking!

The molds I picked out of my collection to work with was 1 that had Christmas trees, snowman & Santa faces & a lollipop mold with 4 different designs. Not wanting to make things too complicated I nixed the idea of using Santa as he would entail too many colors. The only lollipop I wanted to use was the cupcake. Cupcakes are cute, cupcakes are “in” & would make a fun sucker.

Candy molds filled with candy melts. Notice the paintbrush used to paint the snowman

From all my research, it sounded to me that the easiest way to get the colored details would be to paint them with the colored chocolate. I have nice small brushes I keep only for my baking so that seemed doable. Well maybe not. Let’s just say painting with chocolate inside small molds is not that easy.

Melted my colors & poured them into the molds. Decided to go with the “let it harden naturally” crowd so left the molds on the table to dry. To say it was difficult to get the candy out of the mold would be an understatement. Took a lot of pushing to get the pieces to pop out. Did I mention, that my beautiful two colored cupcake broke in half. That made Jim happy as he is always glad to get the “mistakes” out of my way. So I’m thinking, these people are crazy to do this. This is too much like work. I can’t believe some people actually consider this fun! Thoughts like that crowded my mind before I finally conceded to myself that perhaps that was not the best method for making the candy.

I decided that painting the details was the problem as a thin layer of the candy melts was sticking to the mold. Carefully cleaned the molds & decided to try again. Only this time I would use the squeeze bottle method to do the candies. This worked a bit better. Still not satisfied with how the colors run, but suspect part of that is just a matter of practice. The trees & snowmen pop out this time without leaving much of a layer on the mold, but it’s still there. The result of that is that the candy pieces don’t shine.

Due to the amount of pushing I had to do on the candy pieces to get them out of the mold, I’m still thinking this is a pain. Better than the first batch & method , but it’s still a pain. Coward that I am I decided to leave the cupcake to deal with in the morning. I can’t bear the thought of seeing 2 of them break in half in one day.

Place the lids on them & place the jars in the boiling water in the water bath processor. Leave the jars in the water bath for 10 minutes. Use the canning tongs to place the jars in the hot water & pull the jars out of the hot water. Be very careful when pulling the jars out! Don’t want anyone dripping hot water on themselves or dropping a jar. Listen for your jar lids to pop. Double check them by pushing down in the center with your thumb. If there’s no give to the lid, they’re sealed. I hope you enjoy finding directions for fixing different foods on my blog.

My apple prep production crew is hard at work as you can see.

I got up, fixed breakfast for my work crew & set up my production line. Doesn’t that sound official? Jim & Sarah were both quick to volunteer to help with the apples. Sarah is an old hand at it after all these years. Jim, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue what he was getting himself into. It’s a family thing here at the Spears house. When we were halfway through, he did have a very good idea, but he assured me it would be worth it when he got the first piece of pie.

Sarah set up for the first apple peeler, corer,slicer & got Jim to do the adjusting on it. Then she set up the other one just a few feet down the counter from Jim. They set up a 5-gallon bucket underneath to catch the peelings & throw the cores. While they worked on getting set up, I mixed up the topping for the first pies. We have 12 pie crusts. The plan is to fill all of them & freeze them today. Twelve crusts are going to become 12 crumb topped apple pies!

Having gotten the first batch of topping ready, I filled up 2 large bowls with water & fruit fresh. I wash the

2 tv trays 4 pies

apples & my crew gets started on the apples. I go into the next room & pull out 2 tv trays. Set the trays up & place 2 crusts on each tray. We are underway!

By then, Jim & Sarah have almost filled a bowl with apples. I give them the other bowl of water & fruit fresh to place the peeled apples in & take the other bowl to the opposite counter. A colander is set up in the sink. I pull a stack of apples out & cut the slices in half & place them in the colander to drain. Everytime it’s full, I start measuring apples. The recipe I’m using takes 7 cups of apple slices. Sarah teases me that I’ll be counting to seven in my sleep after today’s work.

When I have the right amount of apples, I add the sugar & cinnamon & stir the mixture up until the apples are coated. I have separated a couple of eggs & lightly beat the whites. Using a pastry brush, I brush the bottoms of the pie crusts with the egg white; this will keep the bottom crust from becoming soggy. Divide the apples up in two pie crusts. They fill 1 crust completely & 1 crust partially. Again I slice, drain & mix apples. I soon get figured out that 3 recipes fill 4 crusts nicely. Dot some butter on the apple slices & the pies are ready for the topping.

I have made this pie for 3-4 years now & have learned they will slide in the freezer bags more efficiently, without losing their toppings, if I freeze the pies first. There’s only room in the freezer compartment for 2 pies so I take the other 2 pies to the freezer in the basement. Along the way, I slip enough apple slices into the other room to fill the dehydrator. This process gets repeated twice until we have all 12 pie crusts filled & topped.

This is what the pie crust looks like piled with the apple mixture.

Apple pie with the crumb topping will go into the freezer next, then a freezer bag & back in the freezer until somebody wants an apple pie.

Along the way, one of the peelers stopped working properly so that slowed us down some. Except for some smoke breaks for Jim & a lunch break for us, that’s how we spent a good part of the day. By about 4 o’clock, I was sliding pie 12 into the oven for our supper. The rest of the pies were in the oven. We were all pleased & proud of ourselves for having accomplished the goal for the day. Only a bushel and a half of apples remain. Applesauce will be on the agenda next.