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...
I'm back - at least for this weekend, that is . . . my multi-week 3-D cookie course is going well, but it's been nonstop teaching, cleaning up, and resetting for the last two weeks, with a few more weeks yet to go. I am...
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...
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...
How exciting! The cookie competition of the year is here in its brand new, shiny virtual format! Here is where you will find all of the information to help you register for and later submit your entry into the 2021 virtual edition of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™...
Wow, just as I thought we were hurtling full-throttle toward Valentine's Day, you guys threw me for a loop! The artists behind this week's ten top-trending cookies seem a little divided about whether...
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...
This cookie swing project has been sitting in my mind for a long time, mostly because I was looking for a way to make it completely food-safe, if not edible. I imagined it as a centerpiece or a cake topper. But I couldn't come up with an easy way to make an edible crossbar and swing chains, so I ultimately resorted to...
Well, after a very long fall season in St. Louis (my neighbor's golden gingko tree still had all of its leaves until last week), I can officially declare it's winter! I had to don triple layers today to...
Congrats to this week's honorees! Most are still-high-trending Easter cookies, though a smattering of springtime and Mother's Day-themed cookies also registers among the hot list. Special kudos to...
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...
I'm back from Japan - and from the associated jet lag (I think)! Thanks, everyone, for granting me a little reprieve from Spotlights as I tended to my cookie courses. While the classes and whole experience were magical, it is nice to once again feel home turf underfoot and to be...
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...
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...
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...
Deck the halls with bowls of cookies, fa la la la la, la la la la! See the blazing oven before us, fa la la la la, la la la la! Oops, wrong lyrics! What can I say, all of the amazing holiday cookies posted this past week have gotten me way into the yuletide baking spirit!
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...
This month's project tutorial features a 3-D driftwood tree cookie, intended to be a table display for an occasion at home. If you plan to transport it, I recommend...
As I mentioned with some dismay in last week's Spotlight, it seems that cookiers always hop from Halloween right over Thanksgiving and onto Christmas, without ever giving turkeys, pumpkin pies, or other Thanksgiving themes a chance...
We're still three weeks away from trick-or-treaters descending on Webster Groves (my little Midwest suburb), and only a few of my neighbors' homes have taken on their usual spooky garb for Halloween, but you Cookie Connection cookiers are no slackers...
Even though some people may think of beadwork (the making of perfectly round icing dots) as a minor icing detail, I like to think of it as a full-fledged decorating technique. Why the extra attention? Well, partly because I love dots and I use them a...
If you're anything like me – and countless other cookiers - you probably have at least ten or twenty (dozen) cookie cutters in your collection. And with all of those cookie cutters to keep track of, there's bound to be one or two that will have you asking...
This cookie project is meant for a dad who plays or loves to watch tennis (or for anyone who does). I used the Needlepoint Mat from SugarVeil® to make...
While digging in my memories for inspiration, hiking came up as the theme for this Father's Day cookie tutorial. I envisioned a landscape in the morning at the beginning of a hike, surrounded by a rock...
Frangipani, pomelia, and plumeria are all different ways to name the same beautiful flowers. I like the contrast of their white color against their dark green foliage and brown branches. Under each frangipani tree, you can...
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...
With one of the year's biggest cookie holidays barely behind us, it's already time to get the creative juices flowing for the next big one - Valentine's Day! Phew! The work of the cookier is never done...
Years ago, I received two mini hot water bottles from my sister. They had plain knitted covers. One of them was red with a white heart on the front, and the other had the same knitted cover with the colors inverted. (They were too cute together for my sister to buy only one of them!) This memory...
Because I so much liked using the wet-on-wet technique to make the sunflower in my last tutorial, I decided to use the same technique to make a poppy this month. Poppies are wild; their stalks are irregular; and their petals are always messy. In other words, they're ideal...
With Valentine's Day fast approaching, there's no shortage of said cookies on the site, and, so, I'm featuring love-themed beauties for the second time in a month! Call me predictable if you'd like...
In a mere two weeks, the kiddos will be traipsing through our neighborhoods, in full goblin and ghost garb, in quest of Halloween sweets. I realize that we...
Food coloring is arguably the second most important element in cookie decorating after the royal icing itself. The art of choosing colors and/or mixing the exact shade are the subjects of many blog posts...
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.
Halloween is quickly approaching, so it's time to get planning for it! The big question is . . . do you have the coolest, most scary costume of the night picked out? And what about your Halloween cookies? They...
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...
Hi, all! I'm back with our "usual" Spotlight after a whirlwind week of triaging the vast amount of CookieCon coverage generated by our talented team of correspondents ! Congrats again to Barb Florin, Beverly Parker, Jen Wagman, and...
I’ve found a new love! Wafer paper. I played around with it a bit on my Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #5 cookie set and then again on my Day of the Dead cookie. Since I got some questions about how I made these floral accents, I...
This month I have for you some colorful leaf cookies, inspired by macramé feathers. Macramé feathers pop up very often in my Instagram feed, and, since I appreciate leaf shapes more than usual during the fall season, I was inspired to...
My July tutorial is all about practicing the piping of sunflowers on cookies! I will also be using different types of straws in creative ways: first, a paper one to make the flower-decorating easier, and then stainless steel ones for the display. On a side note...
Wow, what fickle people we cookiers are! A couple of days ago, even before Valentine's Day had passed, chicks and spring flowers were beginning to lure us away from hearts, Cupids, and other love-themed sets. Or maybe it was just the sudden cold snap that turned us on to warmer, springier motifs? (It was 6°F here yesterday! Yikes!)...
Halloween is my favorite cookie holiday. There are so many fun themes to use; I feel like I’ll never run out of Halloween ideas. Designs can go in a million different directions too...
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...
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...
When I first started decorating cookies two years ago, one of the difficulties I encountered was putting together a satisfying set of cookies with the harmony of shapes and colors that I admired in the sets of veteran cookiers. It was hard...
I love lanterns, their warm light, and the ambiance they create in every season, both inside and outside the house. And so, for this tutorial, I decided to create a 3-D cookie version...
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...
Three-dimensional (3-D) cookie projects are my favorite, but they need to be broken in pieces in order to eat the cookies, and very often I hear "they are too nice to be broken" on top of the usual "they are too nice to be eaten"...
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...
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...
Hands down, teaching is the thing I like most about cookie decorating. Not only do I get a huge kick from seeing students’ eyes light up when they master my projects or a new technique, but I also learn a ton from everyone attending –...
