Pink, Yellow, Purple, Blue, Icing I'm in Love with You

There have been some exciting new developments in the life of this Rambling Chef lately. Today I will be entering a completely different level in my cooking and baking obsession, as I start my new job working for a lovely little company that makes chocolates, cookies, brownies and ice creams. I am going to be in the heat of their kitchen, helping to create some of their amazing chocolate treats! Words cannot even begin to describe all of the emotions that have been coursing through me for the past few days, and I'm finding it difficult to contain my excitement as I ready myself for my first day.

I had to curb my enthusiasm slightly though, as I had another task at hand over the weekend. Following the success of my Red Nose Day cupcakes, my old office asked me last week to bake them another batch of goodies for their Easter Bake Sale to raise some money for their chosen charity, the NSPCC. Jumping at the opportunity to bake Easter treats on a large scale, I immediately agreed to their requests of Banana Breads, Bunny Cakes and pretty Royal Iced Sugar Cookies.

Never having worked with Royal Icing before, I turned to the experts on Cake Decorating on the Internet, and watched some amazing instructional videos on this amazing art using this wonderful icing. After a couple of hours of watching in awe, I felt inspired and confident enough to have a go myself. So, on Sunday I turned my kitchen into a one-woman production line once more, and worked my much loved mixer and less loved oven to their limits. Searching through my extensive cookie cutter collection (which takes up an entire drawer in my kitchen and covers all important holidays and events that occur throughout the year), I found all of my cutest Easter cutters for the task at hand. After several hours of rolling out and cutting the dough and baking sheet after sheet of golden-brown cookies, I started mixing up the fluffy, brilliantly white icing. Dividing the icing into little airtight containers, I mixed them each one respectively into pastel-toned pink, yellow, purple, green and blue and filled my pastry bags to start the fun.

Letting my imagination run wild, I spent many happy hours decorating bunnies, chicks, ducks, eggs, butterflies, flowers, leaves and umbrellas in all of their colourful glory, growing ever more in love with working with this amazing icing. After I packed up each cookie in its own cellophane wrapper and looked at the basket full of Easter splendour, I could not wait for my next decorating project.