necessity, invention, sleep deprivation…

I work in politics, so it is difficult for me to find much time to sleep, let alone bake, during election season. So… with less than a week to go before Thanksgiving, I finally remembered I had been assigned desserts and sweet snacks.

Nate was skeptical when I pulled out a daisy cookie cutter in mid-November. It’s a cutter I seldom use, and never in late fall. But, with no time to buy a proper Thanksgiving shape (and with poll numbers still knocking around in my hazy post-election brain) I had a vision of transforming daisies into turkeys by eliminating the bottom 1/4 of the flower shape. Necessity…invention… sleep deprivation…

It actually kind of worked. I will need to perfect the shape if I am to use it again in this way (the bottom is a bit too wide and blunt) but for a quick fix, not bad.

Marbling the feathers on the background was embarrassingly easy. Using 10 count royal icing, I followed the outline of the daisy, alternating between light and dark shades. Starting at the bottom of each ridge, I pulled a toothpick through the icing to define the feather shapes.

I started calling them “the dudes.” They will live in the freezer until Thanksgiving.