Following a particularly wet winter, California is officially drought-free! I think any native Californian meets this news with both gratitude as well as a little skepticism. I’ve lived here most of my life, and I can’t remember a time when we weren’t experiencing some degree of drought...
Hello! Welcome back to Practice Bakes Perfect! I feel like I may be starting to sound like a broken record, but I was really wowed by the entries to our Lambeth-inspired challenge. I was afraid that maybe, just maybe, I had overreached with this challenge...
It's hard to believe, I know, but wedding season has kicked off! (Last I looked, it was just Christmas!) If you're in the cookie biz, this means you're probably already burning the midnight oil, cranking out hundreds of wedding and bridal shower cookie favors - and cursing yourself for...
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...
I don’t know about you, but I have faced many challenges in my lifetime, the biggest of which knocked me down so hard I thought I would never survive. Oddly enough, it was through that challenge that I found my true calling and built a small...
In this edition of Toolbox Talk, I'm zooming in on another ingredient that can mystify cookiers outside of the United States (US): corn syrup. It is sometimes listed in royal icing recipes, but it is not available all over the world...
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...
Well, after a brief nod to St. Paddy's day a couple of weeks ago, you all pretty much hippity-hopped right on over to Easter, as confirmed by the abundance of eggs and bunnies hitting our hot list* this week.
This is my very first tutorial, and I am the worst photographer in the world, so please excuse the bad pictures. I hope you will still be able to follow. I tried to find a tutorial for gumpaste lavender and could only find two in total.
Hello, cookiers, sweets businesses, and cookie aficionados! Want to make your mark on my landmark cookie event? Well, you can! I’ve got some great sponsorship opportunities surrounding my televised 3-D cookie art competition at Show Me Sweets (July 13-14), including...
First, my apologies (especially to Timea) for getting seriously behind on these Close-ups! My 3-D cookie competition planning and some personal distractions (mostly my home renovation) have left me with little time for anything else! But onward – this interview with...
Hi, all! I'm back from my teaching trip and ready to kick into high gear on Saturday Spotlights again! I thank you all for your patience and understanding over the last two weeks as I worked through some big cookie commitments on this end. I think I've finally recuperated...
While this Easter cookie box may look complex, it is actually quite easy to decorate and assemble, and a very manageable project for beginners. Imagine each side built as a fence with two vertical planks nailed onto two parallel horizontal planks. In this case...
Yes, it's almost Mom's big day, so if you haven't yet come up with a wonderful gift for her, there's no time like the present! If you're ambitious, you'll find plenty of inspiration for wonderful cookie gifts in this week's hot list*...
Just mention the word "marketing" to a cookie maker, and she'll most likely want to run and hide under a blankie. We all know marketing is really important, and we know we need to do it, but we don't entirely understand what it is or...
Okay, if you've been on the fence about my 3-D cookie art competition, now's the time to jump off! Reminder: It's taking place this year at the Show Me Sweets show in St. Charles, Missouri (20 minutes or so from St. Louis) on July 13-14. A major TV network is turning the 3-D part into a TV documentary, and...
The internet is such a treasure trove of cookie design material. Across all of the different social media platforms, we have an unending stream of art right at our fingertips. Years ago, while scrolling through some images on Pinterest, I came across these beauties...
Hello, my intrepid cookie peeps! Welcome to Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #33. This challenge comes to you thanks to a suggestion by the winner of our last Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge - Talia! Inspired by Sonja Galmad's entry to Challenge #32, Talia suggested that we...
I like sunflowers. I remember, as a little kid, asking my parents to "kidnap" a huge sunflower that I had seen for a while towering strong, wild, and lonely along a road near a sunflower field. They finally said "yes", so we transplanted the sunflower in a large vase to our terrace, and I took care of it...
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...
Considering the thermostat topped 104°F here in St. Louis today, I probably should have entitled this post, "Top 10 (Dog Days of) Summer Cookies"! Even when it gets this hot outside...
After deliberating and deliberating and then deliberating some more, our esteemed panel of judges has finally reached a verdict in our 2016 Cookiers' Choice Awards! Before I reveal the winners, let me just say...
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.
Wow! Last month, we had one of the liveliest chats in recent history with Dotty Raleigh of Sugar Dot Cookies, another fabulous CookieCon 2015 instructor. The chat room was buzzing! People came craving solid, practical advice about how to launch...
Even though it snowed two nights ago, we're lucky here in Missouri to have some flowers emerging, bravely taunting our fickle spring weather. I love the bright, sunny pops of color now polka-dotting my yard! Hopefully, you're also...
