Blog: Trending Over Last Week

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...

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...

Hi, all! We've had another active week with lots of great new cookie art having been posted to the site! Most of it is also featured in this week's hot list - so hurrah, and...

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...

It's fall, y'all! The weather in my area is still a bit warmer than I would prefer, but I definitely have all the fall feels. It seems as though many of you do too, which is why this week's hot list is filled with such a wealth of...

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...

Hi, 2024 cookie art competition entrants! Just a quick update to say that I have completed all of the feedback forms that were requested by the June 30 deadline! Hurrah! If you didn't get yours and think you requested it on time, please...

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...

Hi, everyone! Welcome to Watch-Learn-Create Challenge #57. The topic of this challenge is stenciled royal icing transfers, and - surprise! - I am...

It's hard to pinpoint the exact birthday of this (my beloved) site. It launched "softly" into cyberspace in Spring 2013 with different people getting introduced to it at various stages of development.   About a month before I announced its birth...

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...

In last week's Spotlight social media post, I said that one can never be too early with Halloween cookie planning. This week, I insist that the corollary is also true - one can never have enough Halloween cookies! And, so, it’s in this spooky spirit that I present you with another...

The temperatures are still quite warm in my area so it's hard for me to say that fall is in the air. But, it's definitely on my mind! I can't wait for the...

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...

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...

My word, putting together my new cookie decorating app has been like birthing a baby! But it's finally done and ready to push out into the world (so to speak)!   Celebration GiveawayTo help spread the word about its birth, I'm running a...

Yes, it's your lucky day. I've finally got the site's first official giveaway ready for any and all interested takers! I'm calling this one The Great Spring Summer Cleaning Giveaway, because I had every intention of doing it in the spring,...

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...

With tomorrow being the official first day of spring, it seemed only appropriate that we celebrate with a giveaway! Woo hoo!     Thanks to the very generous and talented cookie cutter designer  Michael Bonne , dubbed America's Favorite...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

As a cookier who has spent hundreds of hours piping thousands of lines, it was only inevitable that a Practice Bakes Perfect stringwork challenge would eventually happen. This challenge is all about...

My parents recently moved, and while I was packing some of their boxes, an old Fathers' Day card, made by myself about 40 years ago, popped out from a drawer. I remember drawing that card at my elementary school like it was yesterday...

Happy holidays! Hopefully, by now, you have cranked out your last gingerbread man, assembled your last poinsettia cookie platter, and are ready to have some REAL cookie fun! But, first things first...

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...

This week, our CookieCon 2014 series continues with the talented and oh-so-entrepreneurial Susan Schmitt of The Painted Cookie.         As it turns out, Susan harks from Wilton, Connecticut, not far from my...

It's never too early to start planning for Christmas, especially when that planning involves a challenge with over $700 worth of prizes! (Yes, over $700. You heard me right!) Thanks to the very generous support of several sponsors (see below),...

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...

Upcoming Mother’s Day and orchids are the inspiration for this month's tutorial design. It couldn’t be any other flower, as I am currently living in Thailand where orchids are everywhere, in every color and in every shape. In fact...

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 would like to start by saying thank you. I was nervous about my first post, but you guys gave it an overwhelmingly positive response. For that, I thank you. And because of that overwhelmingly positive response, I wrote up a tutorial to answer the...

I am so thrilled with the cookies that have been trending on Cookie Connection this week. We have all sorts of celebrations. We also have color, texture, and dimension. Though this may be my personal interpretation, we also have...

Judging by the number of entries we had for this Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge, I would say that many of you spent more time in your kitchens than at the beach this summer! We had a whopping 55 (!!!!) entries for this challenge...

Well, I've got a bit of exciting news - for me and for you! Admittedly, this announcement feels a little anticlimactic, as I've been privy to this information for close to a year. Around about January, my book Cookie Swap , first published in 2009,...

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...

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...

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...

Today marks my last day of classes in Spain, and it's bittersweet. Sweet, because my host Claudia Cetro and her team of assistants (aka mis amigas queridas) were absolutely fabulous in every respect. I don't even know how to express the joy of...

Hi, everyone! Welcome to the recap of Watch-Learn-Create Challenge #57 where Evelindecora wore the hat of host to present me as the featured guest. I loved the opportunity to teach in a new way, and I can't thank Evelin enough for her support! In my kickoff video, I showed how to...

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...

Icing sugar lies at the base of cookie decorating, be it with royal icing or glaze or buttercream. It was through Cookie Connection host Julia Usher’s comments about her teaching experiences in other countries that I realised that icing sugar isn’t the same all over the world...

In last month's post, I announced that I put an official offer on Commercial Space C (below). And while I am sure you are dying to know the outcome, I mustn't get too far ahead of myself! I need to address some very important steps that I had to take...

Ooh, I love giveaways, and there's nothing better than one that comes close to Christmas time! I'm not sure I could ever part with the contents of this giveaway if I were to win, but they sure would make wonderful Christmas gifts for anyone who loves...

Now that October is in full swing, it’s time to get crazy with all those Halloween designs that you still have left to do! One way to come up with a truly unique cookie design is to create your own cookie shape. A shape that no one else has in...