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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
It used to be, back when I was growing up, that moms memorialized their love of their kids in painstakingly traced and cut black silhouettes. Today (sadly), the immediacy of cell phone pics seems to have replaced that wonderful ritual of portrait-posing and the art itself...
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.
Hippity, hoppity, Easter's on its way! Yes, indeed, the site is overrun with Easter cookies, and each day they seem to multiply even faster than the progeny of the Easter bunny ;)! This Spotlight is testament to the fact that...
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!
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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'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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
I'm sad to announce that this will be my final blog post as a tutorial contributor on Cookie Connection. I've got some personal matters that need my undivided attention and therefore I've decided to take a break from...
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...
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...
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...
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...
High on spice yet relatively delicate in texture, this dough is perfect for 2-D cookies and small-scale 3-D construction projects, like my sandwiched baskets and Fabergé egg cookies shown in the attachments. It also spreads less than my...
Cream of tartar is one of the more mysterious yet most common ingredients in baking. It can also be one of the more elusive ones to find in some countries!
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...
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...
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?!...
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...
Whether you attended CookieCon this year or simply read about the happenings here on Cookie Connection, cookiers near and far have gone through some form of withdrawal since its ending! This month, I hope to ease the withdrawal symptoms...
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.
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...
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...
This week, we’re incredibly fortunate to be joined by party designer and cookier extraordinaire Angela Rudy of Oh, Sugar! Events . She’s also one of the lovely ladies who’s headlining at CookieCon in a few weeks. True to my word (at...
What the heck is dual-mode stenciling, you ask?! (So sorry - it's the former engineer in me who loves to make up pseudo-scientific names to explain cookie decorating techniques!) Anywho . . . it's a term I coined (I think) to indicate multiple,...
Fa la la la la . . . la la la la! Happy holidays, everybody! In the spirit of the holidays, I want to hold a Practice Bakes Perfect virtual cookie swap. This is not your ordinary cookie swap...
Well, I thought spring had sprung here in St. Louis . . . As recently as yesterday, the thermometer was hovering around 70 degrees, and the daffodils and magnolias, so weighty with blooms, were straining their branches and stems...
Well, I wouldn't have guessed it, but after a week of being on vacation with nary a cookie in sight, I was overjoyed to return to work (aka Cookie Connection ) on Wednesday, and to be inundated with all of your fabulous creations! I couldn't...
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...
