Speckled Egg Frosting Tutorial

I love celebrating holidays, but recently, the amount of free time on my hands is next to none. 

So I began my search of a sweet treat that would be tasty and festive, but wouldn't take me more than an hour to make. 

And these speckled egg cookies were just what I was looking for!

How to:

1. Start with fully-cooled Easter egg cookies (or, if you're looking for a short cut, just go buy some!).

2. Next, make your royal icing (I followed this Wilton recipe), and pipe a border of the frosting around the cookies.

3. Flood the center of the cookies with icing, and give the cookies a few taps on the table to smooth out the tops and remove any bubbles.

4. When your cookies are drying, combine 1tbs of royal icing with 1tsp of warm water and a food coloring of your choice.

5. Once the cookies are fully dried, sponge on a first layer of colored frosting.

6. After the first sponged layer of frosting is dry, sponge on a second layer (I decided to use a different color, but the same color will work too!).

And ta da! You have yourself some speckled egg cookies! 

Go easy on the colored frosting at first (adding more is much easier than trying to take it off), and keep layering the frosting until you achieve the desired look.

These cookies are not only perfect to eat, but they make for great individual favors!

Have time on your hands? Decorate some Easter egg cookies using this marbling technique!

back at it!

Blogging has been quite difficult for me lately... not only because I cannot find the time to blog, but also because I don't have the time to do anything fun to blog about! And boy, do I miss it! 

But, hopefully (fingers crossed...) I will be back at it this week.

Lately I have been working a ton out of Arizona (normally I work from home in Texas), and I was so, so thankful that John was able to fly into Phoenix and spend the weekend with me. Here's a quick peek of all that we were up to!

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Cheese plates and wine on the patio at Postino... nothing better!

Hiking Piestewa Peak - with 10,000 of our closest friends... note to self: drive at least an hour out of Phoenix before trying to hike anything in March - the city trails are slammed! We had originally planned to hike Camelback, but the parking lot was already full by the time we arrived (which was before 8AM).

The wildflowers are blooming, and I can't get enough of them!

The weather was absolutely perfect for hiking... warm enough to not need a jacket, but not so hot that it was unbearable. And cheers for a little sun tan!

My favorite part of hiking? The apres-hike tacos and margaritas.

March is, without a doubt, the most beautiful month in Arizona... there is so much to do, the city is buzzing with people, and most of all - the trees still have their citrus. Makes my away-from-home heart happy.

We were able to sneak in a Spring training game with our good friends who I had been missing terribly! It was so nice to see them and catch up with everything that has been going on lately.

Arizona Diamondbacks and Kansas City Royals

Ping pong and dinner at Culinary Dropout

On our last day together we drove out to the Superstition Mountains for some hiking. And thankfully, it wasn't nearly as busy there as it was at Piestewa Peak.

John wanted to hike all the way to the top of Flatiron, but I wasn't feeling up for it, so I turned around half-way up and headed back down. 

When John was done with the hike, he met me back at the car and presented me with the sweetest little bouquet of wild flowers that he had picked. That man. He kills me... I just love him so much.

It was so nice having John out to visit me... now if we can just figure out a way for the pups to visit me too! ;)