Shown above are, clockwise: Unicorn cookie pops (not shown are the rainbow cake and cupcakes), rainbow cookie bites, unmacaron “macaron” cookie pops, sparkly swirly cookie pops, rainbow pound cake, rainbow daisy marshmallow pops, rainbow cookie push pops, sparkly rainbow marshmallow kebobs, and easy candy lollies.

In light of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d devote a little of my time to rainbows. Hmmm. As my 5-year old is not-quite-as-obsessed-as-when-she-was-4-but-still-pretty-obsessed over rainbows, I devote a lot of my time to them. I know it’s hardly novel for a little girl to love rainbows, but I love that she loves rainbows. I sure did as a kid. I remember one of my first science fair projects in elementary school was all about the rainbow.

I share Kermit’s wondering, “Why are there so many songs about rainbows?” Because rainbows are beauty and magic and mystery. And I hear unicorns ride them. And they lead to wealth. Yes, Kermie, some day we’ll find it. That rainbow connection. We’ll get there. Holy hormones, I’m totally going to cry now.

Your first stop on the rainbow tour has to be this Virtual Baby Shower thrown for Violet by 17 crazy-talented bloggers. The theme: Rainbows. Because much as the rainbow leads to a pot o’ gold (I had to), this will lead you to 17 sweet rainbow ideas.

More must-see rainbow awesomeness:

Easy, bright ‘n beautiful, rainbow wrapped marshmallows by Smart School House.

A big, crazy tower of mini rainbow cupcakes by Hoosier Homemade.

Now and forever one of my all-time faves: Rainbow cake pops by Munchkin Munchies.

Simple and pretty rainbow-topped cupcakes from Meet the Dubiens.

How smart is this? Rainbow sugar cookie bark from Mom on Time Out.

Speaking of smart, rainbow frosting cupcakes by Sprinkle Bakes. And with a cherry on top.

Oh fudge, this one has to be in the list. Rainbow paddle pop fudge by Raspberri Cupcakes.

JellO may hold the secret to rainbows. JellO rainbow cookies by I heart Nap Time.

These are two of my favorite things: Rainbow ice cream by Random Thoughts of a SUPERmom!.

Speaking of two of my favorite things: Rainbow chocolate chip cookies by In Katrina’s Kitchen.

I recall being wowwed by these slice and bake rainbow cookies at Good Life Eats ages ago.

I’m a sucker for pudding. How about some rainbow pudding at MAKE.

A good reason to pull out my Babycakes donut maker: Rainbow donuts by Chickabug.

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I haven’t been up to Costco in a bit (note to self: Get up to Costco), but my father, who lives down the street from his Costco, hits the place regularly. And let me tell you, he was pretty darn proud to see his kid in the December 2012 issue of Costco’s Simply Delicious: The Costco Way. (And PS. it was my now-tech savvy Dad who found the online link.) Way back in the summertime, Costco contacted me to contribute to this recipe-packed book, and I jumped at the chance. I’m humbled by the talent I share space with in the “Chef’s Choice” section of the cookbook, including Joy the Baker, Ree Drummond, and Mark Bittman. My assignment? Create recipes with those huge, Kirkland Brand muffins–I got to buy every flavor and taste test tons of recipes, lucky me–and with their sheet cake–even luckier me for eating a whole cake.

I created Muffin “Fries” with Sea Salt and Honey Yogurt Dip and Sheet Cake Cookie Crisps. And they are easy. Very easy. For the cookies, all you do is mush up leftover sheet cake from Costco (not the custard filled kind, the icing filled kind), scoop on a tray and bake. So good!

For the recipes, check out Costco’s Simply Delicious: The Costco Way, p. 120 to 121, or,

CLICK HERE To see the online version.

These photos are mine, by the way. Costco’s are WAY better!

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Meg! She won the book and prizes. And Congratulations to DD, Shannon, Elin and Ilissa! They won the cookie cutters and other Sugarlicious goodies. Thank you to all for participating!!

