Julie’s *Margarita* Sugar Cookies

The only thing *little* to come out of Julie’s kitchen may be Julie herself.  This diminutive lady artfully maintains two blogs while managing a career in software engineering.  She is a tireless volunteer for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, an extreme pet lover and loves being involved with animal rescue.  Julie is also an active member of ICS and CAGO

In December she celebrated the one year blog anniversary of her food blog The Little Kitchen with a month of giveaways (as if her posts weren’t enough to keep you coming back to the site!)  In November Julie participated in the Susan G. Komen 3 Day Run for the Cure, keeping all her readers of Whatever Julie and Twitter followers (@thelittlekitchn) up-to-date on her progress with regular tweets and photos. There was a reason she was chosen as the Energizer Keep Going® Blogger for the 2010 Susan G. Komen Tampa 3-Day for the Cure!  She is a dynamo and never hesitates to offer her assistance whenever she sees a need.  Julie heard about Frosting for the Cause before the site went up and she was the second person to sign on immediately after the blog went live.  She’s made some delightful cookies and shares them with you all today.

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I was so excited when Paula told me about this project, I jumped at the chance to join in! But when it came time to pick a cookie design, I couldn’t think of anything.  Then I thought of how cold it’s been, even here in Florida and I thought of palm trees and margaritas. It was the hope of warm weather that prompted me to do these cookies.

When someone has cancer, I can only imagine that it’s the hope of a cure or the hope of remission that keeps them going. I have no idea what’s it’s like to hear the words, “you have cancer”. I can only imagine. My grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. While she was going through chemotherapy treatment, she got really sick. At one point, she was admitted into ICU and we thought the worst. We’re very thankful that today, she is a breast cancer survivor. And since then, I have volunteered in the Susan G. Komen Central Florida Race for the Cure. I started volunteering because I felt the need to do something. I have met some amazing women in my time volunteering for Komen Central Florida and I find it very fulfilling.

This past summer, one of my friends sent me an email. I was nagging her about some information she had promised me and her email was apologizing to me for not getting back to me sooner, she was dealing with a lot of stuff.  She had just found out she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Wow, I felt like a bomb dropped!  I remember writing her a very long email back and asking if I could call her. We ended up talking a few times over the phone and had long conversations. Conversations about our pets, her diagnosis and her fears. She told me her frustrations with her doctors.

I still can’t get over her apologizing to me when she was going through one of the hardest times in her life.  A time where she was scared and in some ways not sure what to do. I’m really glad she emailed me though because I was able to help her get in touch with a breast cancer surgeon who happens to be a board member of Komen Central Florida. I’m happy to say that she is today a breast cancer survivor.

I will be making a donation to Komen Central Florida in honor of my grandmother and my friend.

I made these cookies with my favorite sugar cookie recipe and Wilton’s royal icing recipe. I have tons of tips and the recipes

The first tip I learned when I started reading about decorated sugar cookies was that your cookie needs to chill or it will not keep its shape. The next tip I read about was about rolling dough in between two sheets of parchment paper. If you do this, you won’t have to add extra flour that may make your cookie less chewy. After you roll out the dough between the sheets, stick in the fridge for a few hours. After cutting out your shapes, you’re ready to bake since your dough is already chilled.

My favorite tool when flooding a decorated cookie is this yellow tool. I have no idea what it’s called or where you can buy it. I got it for free at an event for cake decorators a few years back.

I use decorator bags along with couplers and #2 and #3 tips when decorating cookies.

I keep a damp towel handy and put the bags in the towel so that the royal icing doesn’t dry out in the tips.

To get the illusion of salt on the margarita glasses, I let the icing from the above dry for awhile (maybe 15-20 minutes) before I flood the top area and then hold the cookie over a bowl of sanding sugar. Using a spoon, I drop the sugar over the “top of the margarita glass”.

Here are the palm trees, I took the picture with the different stages so you can see how I outlined and then flooded the cookie.

Every time I look at these cookies, I think it must be 5 o’clock somewhere…