Cookie Puzzle Magic

February 22, 2012

I’m on a roll. A cookie puzzle roll. A few weeks ago the very talented and equally sweet Casey of Casey’s Confections created this video tutorial on making cookie puzzles. . .

which led to me making these for Valentines Day . . .

. . . and these for an engagement party.

And then when another wonderful cookie decorator who I adore (and when I say adore, I mean adore) wanted me to make her some Sweet Hope Cookies, I made her these for her and her husband with the most adorable name for a guy I’ve ever heard . . .

And how jazzed was I that she asked me to make some for her mom who was recovering from surgery because it gave me the chance to make her mom these . . .

FYI, those were my favorites. How could they not be when they were for someone’s mom? I love moms. Some of my favorite people in the whole world are moms though the best mom ever was my mom. Just saying. Best. Ever.

And finally, when my mom friend RuthAnn wanted me to send cookies to her grown daughter who’s mom to a loving brood and a half, I made these . . .

. . .that included this . . .

And that is the roll that Casey started, which is way better than this roll which you won’t click unless today is your first day on the internet ever.

Posted in and Techniques, Cookie Creations, Valentine Day 1 Comment »

10,000 Reasons to Say Thank You

February 22, 2012

I started Sweet Hope Cookies on Valentines Day 2011. I made up about 6 or 7 different Valentine cookie sets and took them to church to see if I could round up 20 orders from that wonderfully generous group of Lutheran Swedes. 20 orders would have been awesome. I would have been thrilled to scrap together 20 orders. My gratitude would have been off the charts to get 20 orders. Instead I ended up with 55 orders and if there would have been time to do a happy dance and squeal with glee I would have but instead I high-tailed my little baking self into the kitchen and got to work.

The donations I raised that first Valentines for the ALS Association and my brother’s enthusiasm for what I’d accomplished inspired me to keep baking and so I did and this year, with only a few weeks until Valentines Day I saw that I was just 1000 dollars short of 10,000.00 and so I pulled out the heart-shaped cookie cutters, mixed up enough white, pink, and red glaze to fill a jacuzzi tub (I would advise not doing that literally) and got to cookie-ing. Rather than taking orders this time, I decided to just go into the kitchen and bake and decorate until my fingers fell off and then haul all the goodies to church the Sunday before Valentines Day and see what would happen. And so for a solid week I baked and decorated. I slept a few times, ate a meal or two and I think there was even a conversation somewhere in there with my spouse but again, my memory gets a little cloudy when major cookie-ing is involved. I had no idea how many cookies I was baking or how many sets of cookies I’d have when the powdered sugar settled but I figured I’d try to sell as much of it as I could and hope that it would bring me close to 1000 dollars.

Sunday arrived and in the end I had enough cookies to cover the entire surface of a 3 x 7 foot table a foot high in cookies and when I loaded up the car at the end of the morning all that remained were two plates of cookies and eight tubes of Sweetie Bites. The amount raised in less than 30 minutes following Sunday morning worship before I paddled off to teach my preschool Sunday School class?

1004 dollars. As of today 10,316 dollars.

From the early days of his own diagnosis, my brother Randy encouraged our family to do what we could to make a difference for others living with ALS. Even though ALS was devastating his own body and would soon end his life he felt he had it “easier” that others because he had the financial means to get the best of care and a huge circle of love and support in family and friends. He knew others had less than he did. Less money. Less support. More challenges. And so he encouraged us to do something to help others on the same journey as he was on. Raise money. Spread awareness. Just do something to help someone else and that’s what I’m trying to do with Sweet Hope to just do something to make a little difference for someone else, one cookie at a time.

Having said all that. . .

Thank you . . . to everyone who has ever donated to the ALS Association through Sweet Hope Cookies.

Thank you . . . to everyone who has offered an encouraging word to me in my cookie decorating efforts.

Thank you . . . to every cookie decorator I’ve learned from and continue to learn from.

Thank you . . . to my dear spouse who has never waned in her support of my endeavors, putting up with stacks of cookies on our dining room table, never complaining about cookie dough on the refrigerator door, and smiling every time another delivery of cookie cutters arrived at our door.

Thank you . . . to the ALS Association for doing everything possible and then more for those living with ALS and their families.

And most of all,

Thank you . . . Randy. Miss you. Love you. Will continue doing something just like I promised.

While I go blow my nose, here are some photos of the Valentine’s cookies that brought the first year of Sweet Hope Cookies to a sweet conclusion.