Just in time for the holidays! OK, so I’m too late for Halloween, but the other holidays. One last hoorah and trip to the post office before Baby 2 arrives in December. So I’m giving away a signed copy of my book, published earlier this year, Sugarlicious: 50 Cute and Clever Treats for Every Occasion (because you covet my autograph, right? Just humor me). AND I’m giving away some other things, like some Sugarlicious oven mitts, aprons, spatulas and Post-It notes. AND I’m giving away some Fall and Winter-themed cookie cutters for your baking in the next couple of months. It’s an all-out extravaganza, I think.

Read all about my book, Sugarlicious, HERE.

A peek inside the book:

(scroll to the end for the giveaway)

THE GIVEAWAY!

To enter: Leave a comment to this post before Thursday, November 8, midnight, EST. That’s it!

The Prizes: Five winners will be randomly drawn to win:

• •  1 winner will get a signed copy of Sugarlicious AND the Sugarlicous oven mitt, spatula, apron and Post-It notes AND the cookie cutters (leaf, turkey, pumpkin, snowman and snowflake).

• •  4 more winners will receive: The Sugarlicious oven mitt, spatula, apron and Post-It notes AND the five cookie cutters. (Sorry, folks, I only have one copy of the actual book to giveaway, so that goes to the 1st place winner.)

The Details:

Given my limited funds, I can ship to US addresses only.

Winners have 48 hours to respond after being notified before another winner is drawn.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

So my daughter just turned five. She has anticipated this day since she turned four. As such, I’m afraid the distance between her real birthday and the actual celebration day was too long for her to bear. So on her actual birthday we made some rainbow pound cake. The reasons being: It’s small enough to just share between those of us in the house, it’s rainbow (her favorite), it’s easy to make, and there is no frosting. My kid is the only kid in the universe who prefers the cake part of the cupcake over the frosting.

What it means to turn five, according to my five-year old: Your arms are noticeably longer. You can no longer play with four-year old toys (guess I shouldn’t point out those Legos in the background). You are better at Skee-Ball (to be fair, she did demonstrate this). You can read instructions. You can go on scary rides. You can run faster.

And you know a lot more about rainbows and baking.

how we made rainbow pound cake

Step one: We copied Martha Stewart’s recipe for vanilla pound cake. Make sure to whip the butter and sugar on high until fluffy and to not overmix the flour into the batter. It will be a bit thick.

Step two: We added Americolor Soft Gel Paste food coloring, Electric Pink, Orange, Electric Green, Sky Blue and Regal Purple. To limit the mixing, I used one bowl, one spoon. I didn’t measure or divide, I just eyeballed it. I scooped some batter into the bowl, mixed in a few drops of the pink, and plopped it into my prepared loaf pan. Scooped some more batter in the bowl (I didn’t even wash out the pink or any of the colors), mixed in the orange, and plopped it into the pan. And so on with green, blue and purple. I wasn’t careful layering of the colors, though I did sort of try and spread them out to fill the pan. Sort of. It still baked up perfectly.

Step three: We baked the pound cake according to the recipe, let it cool in the pan 15 minutes, then popped it out onto a wire rack. The outside looks kind of odd with the purple, but the inside rainbow worked beautifully.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

Thank you everyone for your tremendous outpouring for the Wilton 101-Piece Tool Caddy giveaway! Over 1109 comments. I couldn’t believe it. A winner HAS been drawn randomly and notified this morning, and will be announced as soon as I get confirmation they received their notice.  But don’t despair, details about the KitchenAid givaway are coming soon! In the meantime, you can still enter the Wilton caddy, KitchenAid and Sugarlicious giveaway HERE at Woman’s World.

As promised, I’m back to talk about all of the tools you love (which are pretty much exactly the tools I wax on about in Sugarlicious, so yay! We all think alike!). These are collected from the oh so many comments you left for the Wilton giveaway, and though I wrote this post before the last day’s worth of comments, I did my best to go through them all and add what I could.

