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Wow – it’s been quite a while since our last Cookier Close-up (my bad!), but this one certainly won’t disappoint. Today, we’re talking with serial Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge entrant, January 2020 site artist, and a cookier who harks from a distant land...

This month, I'm sharing a different idea for a cookie platter where the cookies are propped vertically. I've displayed the mushroom cookies close together and used segments of a paper straw to connect them through holes cut into each cookie. This way...

The chalkboard shelf is a popular item among cookie decorators. It is used to display cookies at farmers' markets, during pop-up sales at home, during birthday parties, and so on. Here are a couple of pictures of a real display shelf with cookies, kindly shared with us by...

Happy fall, y'all! This week, I've been in Maine at my home-away-from-home, enjoying a little time off, replanting pots for the fall, continuing to furnish the house...

Yes, I’m finally back with another Cookier Close-up, and I’m especially excited about this one with our June 2024 site artist, Dita Dortová aka Dita. Until recently, I only knew Dita through her forum intro from a few months ago and her stunning cookies that she posts quite regularly to this site. So it’s been my...

With winter now in full effect, I've been thrilled to catch a rare glimpse of snow on the far hills across the valley. Snow angels are an iconic and joyful celebration of the winter season. I imagine happy children thrashing in...

Well no one's ordered any autumn cookies from me this year, and I do love a collection of pumpkins and gourds. I always have a few in the window where I work. I particularly love the quirkily shaped, knobbly gourds, both beautiful and funny! Though...

Ah, summer. When my kids were in grade school, those first few weeks of summer vacation were like paradise. Sleeping in, staying up late, slumber parties, and lazy days - summer was everything they thought they wanted. As the days passed, however, they’d always reach a point when...

While working on this cookie, I came to the realization that this will be my fourth tutorial featuring butterflies. I was so surprised! Don’t get me wrong...

Even though I am now living in Thailand where it is currently 85°F (29°C), I haven't forgotten the cold of winter, which many of you are now experiencing. So, I thought, what better way to get cozy than with felt warmers on hot cocoa (cookie) mugs?!...

Fall and its vibrant colors are a joy for the heart and a great source of inspiration to me. Mums, pumpkins, and wagons surely have been my favorite things to “cookie” in past years...

Seeing as this is my last Spotlight before Christmas (more on the Cookie Connection holiday schedule below), I'm just going to say this now in case I miss you on the 25th: MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! May you have a...

Ooh, I just love this time of year on the site, don't you? I mean, who needs visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads when there are so many glorious Christmas cookies dancing across our screens?! Tonight, I'm featuring this week's top ten cookies, but it should come as no surprise that...

The first time I heard about shortening was when an American colleague couldn't find it for a recipe she planned to make for Thanksgiving dinner. When she served sweet potatoes covered with melted marshmallows, I wasn't immediately...

There is something about painting on a cookie that I can't resist. People say it's a great stress release and outlet for self-expression and creativity. For me, painting is not only a very accessible and enjoyable...

What makes the difference between a cookie aficionado and a cookiepreneur? Profit! Remember we are talking business here, and the bottom line is the bottom line.   I am going to dive right into this two-part series. Part I, Creating a Successful...

This week's Spotlight affirms that we're in yet another ambiguous cookie zone, where themes straddle different seasons, holidays, and occasions. Here, we've got cookies that reflect back on...

This Toolbox Talk tackles an ingredient that is so fundamental to rolled cookie recipes that maybe it should have been the first in this series. I'm talking about flour, people! Even an ingredient as common as flour has its differences around the world, which impact baking results...

Too often here in cookie land, we skip from Valentine's Day to Easter, without giving St. Patrick's Day even a sideways glance. I've never been quite sure why that is, as leprechauns, when done right, can be so darn cute.

My first days of school seem like only yesterday. Every August of my childhood as I was about to begin my next year of primary school, it was always the same story: like clockwork, my mum would take me to shop for new dresses...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: While I'm terribly sad that Kari Arroyo ,aka Dear Yankee Girl ,has retired from our amazing team of contributors, I'm thrilled to introduce our newest tutorial writer through this debut post! You probably know her as Sugar Pearls Cakes & Bakes , the maker of those magnificent multi-technique cookies (say that three times fast!) that have wowed us all on this site. (Remember that stenciled honeycomb set? And the crazy quilt-style gingerbread...

National Cookie Month has been a blast, hasn't it? And just when you thought it was about to fade into distant memory, I'm bringing it all back with another giveaway!   While definitely fun, this giveaway has actually got a very serious component...

As Taylor Swift (muse for this year's competition theme) would ask, "Are you ready for it?!" - "it", of course, being the grand winner reveal in the third virtual edition of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™! From what I've witnessed online, I suspect so. And the good news is...