Posted in ALS, Cookies, Randy, Valentine Day 3 Comments »

Flowers and Hearts

February 22, 2012

When my blog posts are far and few between, it doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned you, my ~~tens of thousands~~ 3 or 4 faithful followers. It only means I’ve been cookie-ing up to my eyeballs with a death grip on my icing bottles. Such as been the case since before Valentines Day. And this leads to my blind spot when it comes to decorating. I always, without exception, under-estimate how long a batch of cookies will take to decorate. It may be true that 3 children is no more effort to raise than 1 child (as both a point of logic and as a simple math equation, I find that line of reasoning bordering on the absurd) but a few dozen cookies is just a wee bit more laborious than one imagines when calculating the steps it will take to do that one single prototype you see in your cookie brain.

Such was the case with this little cookie.

Simple enough. Just mix the ingredients, roll out the cookies, pop them in the oven, set them out to cool, make the icing, mix the colors, and then pull out the KopyKake projector and start flooding, drying, outlining, and then detail with icing and edible markers. Oh, and then heat seal before slapping a label on the back and calling it done. Not. A. Problem.

At least not when you’re only doing one cookie but when you multiply that number by say…oh…

let’s say, 135 for example, the time and effort it takes to make that one little cookie multiplies to an amount beyond my ability to calculate, and lest anyone here be mistaken, let me clear things up for you. I bake cookies. I do not do math. I barely passed high school algebra and I dropped out of trigonometry on the second day of class which by all accounts was two days later than common sense should have dictated.

So yes, it took me longer than I anticipated to decorate these sweet little morsels of sunshine and goodness.

Over on Facebook I was asked by a few of “my fans” (I love saying that by the way. My fans, my people, my homies) and while I can’t tell you the exact time it took since I was getting a little blurry on minor details such as time, space, and what my name was by the end of the project, it would probably break down to something like this:

Day One: Make the icing, divide and color. 4 hours.
Day Two: Mix, roll, cut out, bake, cool, and bag the cookies. 6 hours.
Day Three: Fill the icing bottles and flood the cookies. 10 hours.
Day Four: Outline and fill the scalloped border. Outline the design in black. Add hearts. Fill in flower color. Add green icing to branches. Add black swirl to hearts. Drop head on table and whimper. 18 hours.
Day Five: Add black dots to border. 1 hour.
Day Six: Photo shoot. Go over cookies one at a time front and back with soft clean brush to remove any crumbs or icing bits. Individually heat seal and label cookies. Clean all decorating supplies and scrap three layers of corn syrup glaze off everything within a 15 yard radius of decorating station. 6 hours.

Which leads to 45 hours of hands-on cookie decorating and two fingertips on my right hand that are still numb from squeezing icing bottles three weeks later, but to tell you the truth, I think I might have underestimated the actual time.

But don’t get me wrong. I loved making these cookies and am as grateful as can be that I was asked to do them by the good people over at the BlackHawk Museum Guild for their Hearts and Flowers luncheon as well as for the wonderful donation it brought in for the ALS Association. I’m one of the fortunate people in this world who with few exceptions gets to live each day according to the adage, “Do what you love, love what you do.” When it comes to cookie-ing I am and I do. How fortunate and grateful am I?

Posted in Cookie Creations, Cookies 11 Comments »

Glaze Glorious Glaze, Part One

January 27, 2012

I’ve noticed that every time I post a photo of containers of my cookie icing on Facebook I get a number of comments from people curious about what I use, how I make it and how it works. So today’s the day I put this baby to rest and give you the all the news that’s fit to print on corn syrup glaze.

For those brand new to cookie decorating there are four primary ways to cover a cookie; royal icing, buttercream, fondant, and corn syrup glaze. That list doesn’t include covering it with the roof of your mouth since that usually takes place after it’s been covered by one of the aforementioned toppings.

Royal icing seems to be the most used icing among the cookie decorators I know and Callye over at Sweet Sugarbelle has an excellent tutorial on making royal icing. If you want to know what you can do with royal icing, are willing to practice, and have a bucket load of dormant talent hidden somewhere deep within you, look over her cookies while you’re checking out her tutorial.

