Ok, by now everyone should have sent and received your Sweet Spring Swap packages. If not, you need to tell me so we can work it out.

I got mine and it was amazing! I think it was Meghan’s first swap and she did not disappoint!

She even wrapped the shipping box for pete’s sake!! The ladies at the post office were jealous!

Oh, it was loaded with good stuff: cute pink and green cupcake papers, benne seed wafers that she and her Granny made (in a super cute argyle cookie tin), peach jam also made by M and her Granny. I keep forgetting to eat the jam, I’m trying to stay away from too many carbs and I really want it on challah toast!. Maybe I can make a jam thumbprint cookie out of it….

Right, back to the package. I got an awesome Tervis Tumbler that I’ve been using every day to ensure I keep up with my water intake, some cute note cards, a fun pad and pen, pretty embroidered napkins, and some home made dog and cat treats for Lily, Casper and Franklin. I mean really, who makes CAT treats?? Meghan does! And the cats were both very appreciative, as was Lily.

Here’s the stuff I sent: Meghan likes to make cupcakes, (who doesn’t?) so I went to our bakery supplier and got some giant pastry tubes for frosting cupcakes like a pro, home made dog treats for her two pooches (made by a lady at the Farmer’s market, sadly not me), raspberry marshmallows, a custom collection of butterfly cookies, a fun ice cream bowl with cupcakes painted on the sides, springy kitchen towels (you really can never have too many of those).

A bowl scraper, the best kind that I’ve ever used for big batches of frosting, batter or dough.

And a tin of Maple pecan caramel corn.

How did you all make out??

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Just when you think your out of the weeds…….another client calls with a 1000 cookie order that needs to ship on Tuesday!!

I’ll say it again, what is UP with all the last minute orders??? I know it’s wonderful that we’re actually GETTING orders, but I’m a planner. I like to plan ahead, and all these rush jobs are really putting a major kink in my plans! Oh well, I guess I can think about all the fun things we can do and buy once the jobs are out the door. (it seems that as soon as they’re out the door, there’s another rush job coming right in the other door!)

Well, we have that 1000 cookie order, and it does have to ship on Tuesday, and Monday is looking like it will be an all nighter (we have another 130 cookie order that also has to ship on Tuesday!) But we can handle it.

Ok, we’ve got some cookies to show from this week:

These are actually from last week. Edible image sheets embellished with silver dragees and black icing.

I did two different borders.

I don’t even remember how many of these I iced. Custom birthday cake cookies with a daisy on top.

I can tell you that I’ve gone through about 75 pounds of confectioners sugar in the past two weeks.

On Saturday we fulfilled an order for 26 cupcake favors.

Chocolate cupcakes with tinted vanilla buttercream, topped with a custom green and blue iced sugar cookie. Then boxed and tied with coordinating ribbon.

We designed and produced a brand new Gardening collection for Mother’s Day (and Summer).

That’s my sketch of the gardening collection. I was also going to include some gloves, but I think 8 different cookies in one collection is enough!!

More Mother’s Day cookies.

I love Mom collection.

More Tiffany presents.

So along with the cookies, I came up with two new items for the Bake Shoppe:

Raspberry Rice Krispie Treats (made with home made raspberry marshmallows) Holy whatever! These are good! And you can eat a whole bunch without feeling full, trust me, I know!

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes. Chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream, dipped in chocolate ganache, sprinkled with salted peanuts. Hmmm, maybe a new favorite.

This cupcake is mind-blowingly good (if I may toot my own horn here). The frosting is so creamy and peanutty, sweet with a little bit of salt, and then the chocolate ganache on top……..I could eat these all day. IF I weren’t distracted by the raspberry rice krispie treats, the margarita cupcakes with their tart creamy lemon curd filling, or the raspberry filled lemon cupcake with all that raspberry filling and billowy lemon buttercream….

Ok, that was a Homer Simpson moment there.

I’m off to scrub the house from stem to stern and get my act together for the weekend. Have a great weekend and don’t eat too many sweets!!

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Once again it’s been a week fraught with last minute orders on top of attempting to get our Mother’s Day cookies produced. So needless to say, I’ve had quite a difficult time getting away from the icing bowls to blog.

I’ve noticed that lately there have been a lot of questions left (in the form of comments) regarding ordering cookies and how to make cookies. Well, just so you know, if you want to inquire about pricing or possibly placing an order, do not leave it in the form of a comment!!! Our email is listed on our website (see the second line on the left tab there??) and I’ve posted my personal email on numerous occasions. There is a search function on this blog, so you can find topics or articles easier.

