I can’t even believe that another Holiday has past. We’ve had Christmas and New Years, now it’s time to think pink. You know chocolates, flowers, maybe a surprise piece of jewelry, some romance, champagne, oysters, lingerie?

Valentine’s Day is upon us, it’s only 40 days away!

You’ve seen our first four V Day collections, now it’s time to unveil a fifth one.

Let me just say that this is not officially a collection for sale and I really want some opinions.

Original sketch of the collection with no name.

What do you think? It’s a collection of sassy brassieres. Any clever ideas for a name??

Is Nina out there? I think this is a perfect partner for the Short and Sweet collection. Who would you buy it for? Who would buy it? If a portion were given to charity would that encourage you to buy it?

C’mon, be my “focus group” and let me know your thoughts.

And there could be a rather large reward for anyone that comes up with a cute and clever name that we use!!

By the way, does anyone know of any cool Valentine’s Day swaps out there???

This is me trying to blog. It’s not easy reaching the keyboard over my hansome boy Franklin. And you never want to push them away, these are the moments with your pets that you treasure.

However, there is work to be done and if anyone wants their 9 lives for dinner, someones got to earn some $$$.

I’ll be reporting back a little later today!!

As a person from Massachusetts, I highly recommend this cookbook to anyone who doesn’t already own it.

Originally written as a revised edition of the  Boston Cooking School Cookbook in 1896 by Fannie Farmer, it’s a great reference book to have on hand.

I own both the issue pictured above and a very old version that belonged to my mother.

The binding is totally worn off and the back cover is no longer attached.

I even have handwritten recipes on the blank pages (written by my mother). There is a recipe for chocolate whoopie pies, chocolate frosted mocha drops, a great chocolate cake, russian pancakes, and something where you stuff a turkey with popcorn and roast until the ass blows off. Umm, I think that was a joke, but it’s handwritten in my book just the same, please don’t try this at home!

Fannie herself was a pretty interesting lady, she attended, taught and later became the director of the Boston Cooking School, where my maternal Grandmother also took classes. I have a copy of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book, but have never tried any of the recipes.

Old cook books are fascinating and if you live in or near Boston, you should visit the Schlesinger Library at Harvard   and check out their incredible collection of culinary works. My favorite class, other than pastry, was our Food History seminar, the teacher was just so enthusiastic and interesting. We even made a menu of different foods for our last class, it was fantastic.

Hopefully, you’ve clicked on the links and learned something new today!

Now on to cookies, if you haven’t seen our website we’ve posted our Valentine’s Day collections already. They are available for purchase right now, but won’t ship for a couple of weeks.

The images are of last years collections, which will be tweaked a little bit when they go into production next week. And we will be adding some new collections, a  Lisa G Valentine’s Day collection, and maybe one or two new original A Dozen Eggs collections.

The first collection is called Spicy Cinnamon Hearts, as the dough is flavored with  cinnamon and just a touch of cayenne that delivers a little spicy hot kick. The second is one of my personal favorites, it’s called Short and Sweet. Which, by the way, was named by a former Icing Assistant, Nina. Gotta give credit where credit is due!!

The final two are XOXO, which is a chocolate sugar cookie, and Sweet Talk, which was inspired by the little conversation candies that we all know and love at Valentine’s Day. We created with Sweet Talk cookies back in 2005 for the Dean and Deluca catalog. Since then I’ve seen lots of different versions of this collection.

We’ve also posted some Valentine’s favors available by the dozen, so you can check those out as well.

Today we’re off to Dave’s Grandfather’s 90th birthday in Hudson, MA. Should be a fun drive with this horrible weather that I’m looking at right now. Speaking of weather, yesterday it was 2 degrees and one of our water pipes froze in the bakery, not bad just a little section and we fixed it pretty quick, thanks to a call to my Dad. Today it’s up to 21 degrees, but the wind is atrocious. It looks and sounds like the tundra out there.

Tomorrow, I’ll post my new ornaments from the Crate and Barrel Clearance, and some super cute stuff I got with my JCrew gift card (from Dave). Plus, more cookies and even some adorable cookies from Jen.

Until then, Bye For Now!!

I know the Holidays are long gone, but I never posted the candies and cookies that Dave and I made for our friends and families.

I got the little green pillow boxes, which contain the Fluer de Sel caramels, from Nashville Wraps. Dave made the little labels for me, and we tied the boxes with some pink ribbon we needed to use up. (it’s too wide for cookie favors).

The cookies in the cellophane bags are Triple Chocolate Cranberry Oat.

These are the boxes of Pate de Fruit. Unfortunately, I neglected to photograph the whole Pate de Fruit experience.

Here are some images I found online.

Mine aren’t that uniform in size, but they looked similar.

I also made Maple Pecan Popcorn, Caramel Almond Popcorn, Danish Butter Sandwiches with Brown Butter Filling, Linzer Cookies, Brandied Eggnog Sandwiches and Brownie Bites. Everything except the Caramel Almond Popcorn came out perfectly. I had to toss 3 batches of the Caramel Almond disaster.