I've found that the best way to keep the creative juices flowing is to be consistent with your baking and decorating. While you're creating one thing, other ideas will keep coming. And so...

When I used to sell my cookies, practicality was my worst enemy. It was an infuriating little voice in my head whispering sad truths: “too fragile”, “ too big”, “too sticky”. Every design had to live in a little bag without risk of breaking, smudging, or becoming stale on its path to the customer’s event. Now...

A few months ago, I made a water lily pond cookie set inspired by a couple of real ponds that I saw during a trip. One pond had pink flowers, and the other pond had white ones. That set was my...

By a show of hands, how many of you have been spending lots of extra time here on Cookie Connection as a respite from all of the crazy news out there these days? Certainly, for me, the most calming thing I can do (next to actually decorating cookies) is to sit in front of my computer...

Creating dimensional royal icing designs on my cookies is one of my favourite techniques. I especially love the more complex designs that make cookies a thrilling challenge.

    I love hot air balloons, but I really don't love heights! So my experience of them will always be from the ground, looking up and imagining how serene and beautiful it must be - that is, if you're not up there screaming and dribbling in...

One day toward the end of July, my daughter looked at me and said, “I can’t wait for Halloween.” I was in complete agreement. Is three months too long to count down? My daughter is...

Last year in April, I shared a cookie tutorial featuring dimensional royal icing flowers on lattice cookies. I used a huge round cutter to create the lattice, a tool normally used to cut an entire lattice pie crust top in one fell swoop. In this tutorial, I...

Yes, you read that right - I'm running two days late on the Spotlight. I am so sorry, but one thing has led to another lately. Painters were here a week ago, which triggered a break in our old roof. The roofers came and replaced our roof, but messed up the...

Years ago, my husband and I decided to bring in a sofa that we’d been storing in our garage. After lugging in the unwieldy piece of furniture, we plopped down on it in triumph. I turned to look at my husband, and my smile melted into horror. Perched on his neck was a...

Well, Christmas is clearly here! And I couldn't be more eager to usher in the holiday season after this crazy year we've had. Apart from one cookie on this week's hot list*, all of this week's fabulous creations are suitable decking-the-halls material. With everything from...

My mom can grow anything. It wasn’t always so. She started out a city kid from New York with little opportunity or care to nurture a green thumb. But with the 1960s came a newfound desire to commune with nature. My parents moved to a...

I kid you not, it feels a little frivolous to be promoting stencils right now. But, on the other hand, if they're cheery and bring people joy, especially at this uncertain time, then perhaps it's just fine. The truth is...

Growing up, I was fortunate enough to celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah. At our house, Hanukkah was always a quiet affair with an understated elegance. As a child, I would have called it “fancy”. Maybe it was the colors, the deep blues and shiny metallics, that made it feel so sophisticated. Maybe it was...

In the last few years that I lived in Italy, tiny wooden boxes of strawberries made their appearance in the grocery store by the middle of February. They were imported, as it was too early for strawberries in Italy. They were so colorful and so neatly arranged in their wooden boxes...

I just returned from my first holiday party of the year, and, boy, did it ever put me in the Christmas spirit! (And solidly remind me that I need to get cracking on my decorating!)...

Fall (or I should say autumn, as it sounds more like the Italian word "autunno") is one of my favorite seasons. I love the explosion of warm colors on the tree leaves, especially on those sunny days when the sky is crystal-clear and the air is chilly...

For some reason, no one ever wants to eat beautifully decorated cookies! Usually I hear, "they're too pretty to eat", and so I find myself giving advice about how to store and display them for optimal longevity...

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and what better opportunity to talk about love? In this case, love for a cookie decorating technique: the crackle effect!

I love summer. And I love flowers too. One of my all-time favourite flowers is the daisy. We call them margaritas in Argentina. (Yes! Exactly like that refreshing drink.) Daisies have been adopted as a symbol of...

Cold weather got you down? Well, I'm about to warm you up with a wonderfully cheerful giveaway brought to you by the talented illustrator Claudine Hellmuth !* Thank you, Claudine!   If you haven't yet had the pleasure of "meeting" Claudine's...

This is the story of a cookie tutorial that was meant to be a 3-D pumpkin cookie project but ended up becoming a dimensional cookie composition that resembles a pumpkin. Three years ago I shared a tutorial featuring royal icing place cards. They were royal icing plaque transfers decorated with three different kinds of...

I've always worked hard to hide the seams of my past 3-D cookie constructions by mitering the edges, or by mitering and then covering the edges with royal icing. My goal was to...

Hi, all! Happy fall! We're in that inexplicably odd time zone where people tend to jump from Halloween cookies right into Christmas ones, forgetting about that wonderful Thanksgiving holiday that falls in between! Fortunately for us...