Three Lessons in Baking

I made more cookies today. I wanted to give away some of the pretty butterflies and Easter Eggs I decorated on Sunday, but that would have left us without any cookies. And since PJ is actually eating them (he usually doesn't eat any of the cupcakes or treats that I bake since he doesn't like sweets), I would have felt guilty if I gave them all away. So of course I had to make more. (That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

Maybe Sunday was a fluke. Or maybe I just got overconfident after Sunday's success. Either way, today's baking adventure was a definite learning experience.

Lesson 1: Logical math cannot be used when baking cookies. Since I had fun decorating a dozen cookies, logical math lead me to believe that I would have twice as much fun decorating twice as many cookies, and even more fun decorating three dozen. The truth is that, although decorating a dozen cookies is fun, decorating two dozen cookies is work. Continuing to decorate cookies after the first two dozen, instead of freezing them to decorate another time, shows a real lack of judgment on my part.
Lesson 2: Children, even teenagers, are too smart to fall for the "wouldn't you like to have as much fun as I'm having" ploy. There is no way you can trick (or entice) them into decorating the last dozen cookies. This is especially true if they've been listening to you mumbling and grumbling while working on the third dozen.

Lesson 3: The consistency of the royal icing is extremely important. You cannot use a piping consistency for flooding, or a flooding consistency for piping. If you decide to listen to a tutorial that says you can pipe and flood with the same bag of royal icing, then you should follow the tutorial's instructions for the icing's consistency.