Time To Make Icing... Key Word "TIME"

It takes me FOR-EV-ER (think Squints Palledorous in "The Sandlot" while you read that please) to make icing. For a couple of reasons... And here they are...


1. I! Am! The! Ultimate! Procrastinator!


2. I leave it to the last possible minute before I start "decorating day" on my schedule. And that has nothing to do with reason one really... And everything to do with the fact that I give myself way too much credit in the swift mixing skills department and suffer from amnesia on the regular because I forget every-single-time that it takes me FOR-EV-ER to make icing!


3. I make my icing so stiff to begin with that it takes me a ridiculous amount of time to get it to a workable state after the fact. Have I mentioned at all that I'm a sucker for punishment? AND I have carpal tunnel syndrome for crying out loud! You'd think I'd go with the easiest option here right? Wrong! Clearly I don't mind trying to work ten squirts of water at a time into stiff icing, trying desperately not to have any of those ten squirts come sploshing (yes! SplOshing! Not splashing! I invent words when I'm not baking :D ) out of  the bowl in my vain attempt to make it all come together in just a few swishes of my spatula!


4. The frigging spray bottle and my stupid hang up about adding water in increments of 10 squirts to thin my icing out! And trust me... It was worse!!! I used to use these itty bitty little child's play style squirt bottle-ettes that dispensed in ten squirts the same volume of water I get from two squirts from my new, hot pink, sh** hot squirt bottle from heaven. I kid you not... With the old version I'd go through the entire tiny bottle for one colour. That was back when making icing used to take me "FOR! EV! ER! AND! EV! ER" though. Now if only I could get over the 10 squirt stupidity and just squirt till I have enough water to make proper flood consistency icing in one shot! Rah!


5. I seriously care way too freaking much about getting colours EXACT! I never knew I was such a perfectionist until I started cookie-ing... Which is a bit of a lie really because if possible, I think I was worse when I was at flight school... But that's understandable right? What with multi million dollar aircraft in the palms of my hands and my instructor's life and mine on the line right? I mean THAT'S understandable... The icing colour thing is just pathetic! God forbid my subject has on a t-shirt with seven shades of green in it! I just CAN NOT do anything less than those seven exact colours! It will bother me! I won't want to hand it over to the customer! Which is bad in so many ways... Most of all because cookies that get left behind usually end up being eaten by me or the Noodle... And I'm trying to loose the FORTY lbs I put on and I don't like her to eat too much "junk".


6. For the most part I don't use piping tips and bags... Just these little baggies that we can buy in bulk here, at the worst stockist known to man. But what do those little bags mean? Well... 1 bag for piping icing, sometimes 2 depending on how much outline or string work I have planned, and then on average 4 bags of flood icing per colour. Of all of those little bags 9 out of 10 them WILL leak and I only discover the ones that do whilst I'm tying them shut... RAH! This adds time to my icing prep for a few reasons... I take the time to curse... Out loud... Every single time I have a leaky bag... Add 20 seconds! I then have to snip a large tip off the end of the bag and stick the bag in to a new one, squeeze all the icing out, tie the new bag and PRAY! that this new one doesn't leak... Add 30 seconds! And if that new bag leaks... Well add 20 more seconds of colourful language and maybe about 10 seconds more for icing bag slamming (time varies depending on how over tired I am) and then another 30 seconds worth of rebagging and an extra 10 seconds for prayers!

                                              Not a terribly clear image but these are my bags!

                   And this is how we buy them... In bags of 250... I get 1000 in bulk for not even US$5.00




If I could hire someone to make icing for me I'd just adore that! But I know I'd make their lives a living hell with my icing control issues... And I don't like making anyone's life a living hell :)


And now... For your viewing pleasure, and license to mock my lack of video taping ability... Here's a lil video of my mega stiff icing. Note... Before anyone dreams of saying I sound like Rihanna be forewarned... I can not stand that woman and you'll be on my list if you do! Trinis and Bajans sound nothing alike :D