BUT FIRST, A SUPER QUICK GIVEAWAY!

Leave a comment here by midnight tonight (yes, tonight) and I’ll randomly choose one winner to get a Sugarlicious Prize Pack that includes a Sugarlicious apron, spatula, oven mitt, Post-It notes, a sneak peek booklet and some recipes. (Note that the book itself is NOT included in the giveaway, as I’m all out of my own books.) Contest worldwide.

THE TOOLS YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT

Understandably, there is much support for Wilton’s products. Wilton makes just about everything you need for decorating sweets, and their products are widely available online and in craft stores (and while they gave one of you an awesome caddy, they didn’t pay me to say that, many of the products I use are Wilton’s).   Your favorites (and some of mine) are:

GENERAL TOOLS

Below are what many, many of you voted on as your faves, and they are mine, too! All of these are listed in Sugarlicious, of course.

•  Disposable decorating bags (This is MY go-to as well as the majority of yours, can’t live without tool. I, too, use them for cookie decorating, for cupcakes, candy melts, non-sweets, everything.)

•  Decorating tips—I, too, use Wilton’s decorating tips for frosting cupcakes and for decorating cookies.

•  I was glad to see a few shout-outs for couplers, which allow you to switch tips easily.

•  And to add my own, rubber bands! Use these to close decorating bags to prevent oozing.

•  Other Wilton favorites include rubber spatulas for scraping bowls and spreading icing (Elaine), the comfort grip cookie cutters (Carrie) and miniature cookie cutters for making pie crust decorations (Laci Jamison), the Wilton chocolate melting pot (Anne J-Z and Karla) and the quick release (Lynne).

• I certainly have to agree that cookie cutters and fondant cutters are in the list of essentials. Read more about building a cookie cutter collection HERE. I agree with Dee, I use fondant cutters a lot, even for cutting out cookies.

•  Toothpicks are a must-have tool, as many of you note, for scraping mistakes, encouraging icing, even decorating techniques.

•  Parchment and wax paper are on the necessities list for many, including me. I line baking trays with parchment and use wax paper for easy cleanup and practicing piping. Though Charlene Wiggins points out “My favorite tools are my practice board with patterns.” And many note they use parchment piping cones for decorating.

•  Georgianna writes, “A simple but imperative tool that I have is a set of teeny rubber spatulas. I couldn’t decorate without them!”

•  I’m glad to see KitchenAid mixers getting a lot of use. I use mine almost every day.

•  I’m also glad to see how well-represented SPRINKLES are for decorating, covering mistakes and just for fun.

•  Also vital, you can’t decorate without food coloring. Danielle Smith, I agree, I use Americolor Soft Gel Pastes. (For tips on food coloring, click HERE.) Emily writes, “I have JUST discovered Wilton colour gels – and I am in LOVE with them.” And Madiha Naeem says “My fav tool is my icing colors .. love trying different color combos and bringing a cupcake to life.” Agree!!

•  And just like Angelica Geoge, who suggested decorating pens, I always have these in stock.  (CLICK HERE for tons of information on food coloring pens.)

•  Marie’s must-have decorating tool is a “wooden skewer with a sharpened tip for drawing fine features with frosting.” Now something new I have to try.

•  Emma Gonzalez says “My fondant roller is my favorite tool.”

•  I have not mastered my convection oven, though, as Tracy has, sigh.

•  Some other good go-tos: Ziplocks (Maureen) and

•  a gum paste/fondant tool kit (Christa Dunn).

•  And Elane has a Cricut, something I’ve yet to find under the Christmas tree!

•  And yay, I’m glad sticks got in the mix! Thanks, Tammy Moore, for adding popsicle sticks.

•  Katie S. uses tweezers (yep, definitely helpful for things like dragées!)

•  Sharon uses a paintbrush to decorate sweets (I love “painting” sweets, too! And even added that to the book.)