We packaged 30 tins of assorted cookies, 22 boxes of caramel, 10 bags of maple pecan popcorn, which is so incredibly good we’re making it part of our corporate Thank You’s that we send out to our best customers. We also made 15 boxes of Pate de Fruit and about 20 bags of the Triple Chocolate Oat cookies.

We used cookie tins to package our assorted cookie boxes, and a few different colored ribbons.

Dave made a little chart to go inside each box, so people know what they’re eating.

And these are the cookies inside the tins, nice! My favorites are the linzer sandwiches, raspberry jam filled hazelnut cookies, yummm.

So glad we got that all done and shipped out!

And since this gift has been given I can post the custom monogram cookies we did for a client.

Not a fab picture, but I think the cookies came out super cute.

Tomorrow I’ll have another great cook book suggestion, until then, bye for now!

I hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Years Eve last night.

We went to a party and brought a big batch of Bikini Martinis. Of which we were the only ones to partake in the “blue goo” as it was referred to. Most likely because we were an hour and a half late for the party and everyone else had chosen their drink of the evening. We tested them out the night before and both really liked the drink, but last night they were a tad sweet.

Here’s the recipe: equal parts Bombay Sapphire gin, Blue Curacao, and Peach Schnapps.

****Bikini Martini Recipe Addendum****

ADD FRESH LEMON JUICE!! It makes it sooooo much better. The lemon really cuts the sweetness and adds just the right flavor. I just took a half a lemon and squeezed it into the shaker.  Just add the lemon juice to taste.

Shake it all up with lots of ice and serve with an orange slice.

I also made two appies, and I got the recipes from the Pillsbury Book of Appetizers. Now I’m not typically a Pillsbury biscuit kind of gal. I prefer biscuits, and pie dough made from scratch, but we’re busy with work and I just didn’t have time. So I had to Sandra Lee it!

Tiny picture!

Chile and cheese empanada, made with monterey jack, canned chopped green chiles, sliced green onions and chopped cilantro. Oh, and Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits! Pretty tasty for a can of biscuit dough.

Mushrooms and goat cheese in puff pastry.  The recipe called for brie, but I forgot to put that on the grocery list, so I used some herbed goat cheese that we had on hand.

So sorry for the terrible pictures, but I was in a rush to get them made in the morning, then in a rush to get out the door to the party.

Now on to some cute animal pictures.

Lily and Casper now. Lily sits in the most bizarre poses. Notice her tail sticking out from under her butt, and the position of her feet? She’s a lanky dog. Also, see how big she is.

Look how much she’s grown!! Just 3 months ago she was as small as Casper!

Here she is with her Daddy, look at that tummy!

And I just love this shot of her in the grass, you can see the baby fat and all her little wrinkles. If they could only be puppies forever…………..

Nah, forget I said that, I mean who can deal with potty training and all the chewing?

Which by the way, I thought we were close to finished with the chewing, but last night I had my brand new albuterol inhaler out to be packed in my hand bag, when what do I hear? Little Miss Lily under the bed with the inhaler. All chewed up and mangled.  Luckily she only chewed the plastic mouth piece, not the cannister of albuterol.

And finally, Casper and I taking a break from blogging at the dining room table.

Doesn’t she look so content?

I know I’m missing some Franklin pictures, but rest assured he’s on my chest right this very moment, between me and the keyboard. I’ll get some cute pics of him with his new cat toys soon.

Have a wonderful and restful New Years Day and best wishes for a Happy New Year!

I’m not so great at titles, so you can see my fantastic creativity at work in the naming of this post.

Anyway, I had some images from this past Holiday season that I thought would be interesting to post.

This is Polly, she lives in Paris. Very lucky puppy, you know that dogs can go in restaurants in Paris?  I love that!

Anyway, Polly’s mom received some Polly look-a-like cookies as a gift from one of our friends and it appears that Polly really took a liking to her cookie.

Here she is again, I guess with some of her favorite literature, Marley & Me, The Pack Leader, I can’t make out the other books, but I see her cookie in the bottom right hand corner.

The very same friend that we made the Polly cookies for actually went to the corner of 57th and 5th to see the UNICEF volunteers handing out our snowflake cookies.

That’s the big snowflake.

Volunteers will be handing out more of our cookies on Friday the 2nd, so if you’re in Manhattan, head over the 57th and 5th Ave for some cookies!!

More volunteers handing out the snowflake cookies.

These are some cookies from the very talented Bea. I just love the little animals, so cute. And she even makes her own cookie cutters!

I think Bea should spend the summer in VT icing cookies. (I say summer because why oh why would she want to leave Cancun in the winter to be in all this snow and cold??!!)

I do have more reader cookies to post, but need to export the photos from the desk top computer to my laptop.

Now, for some answers. If you’ve never had Pate de Fruit, it is the most DELICIOUS candy around. Fruit pate is a fruit jelly candy, which doesn’t sound all that appetizing, but they are the yummiest. I have made the raspberry twice with much success, the blueberry twice, (one batch had to be thrown away), passion fruit two times, both failures, and apricot twice with success.

