Royal Superstar

As If I haven’t been "unbalanced" enough this week as it is, I realized yesterday afternoon that I was expected to bring the special snack for the Superstar today. The Superstar, I realize you are wondering about, is mini monogram #1, who was given this title last Friday when he was crowned with a big yellow laminated star necklace with his name on it. For him this has meant a week of sheer royalty and really, I’m not quite sure what other perks were offered on the playground. Word hasn’t exactly gotten around to me on that one yet but I’ll keep you posted. But for me, having the Superstar in my house has meant endless chatter confirming, in fact, that he is the superstar and yes I realize how important that is, and having to send a down a boatload of pictures to school on Monday (which, really was very easy since I just uploaded some digital picts to Wallgreens and picked them up on our way to pre-school Tuesday morning), plus having to provide the special snack this week, and also mini #1’s favorite book, and his favorite toy. Not to mention I feel incredible pressure to make sure he looks especially cute every day this week as I’m sure there will be paparazzi-type photo’s taken at some point this week of my little superstar.

So back to the Superstar Snack. I convinced him cookies were going to be our best way to go and he decided a star. Naturally. Makes perfect sense to me for the Superstar to have a star shaped cookie. But there were stipulations, I later found out. There had to be blue on them and they also had to have “V”’s on them for his name. After all, we wouldn’t want anyone to forget who the Superstar is, right? So of course the wheels in my mind started turning and I got to thinking how awesome the big star w/ the “V” on it would look stuck in a big cupcake. Yes! Big cupcake with fondant icing on top to look like mini cakes for each child, with a star cookie in it to top it all off. So I headed out to hobby Lobby’s baking area last night when Mr. Monogram got home from work, and was chatting on the cell phone w/ a friend whose response was something like this: “Are you CRAZY? Don’t you have enough to do?” Well yes, actually, yes I do. So I scratched the cupcake idea and decided on just doing the cookies. I picked up a few things I needed such as the Fondant Icing Writer by Wilton (this is really great, BTW), then headed to the grocery store before heading home. It was then that mini #1 informed me that really, he would like to have a few cookie options for his friends. Oh, really! So in addition to stars, he would also like me to do some train cookies with the blue “V” on them as well. It is lucky for him I already had a train shaped cookie cutter because much as I know being the Superstar is important, I was not about to go back out for another thing.

So this morning I come downstairs. I am tired, naturally, because I was baking cookies until the wee hours last night, making my royal icing, then decorating the Superstar cookies for mini #1. Upon looking in the Tupperware container, I see a little wheel has been bitten off one of the train cookies. Hmmmm. Well, I know I was VERY clear with Mr. Monogram last night that he was NOT to touch or breathe or so much as longingly look at those cookies across the kitchen out of the corner of his eye as they were strictly off limits. But no one is talking. I don’t know who nibbled the little wheel off but I was not at all pleased. But despite the wheel-less train cookie, my Superstar should have a great day. He also got to bring his favorite toy and his favorite book today. And he doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve arranged for the Superstar to have a surprise Super visitor to come read the story to the class. Mr. Monogram. I can’t wait to see his face when I pick him up from pre-school today!

Ridiculously Simple Royal Icing

*in case you don’t know what Royal icing is, it’s the icing that’s really great tasting, usually with a lemon or vanilla flavor to it, but that gets smooth and hard. It’s great for Christmas cookies so you can stack them and they look so pretty without having to worry about your icing smearing all over the place. There are lots of recipies out there, but my mom gave me this one and it’s so easy it’s ridiculous, and it’s tastes good too.

Yield: approx 2 doz. Cookies

2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar)

1 ½ tsp water (you might need to add a little more as you start mixing)

½ tsp vanilla extract

Sift sugar into bowl. Stir in water and vanilla until smooth but stiff. You may need to add a few extra drops of water if you find it’s too difficult to stir and all the sugar isn’t mixing in well.