I’ve only used royal icing a couple times and personally, it’s not my thang. I can’t tolerate the taste of royal icing and I can always taste that unpleasant back note of wall spackle flavor behind whatever extract flavorings is added. Not that I actually ever eaten wall spackle but when I imagine how it tastes royal icing comes to mind. With all due respect to every royal icing cookie decorator I love and adore, I have no doubt that your royal icing is the exception; that it tastes like a creamy rich blanket of sweet deliciousness but I all I have to say about everyone else’s royal icing can be summed up in two words with a hyphen. . .icky-poo. The other problem I had with royal icing is that it’s temperamental, meaning it doesn’t like me. No matter what variation of it I tried it never came out right. I ended up with multiple clogs in my piping tips, outlines that cracked and fell off the cookie, and bumpy flooded areas. Royal icing was a royal pain. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

But on the upside, the highlight and major selling point for royal icing is that it gives a dimension and detail that can’t be had with corn syrup glaze. One of the only times I used royal icing that fell anything within the ballpark of success was in making these knitting cookies. With royal icing I was able to lay wet lines of icing over one another without having them run together as they would with glaze. An equal version of the same cookies would be possible with glaze but not without requiring multiple drying times which involves more patience than I’ve ever had in my entire life collectively.

Buttercream icing is a huge mystery to me so I won’t poo-poo or praise it but instead you might want to read this buttercream recipe and glowing report on it’s wonderful powers on an adorable set of Valentines cookies over at TidyMom. You might also want to check out this blog post at The Other Side of 50 on buttercream-iced cookies.

Fondant is a word I use broadly. There’s the traditional rolled fondant that can be applied on cookies as it has been on umpteen million wedding cakes. Here’s a basic tutorial on covering a cookie with rolled fondant over at Cake Journal. Again, there’s a flavor factor with fondant. Just call it the sugar silly putty of the baking world. I’m pretty sure I offended a few fondant decorators out there with that little phrase but let’s move on, shall we? Marshmallow fondant is a little messy and time-consuming to make but it rolls out well, can be stored airtight for a couple months (soften for seconds in your microwave) and if Marshmallow Fluff is a tasty delicacy to you then you’re going to want a ticket for this ride.

Within the same category of a rolled or modeling clay like covering for cookies is chocolate candy clay which I use frequently and enthusiastically and will save for another post but since I’m all about building suspense and intrigue here are a couple photos to whet your candy clay appetite.

The chocolate candy clay roses and leaves were placed on top of a corn syrup glazed cookie, and in a reverse method….

Corn syrup glaze peace signs were drawn onto a chocolate candy clay background.
Groovy chick!

But enough about all of that! Let’s move on to why we’re all here…..corn syrup glaze!

The Downside of Corn Syrup Glaze

Intricate detailing and fine point writing is near to impossible.
Dimension and detailing requires added decorating time to allow glaze to set between layers, sections, and colors.
Glaze takes 18-24 hours to dry completely and even when it’s completely dry there’s a tendency for it to leave a little moisture smudge on any surface of the bag you put it in that it has contact with.

The Upside of Corn Syrup Glaze

Unlike royal icing, glaze doesn’t have a flavor of its own that needs to be covered up, allowing whatever flavoring you add to it to shine.
Glaze is simple and quick to make. Add a couple common ingredients together and mix until smooth. Easy-peasy, mix and squeezy!
Glaze can be stored up to several months. As you’ll see below, I make multiple batches at a time and then refrigerate or freeze the glaze depending on the time until I plan to use it. Leftover glaze can be re-frozen over and over again without any noticeable change to the taste, texture, or color.
Glaze keeps the cookie moist. Again, only my experience so tell me if I’m wrong (just do it gently) but I think the added amount of corn syrup in glaze over what royal icing has, retains the moisture of the cookie.
Glaze has a glossy finish. When completely dry glaze holds a shine while royal icing has a matte finish.
Glaze is a people pleaser. I’ve heard nothing but glowing comments from people who’ve eaten Sweet Hope Cookies. More than a few times someone has mentioned how they’ve eaten other decorated cookies that have a funky taste in the icing (me thinks royal icing) and so they were surprised at how delicious my icing tastes.

I can’t talk about corn syrup glaze without first giving credit where credit is due and the one who gets the credit is Pam, over at CookieCrazie. The recipe I use is the one Pam has on her blog and the techniques I use I learned from her. From what I’ve seen at Pam’s blog and what I’ve come to experience through my own cookie adventures I’ve come to believe that what you can do with glaze is limited only by your creativity and willingness to practice, fail, learn, practice, fail, learn, practice, succeed, and squeal with joy!

Where I’m sure there are a number of variations of corn syrup glaze out there, I’ve never found a reason to try one other than Pam’s recipe.

Pam’s Corn Syrup Glaze

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound box of powdered sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
a scant 1/4 cup water (scant means “just less than”)
2 teaspoons more or less of extract, flavoring, or emulsion depending on the flavor and your preference. I use half vanilla extract and half almond extract. Pam prefers clear vanilla extract but I haven’t found the color of pure vanilla extract to be a problem.
Coloring gel. I primarily use Americolor.

