A Herd of Racookies!!!

Okay, so Charley and I had our first gig. Our assignment was to bake 70 Raccookies for a golf outing yesterday (which was canceled due to the weather). I baked my favorite sugar cookie recipe, and changed two things to see if I could improve on something tasty- I sifted the sugar and added Almond Extract in addition to the Vanilla. I read about adding almond on one of my fave blogs, The Decorated Cookie. Let's just say it was a good decision because they smelled and tasted super.
I learned a LOT from this cooking adventure.

• There's gotta be an easier way, and I'm determined to find out what it is.

I was too chicken to try and make these cookies using Royal Icing. I tried a test batch last Sunday, and let's just say the icing looked more like school paste then frosting. I found out that I added too much powdered sugar..but I COULD have corrected it by adding more water. Next time.
For these Racookies, I sketched out the little buggers using a black food writing pen (free hand, using my cardboard cookie template as a guide). I then painstakingly frosted them with black icing, and used a toothpick (yes, I said TOOTHPICK) to paint the icing to match the outline. Last, I fished out all of the white hearts, flowers and stars from my stash of sprinkles and placed each eyeball in it's spot with tweezers. Gah!
All in all, you are looking at about 14 hours of work from start to finish. So when I say there's got to be an easier way- I have to believe that it's true. Charley sat by my stool (as pictured) for pretty much the entire cookie tornado.
I'm adding more pics then usual, because who knows when I'll be making this many cookies again :). Even though the outing was canceled, cookies were delivered and Boyf and I played a round of golf anyhow. It didn't rain on us one bit. :) Yay!