Despite my love of Halloween cookies, I absolutely hate horror movies. Jump scares send me flying. Zombies give me nightmares. The screaming, the dark, the blood . . . no, thank you. This is all just to say that I can be...
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...
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...
This is not my first project with cookie spools. The first one, back in 2017, was my entry for Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #21 (the bimonthly challenge series organized by Bakerloo Station here on Cookie Connection). On that occasion, I learned to...
While many of us are great when we're behind a piping bag (or under the light of a projector), we struggle when it comes to taking photos of our work. Customers often buy with their eyes first, so it's important that we...
Oh gosh, people, I don't know about you, but I'm already bubbling over with excitement about the imminent holiday season. Thanksgiving is the only time of the year when all of my immediate family and their families get together, so it is...
Welcome to Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #36! I don't know about you, but with this cooler fall weather (at least here in the Great Lakes region), I am fired up to get my oven fired up to bake some cookies! And since it is also back-to-school season, I am ready to learn a new thing or two! As many of you know, I...
I can still feel the seasonal ambiguity in the air! Just as the weather is vacillating between extremes here in St. Louis (one day, it's balmy and hot, and, the next, it's cool and crisp), so too are our cookie themes bouncing all over the map! This week, we've got everything from...
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...
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...
I made you some money. Yes, I did. Well, not REAL money. But close enough! After the last tutorial, I got some questions about the gold coins from my leprechaun set. How did I make them? Since I don’t really like to make a set of cookies twice...
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...
Before my husband and I were married - before we had kids and a home and responsibilities - time didn’t feel so precious. We’d regularly spend a day just driving with no real destination in mind. We’d cruise along...
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...
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...
My husband’s birthday is coming up, and I know exactly what he wants. He’d love for us to take scuba diving lessons together. I can understand the appeal. Who doesn’t enjoy underwater landscapes and interesting sea creatures? There’s only one problem...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
My first child is packing for college as we speak. Her once overcrowded room is looking practically stark as more and more boxes accumulate in the hall. These visual reminders of her departure have me thinking excitedly about where this new journey will take her...
This project is halfway between a cookie platter and a 3-D cookie project. It is once again intended to be a treat to share with friends, with the 3-D mug offering a new and different way to arrange and serve cookies...
You've probably noticed that most of our Cookier Close-ups have focused on how people got started in cookies and the business of cookie decorating. (And that's because they have!) This is all well and good, perhaps, but I’ve decided to...
The summer of 1989 was one of my favorites. I spent my days with friends by the pool and my nights camping in the backyard. We watched scary movies, giggled about boys, and crimped each others’ hair. And all the while...
We've now got about one foot of snow on the ground (which is almost unprecedented for St. Louis) and more is still coming down, so it should probably come as no surprise that I was especially drawn to the spring-y colors and flowers in our cover image by...
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...
I wish I could drum up some clever and catchy verbiage to properly introduce this week's top cookie art (because it is truly astounding), but Australian jet lag seems to still have the best of me. So rather than drone on with words that are likely to...
Two weeks may have passed, but my jaw is still scraping the floor in amazement over the winning entries in my 3-D Cookie Art Competition™ that took place at the Show Me Sweets show on July 13 and 14. In a few months, you'll get a more complete recap once...
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...
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?!...
I love the idea of stained glass cookies; the shine and transparency are so striking and delicate. I’m not too crazy about any of the mediums I’ve used for the effect, however. I tried...
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...
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...
The recent Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #21 about lace was the source of my inspiration for this project. Each challenge is a wonderful experience because it focuses participants...
I have a thing for benches. I especially like those in parks in spring and fall, and those along rivers. The idea for this project developed around this white little bench...
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...
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...
Here in Missouri this past week, the weather vascillated between summer and fall, apparently not able to make up its mind. But as of this morn, I can happily declare that all of that wishy-washiness is gone and autumn is definitively here! My black...
We seem to be plagued by SCD (Seasonal Confusion Disorder) on the site this week! Some of you have cookied the transition from summer to fall; others are fully into fall; and still others (in the Southern Hemisphere) are celebrating the arrival of spring! No matter what...
If there’s one thing my current trip to my childhood home in Connecticut is teaching me, it’s that I’m way too overreliant on high-speed wifi! I can’t upload photos to my video team without it; I can’t review videos or post them without it; and, worst of all, I can’t post Saturday Spotlights without it...
I love to take inspiration for my cookie designs from nature. There’s an imperfect quality to organic objects that I find very forgiving; things don’t have to be perfectly straight, smooth, or symmetrical. So I try to...
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...
I’ve mentioned previously my experiments with stained glass cookies. Cooked sugar was one of the obvious contenders to create the look, but I was hoping to avoid the stark contrast between crunchy, hard sugar and relatively soft cookie. So I set about concocting...
Phew! We're definitely experiencing the dog days of summer here with temperatures topping 100°F for the last few days! I managed to get in my morning walk without expiring...
Many years ago (almost thirty), a friend of mine and his girlfriend found a way to make some money by selling framed sailing knots. The knots, each labelled with its name, were glued onto a nautical chart together with other embellishments like mini anchors and ship wheels...
When I was a teenager, I had a bit of an obsession with semiprecious stones. Malachite, with its brilliant greens and hypnotic swirls, was my absolute favorite. I had an entire collection of malachite treasures...
