feed my face with cake: Lydia and Joel's Wedding Favours

My Beautiful Friends Lydia and Joel recently got married. It was a gorgeous wedding in Oxford and I was lucky enough to be a bridesmaid. Not only this but i was also lucky enough to be the designated favour-maker. After much deliberation we decided on puzzle shaped cookies, which were to be decorated with blue flowers and the initials of the happy couple.

I have come to rely upon a pretty simple sugar cookie recipe which can be found in the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. It produces really sturdy cookies which turn a lovely golden brown colour if you cook them just right. They taste delicious as well. I have found however, that they need a LOT of extra flour when it comes to kneading and rolling them out. Also, the dough does benefit from being sat in the fridge for a little while to toughen up.

Unfortunately I had only 2 days to come up with the goods, but with the help of my wonderful mother, everything was done in time. I gave her a 30 second lesson in how to use royal icing to stick stuff down and we were away.

First off, I made around 160 biscuits. Only 140 were needed but once you've taken into account breakages and tasters, you need a good few extra.

Next up was the cutting out of the blue flowers, around 800 to be exact. I must say, I went into a bit of a trance at this point, as did the cat who was watching from the corner of the room.

It's really important to use freshly made royal icing that has been made to just the right consistency, so that the writing and the squigley lines look need and don't run. I make mine with reall egg whites and icing sugar.

I decided to make them all the same but different so that everybody felt they had something unique to take home from the wedding (or to gobble up as soon as they sat down....)