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...
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...
Boo! It's almost Halloween and time to get cracking on your Halloween cookie decorating! If I've scared you into a jaw-clenching frenzy of cookie brainstorming, chill out...
I’m sorry about not blogging through all of CookieCon, but I had an accident early on that made it difficult to report while there. That being said, I thought I would do a belated review of my remaining time at CookieCon...
Here's a look at some of the open decorating on Saturday, the last day of CookieCon 2018...
As we all know, the creative process of decorating cookies involves so much more than baking cookies. In fact, the actual cookie is, for the most part, just a blank canvas. It's really the icing, sprinkles, fondant, and all of the other materials and techniques we use that...
Our days at CookieCon have been full of hands-on activities and demonstrations by some pretty awesome cookiers. Needless to say, this newbie is exhausted...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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, 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...
Take a walk through the vendors and classes on Day Two of CookieCon 2018...
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...
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.
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...
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...
It's still blazing hot here in Missouri, but my new garden is showing the telltale signs that fall is just around the corner: the bright colors have faded, and lush petals have given way to a carpet of texture, punctuated with fuzzy grasses 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...
Hurricane Florence tried to scare my CookieCon travel companion and me into staying home. No way was she going to stop us! We stocked our pantries and left instructions for our families before we hit the road for our 10-hour drive...
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...
I had always intended to do a tutorial on my Halloween spiders for you all, but I just didn't fancy repeating the same cookies. So I set to thinking how I could change things a bit, and do something different. Well, for a start, I wanted to have a bit...
Welcome back! I hope your hands are well rested after making the trays and the flowers in Part One of this tutorial, and that you're now ready for the "baking".
Hello! I sincerely hope everyone in the US is enjoying the long Labor Day weekend, and that others elsewhere are finding some time to chill out as well. I too am trying my darnedest to get in a little downtime before the fall sugar show season kicks in next weekend...
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...
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!
While CookieCon 2018 opening remarks are still an hour away, people are everywhere. They are chatting, trading, and giving things away. Ann Clark and two of her employees are handing out cookie cutters...
Today at CookieCon, I took one all-day class from Shirlyn Leong (aka Cookies Art by Shirlyn), and we decorated one cookie! In the morning, she taught us...
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...
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...
Here's a peek at what happened on Day One of CookieCon 2018, starting with the first-ever CookieCon showpiece and...
Greetings, world travelers! I hope that all of you have been having wonderful summers. Maybe some of you have even had the chance to travel and see with your own eyes a new and exciting part of the world...
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...
Even though we're in the midst of the last lazy days of summer, when most of the rest of the world is lollygagging on beaches or in parks, you folks never cease to amaze me...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
As many of you know, I have been hard at work (for over a year!) with my partner Badger Air-Brush Co., a premier US airbrush manufacturer, designing a new high-performance airbrush system for cookie and cake decorating...
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...
I love summer. And I love flowers too. One of my all-time favourite flowers is the daisy. We call them margaritas in Argentina. (Yes! Exactly like that refreshing drink.) Daisies have been adopted as a symbol of...
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...
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!)...
Admittedly, I'm a little ODed on pumpkins and ghosts around about this time each year! But considering we've got less than one week to go 'til the big day - and we've got such an abundance of great Halloween cookies on the site - I had no choice...
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...
Admittedly, I've seen little sun in recent weeks, holed up as I've been in my basement kitchen prepping for the OSSAS. That said, it's altogether possible that autumn arrived in Missouri long before now and I was simply oblivious. We could...
Since 2012, I've had the distinct pleasure of participating in the Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show (OSSAS), founded by cake artist extraordinaire and TV personality Kerry Vincent. Whether demoing, judging, sponsoring, or just perusing the edible artwork there, I always walk away from the show feeling excited...
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...
This post is all about my introduction to meringue powder, one of the subjects that initially spurred the idea for this Toolbox Talk column. Questions about meringue powder come up regularly on Cookie Connection, as there seem to be many differences between brands...