DIRECTIONS:

Pour the powdered sugar into your standing mixer bowl. Don’t bother to sift the sugar. If you don’t have a standing mixer use a big bowl and electric hand mixer. If you don’t have an electric hand mixer use a heavy wooden spoon and those lean muscled arms of yours.
Add corn syrup, flavorings, and water.
Using the beater blade attachment (not the whisk) mix the ingredients until smooth. Add additional water a half to one teaspoon at a time until the glaze has reached the consistency you want.

The consistency of icing is often described as being a specific second count, meaning the number of seconds it takes from the time you run a knife through the top of the icing until the trail the knife made on the surface disappears. Because the color gel remains to be added which will thin the icing to varying degrees depending on how much color you add, I typically aim for a 15-18 second count as I would rather add a little more water to thin than add additional powdered sugar to thicken after the gel has been added.

Before dividing and coloring the icing I mix a couple drops of white gel into the entire batch. Just a little white gel rounds out any other color you’ll add later.
Now divide the icing into as many containers as you need colors and cover with air tight lids.
Color one container of icing at a time, adding the coloring gel drop by drop. Keep in mind that the colors will darken slightly over the next 24 hours and when they dry on the cookies.
When you have the desired color, check your second count again. I go for a 15-18 count for writing and detailing and 10-12 for outlining and flooding.
You can use the glaze right away but I suggest waiting for at least an hour, allowing time for some of the air bubbles to come to the surface which can then be gently stirred down before pouring into piping bags or bottles. This waiting time will reduce the among of bubbles that show up when flooding the cookies. I normally make my icing 1-2 days before using it which allows it not only to rest but allows me to rest along with it. I prefer beginning a decorating day with all the icing made and ready to go since making the glaze, coloring it, and filling the bottles can take much of the morning.

Storing Corn Syrup Glaze

I leave the tightly sealed icing containers or icing bottles at room temperature for up to three days when decorating.
I refrigerate left over icing up to a week.
Corn syrup glaze freezes beautifully! I’ve never had a negative consequence of freezing and using and re-using glaze multiple times and as shown in the series of photos below I make huge batches at a time and freeze it uncolored. When I need to mix up some colored glaze for a new batch of cookies I just remove as much as I need from the freezer and set it on the kitchen counter overnight. The next morning I color it, add more water as needed (freezing causes some evaporation of the water), allow it to rest for an hour (or until the next day) and then I’m good to go.
Don’t throw out any leftover icing. Combine any little amounts of colored icing you have remaining into one container and then stack it away in the freezer to serve as a starter for your next batch of black icing.
Always stir glaze before decorating to prevent any color separation that might have happened and check to be sure the glaze is the right consistency as time allows for evaporation of water, whether on the counter, fridge or freezer.

A Typical Glaze Day at Sweet Hope Cookies

I typically make up 12-20 quarts of glaze at a time. Those are 4-pound bags of powdered sugar. I mix two bags at a time, something I can only do since getting my Randy Red standing mixer.

To keep my working area clean I put the bowl into the kitchen sink when adding the ingredients to prevent powdered sugar dust and corn syrup goo from getting everywhere. This is what 8 pounds of powdered sugar looks like in a 7 quart bowl. I know what you’re thinking but stay with me on this one, because before the mixer ever sees this mountain, I carefully pour in the corn syrup, flavoring, and water and hand stir just until the powdered sugar begins dissolving. Doing this not only compacts the powdered sugar so the mixer has room to do its magic but it’s been saturated with moisture that will prevent it from flying everywhere once the blade begins spinning.

Free Tip! Every Kitchen Aid comes with one of these fancy clear splash guards.

I don’t like it. It’s awkward to use, and both the large spout area and a large opening in the back allow ingredients to escape.

What I did was buy one of the plastic lids made for the Kitchen Aid standing mixer bowl. I cut away the center of the lid, leaving an opening just large enough for the blade to comfortably spin in, and then I cut a slit from the outside edge to the opening which allows me to slip the cover on and off when the bowl and blade are in place. And in case you don’t already know, a large plastic disposable dinner plate will do the same thing but I like the bowl lid since it snaps in place and I don’t have to hold it on. It’s also re-useable and I’m already using too much disposable plastic…as you will see in a mere moment.

And here is that moment…

1/2 pint, pint, and a quart disposable deli food containers from Smart N Final. With lids. Not pictured. Use your imagination. I use these little puppies for everything. I keep my #0-1.5 piping tips in the small one, #2 piping tips in the medium one, and #3-6 piping tips in the large one. I then snap a lid on the small one only before slipping the small one into the medium one and the medium one into the large one, so that I have all my tips separated, sealed and stacked. It’s organizational awesomeness.

