Thursday, June 8, 2017

Orphan X Balloon Cookies




Every book club needs a snack to go with the book being discussed and Kerry Hammond is here to tell us about the latest book related snack from the Denver Book Club Crime & Beyond.

Crime & Beyond Book Club met this week to discuss Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz. You can read our review of the book HERE. Any good book club serves a snack at each meeting. Our group takes turns bringing snacks and members volunteer for the meeting they prefer.


Many times, our creative members are able to match the snack to the book. When we read Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer, one member created a fruit tart that was designed as a Lincoln hubcap. When we read Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman, a member created a cream cheese snowman, complete with blood spatter.



Lorraine Masonheimer, Mystery Playground's master crafter, always comes up with a unique and creative snack when it’s her turn. She has allowed me to share her Orphan X cookies here, but I want to first give you a little background. It’s a slight spoiler, because the event the cookies are meant to show happens a little bit into the book. But it’s by no means a plot point.

In the book, Peter is a little boy who lives in Evan Smoak’s building. He lives quite a few floors below Evan and in a few instances sends up a helium balloon with an attached note to Evan. Lorraine’s cookies are Peter’s balloons and notes to Evan.


Ingredients:
Everything you need to make the sugar cookie recipe of your choice
Balloon cookie cutter
Square or rectangle cookie cutter
Parchment Paper
Icing Tube
Icing Tube Tips
Straw
String

Step One: Make Your Cookies
Mix your sugar cookie dough according to your recipe. Roll out the dough and using your cookie cutters, cut out an equal number of Balloon cookies and square/rectangle cookies. Using your straw, poke a hole at the bottom of each balloon and the top of each square/rectangle. Place on parchment paper and cook according to the recipe.

Step Two: Ice the Balloons
When cookies have cooled, using your icing tube and a small tip, decorate your balloon as you choose. You can just outline it, or fill it in.


Step Three: Ice the Notes
Using the same icing tube and tip (or switching out for a different tip and color) write your notes from Peter. Ours were intentionally written with a shaky hand to be like a kid wrote them and occasionally reversed e's and r's and misspelled as in the book.  The messages we used were: “next time,” “I'm sorry, Fergive me yes  no,” “Your friend,” “Skary Men R Here Help,”  “take out a knee!?,” and “We done here?” 

Step Four: Attach the Balloons to the Notes
Using small pieces of string, tie your balloon to your notes.


Take to your book club and serve with juice boxes, Peter’s drink of choice.





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