Tonight is our third French Lesson, so in honor of that, let’s talk La Tour Eiffel.

How do I make them? (someone asked). Well, it takes a very steady hand and years of practice. Unless you’re a natural talent and can do this on your first try.

I’ve had some difficulties with cookies like these since they require perfect symmetry, and that’s not easy to achieve.

Since I got the Kopykake projector, symmetry has gotten much easier. Not to say that making this cookie is easy. It’s quite difficult and takes a steady hand and a lot of skill in using a pastry bag. I’ve been icing cookies 40-60 hours a week for the past 5 years and have developed a pretty strong right wrist. Using a pastry bag works well if you have an even squeeze and steady hand.

Here’s my basic outline of the Tower. Perfectly symmetrical thanks to the projector. I detail the inside of the Tower without the projector. I really just need it for the outline, so I don’t end up with a thick, lopsided, leaning Eiffel Tower.

All filled in and uniformly symmetrical, tall and thin. The perfect combination.

Last week I brought a box of fresh baked lemon glazed Madeleine for our class. I brought little cards with the history of the treats and they were delicious.

This week I’m making Gougere. I have a big block of gruyere and the perfect recipe. So I’ve gotta go and get baking!

Au revoir!

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While it’s been crazy busy with cookie orders, we still find time to fit in a few tasty, healthy meals. I’ve been holding on to these two pictures for a while, hoping that I’d have more to share, but that never happened. My camera is hanging on by a thread and every time I turn it on I think it may be the last time I’ll be ABLE to turn it on!!

Dave and I LOVE anything with a Mexican flair, so this Spicy Chipotle Black Bean Soup was a hit. It came together quickly and would have been even quicker and easier if I had an immersion blender when I made it. I served the soup with a delicious panini made on my new-ish panini press. Inside the panini: pepper jack cheese, sliced avocado, and sweet red peppers, (the little jarred peppadews). We used a rustic loaf of some kind of bread from the Farmer’s Market (damned if I can remember exactly what kind) and it was by far one of the best paninis so far.

Of course we had margaritas with this meal.

I threw everything together on the fly, so the amounts and time is not exact. Sorry.

Spicy Chipotle Black Bean Soup

2 cans black beans
1 roughly chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, mashed
Olive Oil
4 chipotle peppers (from a can of chipotles in adobo sauce)
chicken stock or vegetable stock
cumin
salt and pepper
Saute the onion in the olive oil (i used about 1 T) until soft and transluscent, add the garlic and saute until fragrant, add cumin (however much or little you want, we love cumin so we used about 2t, maybe more)

Add the peppers and the beans and stir. Add the chicken or vegetable stock, start with about 1 cup than add more as you like, depending on the kind of consistency you want.

simmer fora a few minutes, let cool slightly and then either stick your immersion blender in the pan or transfer to a regular blender and puree. At this point you can add more stock if it’s too thick. Just be super careful not to fill your blender to much as the hot soup will blow out the cover and you’ll have a giant mess on your hands.

And after a long week of early mornings, late nights and lots of cookie icing, we celebrated with a bottle of bubbly and some chips. (I know, super unhealthy, icky, monolith brand potato chips, what can I say? We had none in the house and this is the best we could do at the quick-e mart) The champagne was healthy though!!

I made this meal a couple of weeks ago,  Seared Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette and  quinoa with spinach, olives, feta and sun dried tomatoes. So good and so satisfying. I don’t know why I waited so long to try quinoa, now I’m addicted. I bought 2 pounds of it this weekend and we plan a delicious meal of it tonight with a side salad.

If you don’t want to make the quinoa (uh, why the hell wouldn’t you?) the salmon with tomato vinaigrette is amazing. When you finish this meal you feel as though you’ve eaten something really “clean” and you feel good.  Now who doesn’t want to feel GOOD and CLEAN after dinner??

This week we’re working on the Cinco and Mother’s Day cookies, so I must be off! Have a wonderful day and Bon Apetite!

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We’ve actually been able to take a day off. Sorta. If you count cleaning the house, 4 loads of laundry, moving the massive TV, moving furniture around, ironing pillowcases, and grocery shopping a day off. At least we weren’t running around getting the bake shoppe ready for business, or dealing with cookies.

Last weeks roundup of cookies included our annual job for the American Tibetan Mastiff Association.

Finished with a thin black border.

These were the easy cookies…..

These are the complex ones.