But I steered away from what we were talking about, didn’t I? And what was that? Oh. Corn syrup glaze. How quickly my mind wanders.

So with the glaze mixed to a smooth consistency and hovering somewhere between a 15-18 count, I divide the icing into manageable portions. And once again, to reduce the mess and to save my anemic biceps from holding up the weight of eight pounds of glaze, I put my containers into the sink, rest the bowl on the counter and pour.

And then I start the process all over again. And again. And again.

And then it’s time for my quick and easy clean up. Rinse the glazed glaze kitchen ware in the sink and toss in the dishwasher.

Put the gorgeous, shiny, beautiful, amply sized Randy Red standing mixer in the sink and hit it with the water sprayer and a sponge.

And finally, lug the 12-20 quarts of corn syrup glaze out to the garage freezer where it will share the space with a few bags of rolled cookie dough and a bottle of chilled lemoncello. Be sure to be careful when carrying the containers of glaze out to the garage because if one happens to slip out of your arms and spill open onto the floor you’ll end up increasing your clean up time beyond the limits of your wildest imagination. And yes, it happened to me and no, I don’t want to talk about it.

There you go. That’s what it is and that’s how you make it. Maybe next time we can talk about how to use it since I’m pretty sure you could figure out the how to eat part on your own.

Posted in Tips_Tricks_Techniques 27 Comments »

The Frog Prince

January 22, 2012

The Frog Prince is the fairy tale of a spoiled princess who befriends a frog. Upon being kissed by the princess, the frog is magically transformed into a handsome prince. Now…even if I could get past the idea of a prince and frog becoming BFFs (and because I’ve watched Showtime after midnight, I suppose it’s possible), I can’t begin to wrap my head around the idea that any woman out there would be so desperate as to lip smack a toad. It’s wrong on so many levels, which is the very reason that I prefer the original version of the Frog Prince which I’m fortunate enough to be privy to after having given my spouse a copy of the collected works of The Brothers Grimm for Christmas. As the story really went down, the frog only turned into a prince after the princess had thrown it against a wall in disgust. Single women, there’s a lesson to be learned there. Take note, take heart, and start working on your pitching arm. Love is in the air!

By the way, the above paragraph might go down on record as the most disturbing lead-in to cookie photos ever written.
I couldn’t be more proud!

Anywhosit, the outrageously talented Anne York from Flour Box Bakery recently coordinated more than twenty cookie decorators to come together to design cookies for a collaborative project called “Once Upon A Time: Loved Happily Ever After.” The idea was that each of us would create a set of cookies centered around a specific fairy tale character as a baby and post them all on the same day, and this would be that day and so I invite you, along with any little fairy tale lovers in your home to take a stroll through the happy, rainbow-kissed, sugar-coated and icing-decorated collection of fairy tales. Anne will be posting a single photo from each fairy tale on her blog today so while you might want to begin there, once you get a taste of what these incredible decorators have done you’ll want to see all their photos! At this end of my post you’ll find a link to everyone’s blog and/or Facebook page.

But first, I present for your cookie viewing pleasure . . .

And because these are baby shower cookies, we have to begin
with my most favorite of all time baby shower cookie cutters….the onesie.

I love onesies so much I wish they made them in women’s regular, size 14. I would wear them. In public. Hopefully one of the contestants from next season’s Project Runway will jump on my idea and run with it but until then, let’s just look and enjoy one more time.

And here’s the entire Frog Prince Collection!

Here’s a wee bit of info on these cookies for those who care to know. I used this frog prince cutter from CopperGifts. Prior to baking, I cut the crowns off the two inside frogs and attached these separate crowns prior to baking. The lilypads were made with a cheap tin paint palette cookie cutter that I got from one of the 3283 cookie cutter companies I keep in business. The lily flowers and baby binkies were using decorative modeling clay, a simple blend of corn syrup and melted chocolate. The crowns were brushed with Americolor Airbrush Metallic Gold Paint. The diaper pins were stamped on using a diaper pin rubber stamp and edible markers. There. That covers everything.

And finally, here’s a little Froggy Favor with a bag topper especially designed for our cookie collaberation by Yadira of One Sweet Party.

Okay. You’ve been here long enough. Now go check out the cookie genuis of my amazing cookie peeps! I’ve seen their photos and you are NOT going to believe what you’re about to see! Enjoy!