I was completely floored when I caught sight of these “mix tapes” created by Danielle Lind of Dany's Cakes on Instagram. I mean, look at them! I was also stumped! Were they cookies? Were they edible? Were they real cassette...
There are several ways to cover a cookie with decoration. Some like glaze or fondant, but most seem to design in royal icing. It is the medium that I use and with which I am most familiar, so when I started following the work of Kathi Dangler of My...
It’s hard to believe that the subject of our next Close-up has only been decorating for a little less than three years, but, yes, it’s very true. Marta Torres, aka The Cookie Lab , may be a relative newbie to cookie-land, but she...
Fellow cookiepreneurs, the holidays are upon us, and I hope this month’s post finds you in high spirits and looking forward to the coming days. Before I begin, I wanted to share that I recently received feedback that some of you would be...
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?!...
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday and is ready to jump right back into cookies! I took a few days off from decorating cookies myself to...
Woo hoo! I've got a special Spotlight for you today - a recap of the CookieCon 2018 Sugar Show, which concluded with much fanfare only a couple of days ago! As you may or may not know, CookieCon is the largest cookie-only convention in the United States...
The vast majority of the year, heart, flower, and lace cookies dominate our Cookie Connection photo feeds. But, come early June, we start seeing tons of cookies that Dads are sure to love too...
The sun is shining; the birds are singing; it’s a warm, wonderful spring that's quickly turning into summer. It's a time for new beginnings! I’ve missed all things cookie while I’ve been away, and so it’s with great pleasure that I...
Man, dads always seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to cookie decorating and gifting. While Mothers' Day cookies started posting here in March and April, and were even spotted as late as last week...
Hello, my name is Violet, and I love making needlepoint (aka cross stitch) pattern cookies. What you are looking at here is a large (8-inch) heart cookie decorated with a needlepoint rose pattern - my first cookie of this magnitude...
What can I say? Her work is subtle, never overdone, and simply exquisite! Yes, you know who I mean – emilybaking, our honored June site artist for her winning contributions to Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #13!
This month, I’m interviewing our May site artist, someone many of you have come to know and love through your involvement in her bimonthly Practice Bakes Perfect challenges. Yes, it’s none other than the woman who works hard to push you to new cookie decorating heights...
Easter is coming, and with it comes warmer weather, bright and lively colors, and (yeah!) lots of baskets full of candy: marshmallow peeps, swirl pops, chocolate bunnies...
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!
According to Mr. Webster: Array (noun) - An impressive display or range of a particular type of thing. (verb) - To display or arrange things in a particular order. But what's a cookie array? To me, a cookie array is a collection of...
We can all pretty much agree that decorated cookies can be as much about art as they are about being edible. With a blend of painted color and layered elements, the work of Tammy Holmes is no exception. Her creations are worthy of display, in my...
Hello, all! I’m Hallena and this is the Fantastic Bakes and Where to Find Them 's first tutorial. I will be showing you how to create your own Kopykake copycat for a fraction of the price. What is a Kopykake? According to the...
Ok, it’s not really that dramatic. But it’s also not a fabulous, perfect tutorial with a happy ending either. Despite the fact that this is one technique that didn’t work out as well as I had hoped, I do want to share what I learned...
Phew! It's pretty fair to say I'm on Mothers' Day overload - with my own cookies, that is. I just completed another day-long video shoot, and several weeks of the usual nose-to-the-grindstone, head-in-the-sand prep that precedes these...
With all the detailed decorating I've been doing lately, it's no wonder I can't see the forest through the trees - with anything! (I say, as I adjust my glasses, hoping that the computer screen will soon come into focus . . .) So . . . in a...
There's nothing like a little challenge to get the creative juices flowing and to push oneself to new design heights! With five Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge entrants and one Cake International gold award-winner on this week's hot list*, this Spotlight is certainly testament to this fact. But, regardless of whether you were competing or just decorating for fun when you created these cookies, you...
I'm up in Maine this weekend, checking on my long-distance home renovation, and it's as if I've been transported back in time by a month or two. When I left my house in St. Louis on Friday, it was a balmy 60°F, I'd shed my winter coat in favor of a light jacket, and I was giving happy nods to my daffodils and hellebores as I...
Hi, everyone! After a whirlwind CookieCon 2019, I'm finally home and (partially) recovered from the overwhelming amount of sweetness encountered in Reno! I'm also bearing a big gift...
Easter is just around the corner, so I thought I’d make a chocolate Easter bunny cookie (or an egg with a pair of ears, in actuality)! This project is super easy, as it's done simply by combining basic cookie cutter shapes and decorating techniques. We'll use egg cutters to make the bunny's face and ears, and then we'll...
