Hey, all! Once again, apologies to all, particularly the 3-D winners of my cookie competition. This special edition of our Saturday Spotlight was supposed to post last weekend (or even earlier), but with my YouTube hijack on last Saturday and my general stay-at-home malaise, I've just had...
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...
Hello, everyone! I am so excited and very honored to be taking over the challenges from the amazing Bakerloo Station. Thank you, Christine, for creating so many wonderful challenges over the years. I think we can all agree that they have helped us to grow to become better cookiers all around...
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...
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 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...
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...
Wow – it’s been quite a while since our last Cookier Close-up (my bad!), but this one certainly won’t disappoint. Today, we’re talking with serial Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge entrant, January 2020 site artist, and a cookier who harks from a distant land...
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...
My apologies, it's now been more than few weeks since the results of my 2020 cookie art competition at That Takes the Cake Show were announced! But, promptly on the heels of that show came CookieCon and then...
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...
Thank you all for participating in the most recent questionnaire in my Sugar Dot Surveys series. In this survey, I asked you questions about the powdered sugar and meringue powder that you use for royal icing and how loyal you are to brands of those ingredients...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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!
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...
Easter has been one of my favorite holidays since I was a child. I remember how my sisters and I would spend hours drawing designs on cooked eggs with crayons before carefully dipping them into little cups of dye. Once we had amassed dozens of brightly colored eggs, the treasure hunts would begin. We’d...
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...
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...
As you may know from my recent forum post , I was as surprised as you all by yesterday's site upgrade. (Somehow the advance notices about it never made it to my inbox, or I would have warned you.) Anywho . . . since the upgrade, I've been running around, testing the various changes and figuring out which ones most impact you, so I could give you this update. In short, lots of small (and a few big) things changed, but essentially only two changes really impact you. They are: 1. Reactions...
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...
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!
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...
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...
I kid you not, it feels a little frivolous to be promoting stencils right now. But, on the other hand, if they're cheery and bring people joy, especially at this uncertain time, then perhaps it's just fine. The truth is...
The idea for this project was sparked by an ad on Instagram promoting stamps to make real wax seals. I initially wanted to make an entire wax seal cookie, but I instead ended up using royal icing to make seal transfers to go on larger envelope cookies. For the envelope design, I...
Do you have some extra time on your hands? Are you a perfectionist with the patience of a saint? Do your friends marvel at your love of tedious projects?...
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...
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.
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...
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...
Hi, all! Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic and associated health worries, event cancellations, and general world chaos have thrown a number of our lives out of whack. My March, April, and May went from...
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...
The cookie season is kind of relentless, isn't it? I mean, no sooner do Christmas and New Year's pass than we're dusting off our heart cutters and cranking the ovens and mixers in prep for Valentine's Day sets...
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...
Ooooh, it's another one of those eclectically beautiful times, when we're fresh off one holiday and not yet ready for the next, and we find our cookies taking on wide-ranging themes that often defy our own imaginations. Admittedly, a few people...
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...
Wow! The coming Easter holiday has certainly made you all even more prolific than you usually are! Given the wealth of bunnies and eggs still hitting the home page feeds (they started earlier than St. Patrick's Day), it's remarkable...
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...
First off, please bear with me . . . I've had perhaps more champagne than I should have had before writing this post. But, hey, I'm entitled . . . it's my 22nd wedding anniversary after all...
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...
I’ve always had a love of blue and white china. The patterns are classically beautiful but with a striking contrast that makes me want to look closer. Recently, I came across this blue and white dinner plate. With its large-scale flowers, it felt like a...
Unbelievable. That is the only word to describe the entries we received for Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #34 - Inside the Box. Cookie creations that are 3-D take an extra level of planning, an extra level of skill, an extra level of patience, and, yes, an extra level of luck to pull off. Despite...
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...
Too often here in cookie land, we skip from Valentine's Day to Easter, without giving St. Patrick's Day even a sideways glance. I've never been quite sure why that is, as leprechauns, when done right, can be so darn cute.
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...
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...
Well, in case you hadn't noticed, it's 2015, and that means I've almost completed a year's worth of these tutorials! So to celebrate, I'm going to do things a little differently today. You might notice there aren't many photos . . . that's...
