A second week of special Saturday Spotlights! And this one couldn't be more special, as it's our big 2017 Cookiers' Choice Awards winner reveal! (Okay, so it's Sunday now, but who's keeping track?!)...
Hi, everyone! Here are my newest stencils, freshly arriving on my partner Confection Couture Stencils' site today! And, as an extra bonus, it looks like spring may also be coming with them - it's almost 60°F here in St. Louis today...
Oooh! I've got a super special Saturday Spotlight for y'all this week! For the last month or so, the cookie community has been busy nominating those cookiers who they believe are most deserving of our site's biggest honors, bestowed in our annual Cookiers' Choice Awards...
Phew! Time never stands still in cookie decorating land! With the New Year now squarely behind us (for all of five days), you folks have moved full speed ahead into Valentine's Day...
Time flies? Well, I'd rather say it rushes along at light-speed! My little nephew was just born yesterday, and now his first day of school is already around the corner! And what else could his cookie-crazy aunt give him but...
I remember many years ago when my kids were “cute”. We’d walk to school on the first day holding hands, their sweet little cherub faces glowing with the anticipation of a new school year. Now in high school...
Considering the thermostat topped 104°F here in St. Louis today, I probably should have entitled this post, "Top 10 (Dog Days of) Summer Cookies"! Even when it gets this hot outside...
Man, dads always seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to cookie decorating and gifting. While Mothers' Day cookies started posting here in March and April, and were even spotted as late as last week...
For a few weeks now, you’ve all been admiring our April site art (pictured in our banner and backdrop and directly below), so it’s high time we get to know the talented cookier behind it: @hikainmel (vert), aka Kaori Everitt-Hirota! In her quick intro in our forums earlier this month, we learned that Kaori originally harks from Osaka, Japan...
Tomorrow morning, my friend and I drive to Salt Lake City for CookieCon 2017. This will be my fourth CookieCon, and, as I look back, I think about what has followed me through the years and how I have grown as a cookie decorator...
I’ve been fascinated with the idea of recreating the iridescent effects of beetles or butterfly wings in royal icing for some time, and with the growth of my collection of edible metallic paints...
Well, well, the day has finally come! After nearly a year in discussion, design, and development with my new partner Stencil Ease, I'm thrilled to announce the official launch of my new Prettier Plaques stencil series...
I can’t believe that Halloween is already creeping closer! Where has summer gone? Well, actually it is right outside my window: bright sunshine and clear blue sky. But that doesn’t change that fall is fast approaching, with its long, dark evenings...
This month, we speak with April site artists, Allegra Crea, who, for the longest time, I thought was one person! But as it turns out, “Allegra Crea” means “create cheerfully” in Italian and is the online moniker for the cookie decorating duo of Ivana Parisi and Giusi Urso...
Welcome to our Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #15 Recap. Spring has finally sprung! Hopefully, you are recovered from both your Easter baking and spring-breaking, and are ready for a whirlwind tour of the amazing Instanbul-inspired cookies that I am about to present to 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.
Easter is coming, and with it comes warmer weather, bright and lively colors, and (yeah!) lots of baskets full of candy: marshmallow peeps, swirl pops, chocolate bunnies...
Well, you clearly decorated your hearts out - literally and figuratively - this week! We've had an impressive influx of heart cookies since our last Saturday Spotlight, all in anticipation of Saint Valentine's Day.
Wow, did you all kick off January with a bang, or what?! If the cookies on this week's hot list* are any indication of what 2016 has in store for us, then it's going to be a banner cookie year!
Can you believe it? The house is finally clean, the lights are set up, and some of the presents are already under the tree. The Christmas countdown has started, and every corner of my home (and hopefully yours) is filled with the holiday essence...
Deck the halls with bowls of cookies, fa la la la la, la la la la! See the blazing oven before us, fa la la la la, la la la la! Oops, wrong lyrics! What can I say, all of the amazing holiday cookies posted this past week have gotten me way into the yuletide baking spirit!
I will do just about anything for a prize. I adore free stuff. An otherwise dormant beast is stirred inside me when I hear that word - prize. Big prize or small . . . it doesn't matter. I want to win it. I should be embarrassed to admit this . . . but...
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 know the anticipation has been building for some time, so today I finally announce the outcome of Building C. In all honesty, I hope this post does not let you down, or leave you frustrated or feeling sorry for me. Instead, I want you to think of it...
Well, after months of rain, it's finally kicked into real (sunny) summer weather here in Missouri, and I'm gearing up to enjoy it this weekend with a walk in the park and picnic with hubby. (Our form of date night!) Come to think of it, I'd like to...