Little Red Riding Hood, presented by Angela of Oh, Sugar Events
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Oh, Sugar Events Blog

Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, presented by Susan of The Painted Cookie
 Facebook Page
The Painted Cookie Blog

Aladdin, presented by Nicole of Life’s a Batch
 Facebook Page
 Life’s a Batch Blog

Rapunzel, presented by Adrianne of Color Me Cookie
Facebook Page

Alice in Wonderland, presented by Debbie of Mt. Lookout Sweets
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Prince Charming of Cinderella, presented by Tiffany of TheRedCooky
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 TheRedCooky Blog

Jack and the Beanstalk, presented by Laura of Laura’s Cookies
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Princess and the Pea, presented by Anne of Flour Box Bakery
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Flour Box Bakery Blog

Pinocchio, presented by Stephanie of the Hungry Hippopotamus
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Peter Pan, presented by Elizabeth of SweetArt Sweets
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SweetArt Sweets Blog

Jasmine, presented by Kimberly of Sweet Creations
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Sweet Creations Blog

Little Bo Peep, presented by Lorraine of Lorraine’s Cookies
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Lorraine’s Cookies Blog

Tinkerbell, presented by Andrea of Cupookie
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Cupookie Blog

Cinderella, presented by Hillary of The Cookie Countess
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The Cookie Countess Blog

Hercules, presented by Sarah of Songbird Sweets
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Songbird Sweets Blog

Sleeping Beauty, presented by Natalie of Palestine Painted Cookie
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 Palestine Painted Cookie Blog

Goldilocks, presented by Liz of Arty McGoo
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Arty McGoo Blog

Robin Hood, presented by Teresa of Sweet-T-CakeS
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Thumbelina, presented by Callye of Sweet Sugarbelle
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The Adventures of  Sweet Sugarbelle

Mulan, presented by Krista of Cookies with Character
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Cookies with Character

Ariel, presented by Georganne of LilaLoa
Facebook Page
LilaLoa’s Cookie Blog

Posted in Baby Shower, Cookies 10 Comments »

Divinely-Inspired Peep Sandwich Cookies

January 22, 2012

There I was at the grocery store minding my own business on my way to the check-out line with a bottle of water in my hand when the heavens opened and a glorious light fell upon these. . .

And then I heard a voice from above saying, “Hearken my child to these, my words. Grabbeth thee a box of Peep Hearts and maketh thy way home with haste. Then when thou doest arrive at thy dwelling warmth thou thine food firebox to 375 and then without pause, put thy hand to making all that I will tell thee to do.”

And I did.

And it was good.

This is just why it’s so critical to always have several sheets of rolled out cookie in your freezer; so when a revelation is dropped in your lap you can take immediate action. Anywhosit, this idea is so simple that I know you don’t need instructions but humor me. Make me feel needed.

Begin with Valentine Heart Peeps. I’ve provided another photo of the Peeps, not because you need another photo but because it allows me the opportunity to not only show off my brand-spanking new fire red 7 quart Kitchen Aid standing mixer (deep blissful sigh) but also the most awesome decal I found at The House of Smiths.

I know! It’s totally awesome huh?!

But I digress. Let’s get back to the subject at hand, Heaven-Inspired Peep Cookie Sandwiches.

The problem with Peeps, and it’s really not a problem as much as it is a challenge to be overcome, is that when you separate Peeps you end up with a white gooey side that’s not all that photogenic.

But for you and me, this is no problem because along with always having a supply of frozen sheets of cookie dough we happen to also have in our baking arsenal, hot pink sanding sugar. Just press the white gooey side into the sugar and the goo-glue will take care of the rest.

When it comes time to choose your heart-shaped cookie cutter, do what I say and not what I did. I used a cookie cutter about the same size as the Peep but go with a cookie cutter that’s a little larger to allow room for the warm Peep to spread out without overflowing the cookie. So use your imagination and see the cutter as bigger than it appears in the photo. Imagine it at least 1/4 to 1/2 inch wider all the way around. Do you see it? I knew you could.

Using the larger cutters you just successfully imagined make two cookies for every Peep and then decorate them by lightly pressing other cookie cutter designs onto one side of each cookie. For the top of the sandwich I went ahead and pushed a tiny cookie cutter all the way through for a Peep peek hole.

Bake the cookies (that seems so obvious but I only mention it for that one poor, pathetic person who always forgets that step) and allow them to completely cool. To assemble the Peep Sandwich Cookie, put one Peep at a time onto a plate and microwave it just long enough for the marshmallow to begin to get warm and gooey. You should be able to transfer it to the top of a cookie without it losing it’s shape, dripping through your fingers, or giving you third degree burns. If it does any of those three, you microwaved it too long. But if you place it on the bottom cookie, lightly press the top cookie onto it, and it’s just gooey enough to adhere to both sides without squishing out everywhere, you’ve microwaved it just long enough. The perfect time was 6 seconds in my microwave but you don’t have my microwave in your home (I know because I just checked and it’s still in our kitchen) so you’ll going to have to do your own research. And it will be worth it because this is one easy, soft and crunchy bite of chocolatey marshmallow heaven, courtesy of LilaLoa’s End-All for Chocolate Cookie Recipe, Valentine Peep Hearts, and divine revelation.