•  Suz is right on when she says “my all time favorite tool is a steady hand”!

•  Amber, too, mentioned the internet, and Julie mentioned Pinterest. The source of MUCH addiction, I mean, inspiration, to be sure!

•  Jamie Spagnola said, “I can’t live without my ‘google image search!’”  YES! I agree. Certainly not to find and copy others’ work, but when drawing or creating art on sweets, especially objects and cartoon characters or landmarks, sometimes you just need to see what they look like. I understand this fully. At the cookie store, we’d have requests daily for such things (Big Ben? A hammer? Dishwasher? Garfield?). In the early days, we didn’t have internet access, so we had a huge ClipArt book we called “The Bible.” Once google images came about, it changed the game.

COOKIE DECORATING

•  Squeeze bottles—I actually don’t use these, I use decorating bags instead for cookies, but most swear by the bottles!

•  Lorna “ cannot live without my boo-boo stick from Karen Cookies ( apparently I make a lot of boo-boo’s ).” And Penny Carsner said the same thing. And Cynthia H.  And Shelley. Me too! We went through many boo-boo sticks when I worked at the cookie store. They aren’t easy to find, I’ve found them wholesale, but not retail, so I’m glad for the Karen’s Cookies tip. Find them HERE.

•  Ryan Alice Piccine can’t live without a silpat mat, “an amazing multitasker.”

•  Vbaler, yes, luster dust definitely counts as a tool.

•  Decorating tips are must-haves. I use sizes 2, 3, 4 and 5 for cookie decorating, but 1, 1.5, 2 and 3 are the most popular. (GOTTA get some 1.5s)

•  Amanda @ Foodfascinations says “I can’t live without a wooden skewer when I’m decorating. They are great for helping to flood royal icing and mix in color.” Another item now on my must-try list.

•  Linda Livingston says she uses dowel sticks to make sure all the cookies are the same thickness.

•  Shirley Murray, I must agree, says cookie cutters. “I love to decorate cookies using my large collection of cookie cutters. I find the cutters at thrift stores for pennies! Can you believe someone would part with their cookie cutters?!” Um, no, no I can’t.

CAKES

•  I also agree with the many who said offset spatulas are crucial for frosting cakes and cupcakes.

•  When it comes to cakes, it seems tools to just get that frosting on their smoothly are paramount. Lindsey (café johnsonia) writes, “my favorite decorating tool is my bench scraper.” As did Amy Nguyen for “clean sharp edges!” And Robin, from Bird on a Cake, too. And a turntable is also a popular choice, and Connie added a cake splitting tool, “like a giant cheese slicer.” And Jane uses a cake lifter.

•  For cake decorating,  stars, leaf tips, number 22 and the 2D nozzle are popular decorating tips.

CUPCAKES

•  Windy writes “I grew up on cupcakes iced with a knife or if we were getting really fancy, a spatula. I’ve found the joy of icing bags and tips. Now that I’ve found them, I can’t live without them!!” Yep! Me, too!  The popular decorating tips for cupcakes are stars, leaf tips, and the 1 M.

•  Shelly says for simple piping, she uses her “Tupperware ‘ball.’ I just fill it with frosting, stick in the tip, and squeeze.” I’ve never heard of this. I think I found it here at amazon. Where have I been?

UPDATE:

Gotta add a couple more from the comments below.

• Natasha uses chopsticks instead of toothpicks. I’m so going to try this.

• Mandy uses a pizza cutter for fondant. YES! Great one! I have pizza cutter listed in Sugarlicious, too. I use that all the time for fondant. Had to add here since I forgot that the first time around. Thanks, Mandy!

MORE ABOUT SUPPLIES AND WHERE TO FIND THEM…

Well, you could buy Sugarlicious for the extensive list of every supply you’ll ever need and the many stores and locations for buying them…. but I also have lots of tips and links HERE.

Thank you everyone so much for all of your tips and tricks and tools!! I know I got a few tips.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!