A different side of the Tibetan Mastiff. A profile cookie. I think this one is my favorite.

Not a humongous job, 2 full sheet pans of each dog design and 2 sheets of logos. They’re getting a little (just a little) bit easier since it’s our third year making them. This year we did fewer than last year. You wanna know why??? Because they will be served along side a Charm City cake!! Very exciting!

All done, wrapped in a cello bag, twist tied and finished with white grosgrain ribbon. Dave is now a master twist tie-er and ribbon tie-er.

I’m hoping the Charm City cake will be up on their site or somewhere I can see it.

We designed this little collection for a new client. It’s a custom designed 4pack that goes out to all their new clients. I matched the font and the swirls above and below the copy. They also have a little leaf pattern on their website and I thought that would round out the collection.

I made some new Spring/Summer butterfly cookies which will be on the website in the next couple of weeks. I love the colors, but boy were these time consuming. I think I used every tiny tip we own to complete these.

But aren’t they just so pretty?? I love the colors, very fun and festive. (redundant, I know)

And now for the cupcake portion of this post:

Back from last year, the dynamic Margarita cupcake. A lemon/lime buttermilk cake, stuffed with tangy lime curd, topped with a lemon/lime Swiss meringue buttercream which is spiked (and a big spike) with tequila. You all know Cinco de Mayo is coming up soon, so if you’re in the area, you must have these cupcakes for Cinco!!

Making another return is the Lemon Raspberry cupcake. A lemon buttermilk cake stuffed with raspberry jam, topped with lemon Swiss meringue buttercream. Since I’m unable to obtain any fresh local raspberries these are stuffed with seedless raspberry jam that has been reduced to increase the flavor and make the consistency a little thicker.  I can’t really say what my favorite is, the Margarita and the Lemon Raspberry are both so good.

We’ve also got our standards, chocolate and vanilla with either chocolate or vanilla buttercream. It’s nice that the weather is inching towards the warmer side, I hate when frosting is cold!

And finally, the perennial favorite, Maple with Maple buttercream. Made with syrup from a sugar house right down the road, these are just so yummy. I’m not sure which part I like best, the cake or the frosting. The cake is so good, made with TONS of syrup and not a lick of sugar, they taste like the best pancakes EVER. But the frosting, oh the frosting, made with fresh Cabot unsalted butter, maple syrup and some confectioners sugar. So buttery and mapley. I haven’t had one of these cupcakes in while. Our seasonal sign outside features the maple cupcake and they sell out almost every day. Plus, I can’t eat cupcakes EVERY day. Or I’d be a total cow.

So, my Swap package arrived last week, and it did not disappoint. There was something in there for everyone in our house! I’ll post pics in the next couple of days. I’ve been checking your blogs to see how everyone made out and things are looking pretty amazing. I’ll be shipping my package out today.

I know, so lame. I’m the hostess and I’m over a week late! I always say you should “lead by example” but not this time!!

Meghan, everything was wonderful. Casper and Frankie LOVE the treats and Lily loves any and all treats, but the peanut butter poppers just might be her new favorite. Thanks again, and I swear I’ll have your package out today!!

Off for a busy day of new cookie designs and our second French lesson tonight!!

a bientot!!

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Just when we think there’s going to be a little breather….more orders come in. Please don’t think that I’m complaining, because I’m not, it’s just that it would be nice to take in an order or two that AREN’T rush jobs. It seems lately that just about every job is a rush. And while rush jobs are certainly exciting, they really clog up the production schedule.

We try to space out our jobs so that each one gets the time and attention it needs to make sure everything goes smoothly and perfectly. We have everything on a schedule and when the rush jobs come in, it throws everything into a state of organized chaos. (we’re very organized, even with last minute orders)

It’s Friday morning and not counting the cookies that need to be iced today, we’ve produced over 800 cookies in FOUR days. And not just all the same cookie, many different designs with lots and lots of color mixing.

And PS, I’m not stressed at all. Just sayin’ that it seems like a lot of people wait ’til the last minute to place their orders. We can handle it and we love a challenge, so again if you need some custom cookies in CA by next weekend, go ahead and give us a call!!

So, wanna see what we’ve done so far this week? Well whatever your answer, here they are:

An alien invasion early on in the week. FYI, this was NOT a last minute order! This order came in from a very talented Etsy seller that I met on Twitter. Although, I think I may have seen her work before Twitter. Go check out her cupcake toppers, they are just simply adorable.

I’m not sure if he looks as complex as he was, but it took me 4 hours to make just 64 of these guys. That’s only 16 per hour, which is very time consuming as far as cookies go.