Posted in Cookie Creations, Valentine Day 3 Comments »

Valentine’s Day Warm Up

January 17, 2012

With Valentine’s Day sandwiched tight between a number of jumbo orders, I’m going to have to keep my Valentine cookies super simple which means a whole lot of Sweetie Bite hearts and squares and only LOCAL orders. That means if you live outside the Bay Area and you want Sweet Hope cookies for Valentine’s Day there’s only one thing you can do and do quickly….mooooooooove.

And here we go….

Love Squares.

Love Notes.

Love Cards.

Love Cans.

Love Knots.

And what Valentine’s Day would be complete without Cookie Conversation Hearts?

And Cookie Conversation Hearts in a hard clear plastic container, all the better!

Posted in Cookies, Valentine Day 5 Comments »

Guest Gig Over at LilaLoa

January 10, 2012

I’m today’s guest blogger over at Lilaloa‘s today. I feel so celebrity. I will be signing autographs in my living all evening. Stop on by.
On second thought. Don’t. I’m in my jammies.

Posted in Cookies 1 Comment »

Year in Review And Cookies Too

January 3, 2012

2011 was a year filled with unexpected moments of beginning and enjoying new friendships among an awesome group of women who like me, spend much of their day with flour under their fingernails and various colors of icing in their hair, and who talk about icing craters, cookie spread, and re-purposing cookie cutters with the same enthusiastic energy as The Real (on what planet?) Housewives of Beverly Hills talk about their new Mercedes Benz, botoxed lips, and diamond-studded bling. As the year began I was warmly welcomed into the company of the crazy and kind cookie women over on the Cookiers R Us forum, and later my circle of cookie friends expanded to include a wonderful network of cookie folks over on Facebook. I’ve participated in contributing to and taking from a box of cookie supplies that made it’s way across the country not once but twice, and this Christmas I joined in a cookie swap that provided me with enough stunning cookies to decorate our entire Christmas tree. If you were to ask me to name some of the people I consider friends in my life among them would be the names of Chris, Georganne, Susan, Anne, Donna, Jeannette, Lorraine, Leslie, Elizabeth, Sarah, Kimberly, and on and on and on. And then there are those who I take such inspiration from, not only when it comes to the cookies they design but in the kind of gracious women they appear to be like Callye, Pam, Bridget, Angie, Daniela, Glory and on and on and on.

I didn’t know a single one of these women last year at this time. I find that so amazing. Overwhelming even. And for each name and each woman behind the name, I’m filled with thankfulness. 2011 was a generous year that way.

And 2011 was a year that brought me incredible joy in seeing the delight others found in my cookies. I can never tell you how much I loved making birthday cookies for my great-niece Rosie’s first birthday or monkey cookies for my godson’s third birthday. That a 50 year wedding anniversary was made sweeter for a loving couple, that a dear friend felt more appreciated at her retirement party, and that a little guy squealed when his mom gave him cookies made just for him, all thrill me to no end. I’m so grateful that something as simple as a cookie made with intention for the one who will receive it can bring a little joy into another person’s day. I’ve always loved baking for others and that after all these years I’ve found an outlet for doing it for so many and so often is another great blessing of this year.

But through all the delight I’ve found in creating and making cookies for others, all the friendships I’ve made with others who salivate over new cookie cutters like I do, and all the fun I’ve had in writing snarky silly blog posts, I never forget why I do what I do.

I started Sweet Hope Cookies in 2011. My brother Randy had ALS and I was tired of feeling helpless in the most helpless of situations. I had to do something and so I started baking. I baked to show my brother with not only my words but with my heart, my energy, and my time that I loved and supported him. I baked to raise money to help others, who like my brother, were living with ALS. And when my brother died last April I continued baking and decorating cookies to keep his memory alive and to have something to fill my days as I walked through the grief of losing my brother much too soon and in a way much too hard. It is for Randy that I started Sweet Hope Cookies and it is for Randy that I continue. I think of him, miss him, and thank God for him every time another batch of cookies leaves the oven. That’s just how awesome of a brother he was to me.