I use a recipe from here. There are some different ingredients like tartaric acid, glucose, and pectin that you can get from here. I think next year I’ll make all raspberry.

And Harriett, yes I did receive your lovely gift. I’m planning to model the hat and have Dave snap a picture. Franklin has already run off with the bracelet in the middle of the night. Now I make sure to lock it up in a drawer!!

If I don’t get a post in before New Years, Happy New Year everyone!!

We had a great Christmas, I hope everyone else did as well.

I made most of the desserts on Tuesday night, which included 2 Buche de Noel cakes. One for us and one as a gift to my icing assistant, who also received a pumpkin cheesecake with cinnamon cream.

Usually, I make the Buche components on different days, but this year there was no time, everything had to made in one day.

We had to finish up the 1000 UNICEF snowflakes and get those shipped out. So I didn’t get to start my holiday prep until Tuesday.

I made two batches of chocolate genoise, one batch of Coffee Swiss Meringue Buttercream with milk chocolate chips, one batch of meringue mushrooms and a double batch of chocolate ganache.

For the Meringue buttercream, I made the basic recipe and added some instant espresso powder mixed with a little hot water to make it coffee flavored.

Here’s everything chilling in the fridge.

I also manged to whip up a batch of home made egg nog. I always add brandy, Kahlua, and instant espresso powder to make it coffee egg nog. So so good!!!

A batch of Blueberry Pate de Fruit, that didn’t set up properly and had to be thrown away. A batch of Apricot Pate de Fruit, that came out perfectly, and another batch of Fleur de Sel caramels.

Meringue mushrooms all ready to be placed on the cakes.

Franklin in the house kitchen, watching over all the candy making.

After I piped the cinnamon cream onto the Pumpkin Cheesecake my assistant decided to give it a taste.

Very naughty Franklin with whipped cream on his face. I was going to save the cream for cranberry tart, but had to toss the whole bowl after this incident.

Today we’re finishing up our Holiday gifts, which will now be Happy New Years gifts.

Also this week (starting today) we’re back to work to get our inventory replenished from Christmas, and we’re starting some new Winter collections, AND you can be on the lookout for some super cute Valentine’s Day cookies!! That’s right, it’s never too early for the next big Holiday!!

Good morning everyone! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Eve and that you all have a Merry Christmas Day.

Thank you all for your continued support!

Here are some images from our night and Christmas morning.

Note Lisaghs card taking center stage!!

Some presents that survived the day from Lily!

Our cat Cappucino (RIP) used to climb the tree, this ornament was a gift from our friend M in honor of Cappy.

My favorite Holiday dessert. Buche de Noel, chocolate genoise, coffee buttercream filling, chocolate ganache icing and meringue mushrooms.

Casper awaiting her broiled grapefruit half, quiche and a mimosa.

Mimosa fixins’

I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

One of my most favorit flavors is caramel, so I decided to make caramels for part of my Holiday goody boxes. I got the recipe for Fleur de Sel caramels over on Epicurious .

Although I didn’t take any pictures of the making of the caramel, I did manage to take some during the cutting and packaging.

I cut them into 1 inch strips andthen cut them into 1/2 inch pieces. That was the easy part.

I had some foil candy wraps and wrapped every one by hand. At 220, I was short about 220!

So I’ve made a second batch and will be packaging that tonight. Big fun!

I got the foil candy wraps at Fancy Flours.

The candies were packaged 20 pieces each in a cute pillow box from Nashville Wraps.

The first batch made enough for 11 boxes. Exactly half of what I need!

I still have to label and ribbon the boxes, so there will be more on caramels later.

It has finally stopped snowing, which means we can go and get groceries and other holiday supplies. Poor Dave has to take the car in to get the tire repaired.

Here it is, our sad little flat tire. Lily sat and barked at it for a while, sometimes she’s so weird.

I have so much more candy making and cookie baking to do today. Hopefully I can finish the 1000 snowflakes PLUS my own million cookies.

I’m off to the snowflakes and will most likely post again later today.

I just can’t get enough of Lily in the snow. She LOVES it, and seems to be even more energetic when we get in from our trips in the snow. Not tired at all. Which is a slight bummer, cause we’re tired from walking in 2 feet of snow.

I’m sure come March we’ll all be sick of snow. But for now I take my camera every time I take her out. Look how deep it is!!

She’s on the move, ears flappin’, snow flyin’, crazed look on her face.

Look, it’s our tree!! Finally! I can’t put any presents underneath it, I’m worried that Lily will tear them all apart. As it is now, the cats keep dragging the skirt out from under it. They’ve never done that before and it’s a totally weird new habit.

The sign between the two windows is the original “East Wallingford” station sign that used to hang on the outside of our house.

One of my favorite ornaments on the tree. I have lots more but ,my batteries ran out.

The cats haven’t been getting much coverage, so here’s Casper waiting to be served.

Franklin up close and personal.

I think I need to add more snow to my snowy pine cookies!!!

I’m crazy with pictures and posting this weekend, so I may just be back later with those caramels, which are absolutely devine. (what a silly word).

I used the recipe here!

Bye for now!!