If I ever have to chance to make them again, I think I’d outline the eyes in white instead of green (which will take even MORE time).

A run of Ballerina cookies, just for an online order.

We sold out of Birthday cookies and took in an order for a custom colored collection.

These aren’t the custom colored ones, just our standard Vanilla Birthday collection. (if you want to call it “standard”, I think they’re pretty special).

Pink and white, personalized cross cookies.

These aren’t too complex, but when you have to complete 175 wedding cake cookies in the same week, any job is daunting.

So this job started as 175 cookies, then AFTER we baked and iced them it turned into 180 cookies, then just before I started inscribing them it turned to 196. Thankfully, we had baked and iced over 200 cookies. If we hadn’t we might not have been able to increase the order, since the cookies need to dry overnight and the order had to ship on the day that they increased the count to 196. YIKES!

I know they don’t look all that complicated, but all those corners and the heart on top make outlining and filling more difficult than a plain shaped cake.

I used the KopyKake for the inscription, which is an awesome help in keeping everything consistent and is great for making sure the inscription is centered. That KopyKake projector has already paid for itself.

Well, that’s all for cookies, except I did make 80 Tibetan Mastiff cookies last night as well as 3 corporate orders that I didn’t even get pictures of yet. Today all I have to do is a personal project for my Swap partner, detail the Mastiff cookies and some sample chicken cookies (not chicken flavored, those cute white and red chickens I made for Easter!!) Plus I have to make more lemon buttermilk cupcakes and lemon/lime cupcakes and mud cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes…..oy it’s going to be a long day!!

And BTW, I hope everyone got their Sweet Spring Swap packages out. If not I hope you have been in contact with your partner.  I’m late getting my package out, but I’ve told my partner and I’m probably going to add some extra goodies to make up for my tardiness!!

If you’re having any difficulties, please let me know, and send me any pictures you have of your packages!!

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As you may have figured out, it’s still pretty busy in the shop with cookie orders. I made a super fun (but so time consuming) cookie yesterday. Sometimes (most of the time) things take so much longer than you think they should. This happens a lot with cookies and it is just beyond frustrating. I’ll post pics soon as they weren’t dry enough to photograph.

We took a half a day off yesterday to run some errands and I didn’t get started icing until 2, so needless to say it was a late night in the cookie factory.

To top things off, we took a day trip to Boston to pick up a television that a friend was getting rid of. The kicker is that this has been in the works for like a month. In that month NONE of us thought it would be a good idea to measure our armoir to make sure the television would actually fit inside. (yes, we don’t watch t.v., but we DO watch a ton of Netflix, itunes and other internet based entertainment..no, not porn!!) Well, we drove to Boston twice, got the big telly home, and guess what?? The sucker doesn’t fit inside the armoir in the living room. It DOES fit inside the armoir upstairs, but I’m not strong enough to help Dave carry it upstairs. I helped him get it in the house and after the scary was over it was pretty amusing. You see I can help with the lifting, but if I have to pick up a foot to get up one step….I’m going down.  Just like the time I tried to get the air conditioner out of the window by myself and wound up pinned to the floor between the sofa and the glass coffee table. Yep, quite amusing.

So now the big telly sits in the guest room closet until we can figure out how to get it upstairs.

We’re also starting French lessons. Very exciting. More on that later.

Here are more cookies from last week:

A client called with a request for cookies for his daughters wedding in a “couple” of weeks in Colorado. Well, he was quite literal, the wedding was in TWO weeks. (with 6 day UPS delivery time from VT to CO!!) So we had to come up with something quick. Dave went to the city of Denver website to get some inspiration. We all settled on a monogrammed mountain in raspberry with white snowy peaks.

I’ve always resisted the idea of a mountain cookie, but I think they look quite nice. The monogram was a super scripty, swirly deal, so we had to simplify it a bit.

Another order came in for flip flops that had to coordinate with an invitation. While they look quite simple, outlining the right shape for the flip flops is no easy task. They often times come out looking like some weird, elongated blob, so I sketched out the perfect shape and threw it in the Kopykake. Which made it so much less frustrating.

I matched the colors, not necessarily the flip flop designs. Very Summery and fun. NOTE: it’s just over 20 degrees here this morning and there is frost on the windows.

And finally, more logo rounds for one of our partners.