Our CookieCon interview series continues this month with none other than Monica Holbert of Cookie Cowgirl, one of the most talented (and most humble) cookie painters I know! We live-chatted with Monica what seems like eons ago (my, how...
Practice Bake Perfect Challenge #10 is officially one for the books. I could not have been more impressed with the depth and overall quality of the entries we received. It is no small feat of planning and execution to produce a dozen...
If you've been making cookies for a while, chances are your friends and family have said on more than one occasion, "You should start a business and sell those! You're so talented, you'd make a fortune!" You then listen to that...
Widely regarded as one of YouTube's favorite cookiers, Hani (aka Haniela's ) has been producing cookie videos for us at the rate of about three per week since January 2013. That's 387-plus videos in total, folks, and speaking from...
Now that we’ve got the business plan out of the way, let’s move on to why I made the decision to open a storefront. You might be wondering why I would make such a decision when my state already has a cottage food law in place....
Christmas isn't quite here - yet it's everywhere! It's in my kitchen (think: gingerbread factory). It's on the faux reindeer-lined sidewalks of my quaint town square. It's in my mailbox, thanks to the remaining luddites who eschew email in favor of...
Every time I do one of these challenges I'm not quite sure what to expect. For this one , I just didn't know if people would be interested in taking the time to mix the colors, but I am so glad that so many of you did! What a splendid array of topics...
I'm badly in need of a holiday by the sea - we'll be going soon. Every year about this time, we stay in Cornwall (UK) with my aunt. Some of the most beautiful coastline and beaches in the world are in Cornwall. And every year,...
There is amazing work being regularly posted on Cookie Connection , which makes my job of finding an interviewee super easy, but also incredibly hard . . . how do I choose just one a month?! You all are so incredibly talented! The talents in this...
Hey, all. Based on the recent feedback on our first birthday giveaway post, we're making some changes, including classifying project tutorials (tutorials designed to make a certain cookie) by level. You can read all about the other changes here...
Easter may be a bit later than usual this year, but that's given me plenty of time to come up with a new design to share with you. I'm particularly fond of these little fellows. They're such solemn owls, with an important job of caring for those eggs,...
I don't know about you, but I'm glad to see us finally emerging from the polar vortex - at least on this site. Not that all the snowflakes, penguins, and other wintry cookies weren't great. They were! But . . . they kept reminding me of my...
Wow - it's been a wonderful month full of Christmas cookie splendor and an absolute thrill for me to announce each of the 25 finalists in our Christmas Countdown Challenge. Today, I reveal the final four lucky finalists for Days 22 to 25, and voting...
Happy weekend, everyone! As promised, the next few week's worth of Saturday Spotlights will be dedicated to showcasing the finalists in our Christmas Countdown Challenge. Aside: If you didn't know, $700 in prizes are up for grabs! (Big round of...
OK, gang, with Halloween now behind us, it's time to ditch the witches, ghouls, and sugar skulls (my, were those skulls ever popular this year!) and make way for more Thanksgiving-y things. Think leaves, acorns, turkeys, drumsticks, green bean...
Just two or three weeks ago, I was worried that I might have sprung fall cookies on you too soon. But now I'm wondering if I didn't start early enough! Given the abundant crop of autumn-inspired cookies posted to Cookie Connection in recent weeks, I...
As a cookiepreneur, you have so many important decisions to make - and none more important than establishing both a vision for what you wish to build and the starting point from which to build it. Launching a business without a vision, strong...
Cookie Connection has quickly grown into a large and incredibly diverse international community (woo hoo!), and this week's Top 10 cookies truly underscore this point with their wide-ranging styles, techniques, and design perspectives. The...
It often happens that those who decorate cookies have leftover white or colored plastic chocolate (aka modeling chocolate) or fondant. Not sure what to do with it? Have some fun with marbling! (I use plastic chocolate, but the method is...
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...
Recently I've heard some trepidation about modeling chocolate expressed within my circles on the internet. But, truly, there's nothing to fear about this quick and easy two-ingredient recipe. Plus, it's really tasty, much tastier than rolled fondant,...
This month, we get better acquainted with our May 2023 site artist, Chikako Fujii, aka Atelier Chez Malo. As we learned in her earlier forum introduction...
In my neck of the woods, spring has sprung. The gardens are an avalanche of color and texture. Not only are the flower beds overflowing, but so are the calendars. There is...
Judging by online searches and tutorials, the cookie community adores puffy royal icing. I, too, love that soft, pillowy look. But with puffy icing also comes sloped, rounded edges. Sometimes I don’t...
Hi, all! I'm busy, busy, busy, prepping for a belated Valentine's Day dinner tomorrow with my mom and husband. So while the fixings for beet soup simmer and the red raspberry mousse gels (yes, every menu item is some shade of red or pink!), I'm going to...