Last Christmas Randy was still with us. The four of us siblings were still four. Now there are three. This was our first Christmas without our brother and the advent of 2012 is the first year to begin without our brother in it. How sad that makes me is a deeper sad than I can ever tell and my brother and sister, Randy’s wife, all his nieces and nephews and his many friends feel it no less than I do.

Just as our family begins a new year without Randy, there are other families like ours facing their first year without their dad, their husband, their sister, their daughter, or their best friend. Approximately 5475 of these families are grieving the death of a loved one from ALS and that’s just in the United States, and the numbers of grieving families will be about the same next year and all the years after that until the time comes when research is at last able to uncover the treatments and therapies that will vastly improve the life expectancy of those 15 people diagnosed each and every day in this country with ALS.

And so as 2012 begins I renew my commitment to do my small part to spread awareness about ALS, to raise money to support ALS research and those individuals and families now living with ALS, and to continue to honor my brother’s memory. Oh…and to keep sharing the cookie love!

To learn more about my brother, Randy Cadonau, click here.

To learn more about ALS and the vital work of the ALS Association click here.

To make a donation to the ALS Association through Sweet Hope Cookies, click here.

Posted in ALS, Randy 18 Comments »

God Jul . . . A Week Late

December 30, 2011

Our next door neighbors, George and Elaine, are a retired couple who are such next next door neighbors that their front door is three feet, in literal distance from our front door, and you just don’t get more next than that unless your neighbors are living in your guest room. George and Elaine also happen to be about the nicest neighbors there are in a neighborhood full of fairly wonderful people, and I take none of this for granted as I reflect back to my early twenties when my next door neighbor decided that drinking beer all day with his buddies was the best way to prepare for building a back yard patio deck all evening which he then proceeded to tear down the next morning while cursing with enough toxicity to make paint blister. You have to have been there to appreciate how much I adore George and Elaine.

Every Christmas Eve Elaine and George play host to their extended family by laying out a traditional Swedish dinner and this year I thought it would be fun to make them some cookies for the occasion. I knew I’d make some flags of Sweden since, let’s be honest, how hard can it be to make blue rectangle cookies with an off-centered yellow cross, but beyond that I didn’t have any ideas so I googled me some Swedish Christmas traditions and that’s when I learned about Tomte.

Now, don’t let yourself be fooled by his adorable little face because this little guy can be a real hand full. Tomte is understood as a troll-ish gnome-ish old man with a long full beard who dresses in regular farmers clothes, and while he’s viewed as a protector of the farmer, his family and land, on Christmas Eve you better fix a bowl of porridge just the way he likes it or there’s going to be trouble. Forget to leave him any porridge and chances are the next morning you’ll go out to the barn to find your cows’ tails tied together, things broken or all your chairs turned upside down. Do not mess with the little man.

Oh, and Tomte wants his porridge with a pad of butter on top, not stirred in. You don’t want to know what happens if it’s not on top. Just consider yourself warned.

And in case you’re wondering, the cookie cutter I used was a gnome from Ecrandal and designed by GeminiRJ. As a humorous side note which I now offer at my personal expense, I seemed to recall that I originally purchased this cutter as an Olympic torch, and then at Halloween I went and used it for this odd little creature. It wasn’t until I actually wanted to make a gnome a couple weeks ago and went off in search of gnome cutters that I realized that’s exactly the cutter I had!

I scare myself at times.

I terrify my spouse much of the time.

But enough about my mental instability and back to cookies.

Though I didn’t have any full body gnome cutters, at least not to my knowledge but then who am I to know for sure, I found a couple unlabeled cookie cutters in a bin at Michael’s and though others have used it for making penguins, it looks like a gnome to me, or more specifically, it looks like Tomte, and so Tomte it shall be.

I had different plans for this cookie. I was going to flood, outline, and then color in the spaces using edible markers. Edible markers are not only fun but they look awesome and are completely easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. And so, according to plan I flooded each cookie with white glaze and once they were dry I outlined with black glaze using a 1.5 piping tip. It was only when I pulled out my pens and discovered most of them had dried out that I ended up whipping up some colored glaze as fill. It would be so convenient if I had small children to blame for leaving the caps off the pens, but I don’t have children and the cats don’t have opposing thumbs so my bad.

As it turned out I’m happier with the final results because of the added texture I was able to get in with the dots and plaids and swirly beard thingies. I wanted to have a more muted color palette than the normal greens and reds of Christmas and so I added a couple tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa to all the colors which not only gave me the tones I wanted but masked the bitter aftertaste you can get when using darker color gels. Oh, and unless I’m going for vivid colors, I always add a finger-wipe to a drop of ivory gel as I did with these cookies because just enough but not too much softens the colors.