Last week was a long week, we had issues with the car, went to Boston for Easter, iced over 800 cookies in four days, all on top of regular everyday household chores, pet keeping and baking for the Bake Shoppe. And this week is looking like another super full schedule. It is great that we’re busy and when we think about how far we’ve come just since last year when we thought we’d have to go out and get jobs working for “the man”, well we’re very grateful for the work. So if you need custom cookies for next week in California, give us a call. Just be prepared to pay for express shipping.

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We’ve been so busy with cookies, it’s crazy. I think I may have used over 100 disposable pastry bags so far this week, and it’s just Thursday morning.

Everyone seems to be ordering custom cookies with such short turn around time, it’s ridiculous. All our jobs this week have had such tight due dates, every night so far has been a late night. Last night we made it in the house by 9pm. That was the earliest so far this week.

Anyway, here’s what’s been doin’ in cookie production. (this doesn’t include the Bake Shoppe work!)

Lots and lots of Jungle cookies.

Elephants and Monkeys.

Tiger faces.

Panther faces. (these need some tweaking, but they’re pretty darn cute already)

These were actually two different orders, one for a childs birthday and another for a Bake Shoppe client that was serving them at the concession stand for the school play, The Jungle Book.

We liked them so much that we’re going to be offering Jungle Faces as a collection on our website. The cat faces were the most difficult and we’ll probably make some small changes going forward.

This is the rack on Tuesday. After packaging up all the cookies from Monday.

Another Bake Shoppe client ordered these custom bird cookies to coordinate with a baby shower invitation. My favorite colors, pink and green. Dave made the cutter and we matched the icing to the invites. Super cute and simple. The best kind of cookies.

All the birdies.

Custom cupcake favors for a 1st Birthday.

We matched the colors to the invitation.

Lots of edible image cookies this week. Rounds with a simple border.

I was playing around with some different borders. This one is pretty, but took much more time than I can spend on each cookie. Unless you want to pay extra, then I’ll spend as much time as you need.

We came up with a new design for Pink Birthday. Much more fun and interesting than the old one.

Cute sail boats. I was going to put the inscription on the sail, but I wasn’t sure there would be enough room, so this is what I did.  This is another one of my favorite cookies. It reminds me of my Dad’s boat when I was younger.

Yellow Smiley face cookies. These remind me of Forest Gump.

And my Number One Favorite cookie of the week so far, “the man”.  Edible images of…well, a man. We called it “the man” cookie while we were working on them, so the name has stuck.

If you have a photo that you’d like on a cookie we can do it. Just make sure it’s a photo of someone you want to take a bite out of!!

Maybe I’ll have some more domestic or food related posts later this week, but until then, it’s all cookies, all the time.

And BTW, I hope everyone is working diligently on your Sweet Spring Swap packages. You must ship them out on Monday!! Chop chop.

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Hopefully, everyone ordered your Easter cookies and goodies on time and by this time tomorrow, you’ll be munching on some cookies. Or chocolates, or whatever you’ve got for Easter.

I’ll be eating Peeps and chocolate bunnies, and maybe some of those Cadbury Mini Eggs. (love those!!) I’m also hoping some of my Easter gift recipients will share a taste of one of their chocolate bars that I bought from Liddabit Sweets. A wonderful website that I found while scrolling through the vendor list at the Brooklyn Flea.

What an amazing idea to make handmade, all natural chocolate bars??!!

Anyway, before I head off to start our Easter celebration, here are some new cookies that we’ve been working on in the Bake Shoppe:

Trays and trays of bunnies. This particular bun is part of our new collection and a completely new and original bunny design.

These aren’t cookies, but they’re amazingly delicious. Chipotle spiced pecans, smoky, spicy, a little bit sweet, a little salty. Yumm. You can get them in the shop for the next couple of weeks.

A big custom order of Fun at the Beach cookies. If it wasn’t for these sun cookies, I might have forgotten its existence. It’s been so rainy and miserable for the past couple of weeks.

Smiley suns.

Custom corporate Thank You cookies.

Lots of daisies.

Custom Eiffel tower favors.

Lemon Butterball cookies. I just wanted to make something bright and citrusy and new for the shop. We’re sold out of these now, but I’ll have something equally delicious next week.

over 200 logo cookies, in two days.

My MIL gave me a tissue flower kit. These were a tad frustrating, but they’re pretty and add a little something in the shop.

Pastel icing for pastel bunnies.

Wedding dress cookies in pink and white.

And finally, shark cookies. I like to add a sprinkle of sugar just to give it a little texture.

And that is what we’ve been doing.

And next week is going to be twice as busy!!

Happy Easter!

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