Happy Surprises

I received my ribbons from the state fair today (see below). It turns out I placed in eight categories, not six, this year!

In addition to the three first place and three second place finishers I knew about, I had two third place cookies that were not posted at the fair. So my red velvet cookies and the mocha hazelnut spritz cookies did better than I had realized.

Makes me smile!

New Cookies Up!

I uploaded pictures of my cut-out sugar cookies to Etsy. They're up and for sale. I can do customizable football helmets for the fall sports season.

Also! I could not resist playing with a new recipe.

My Chocolate Peppermint Cookies are up as well. They have a chocolate mint dough, they are coated in a chocolate blend, and then sprinkled with crushed peppermint candies. Mint-Chocolate is my all time favorite flavor combination and it makes me utterly happy to have them on my store now, too.

Cookie Cutters and Picture Taking

I make great cut-out cookies. They're based on my grandmother's recipe. They are perfect cookies (also winners in the state fair).

However, it wasn't until I started my Etsy store that I realized I didn't actually have any good pictures of them. Today I am strictly baking rolled, cut-out sugar cookies and decorating them. And taking pictures. And planning on foisting more cookies on my office.

Though I may experiment with some others, too :)

Cookie Book Shopping Spree

I was at my local bookstore. They were having a bargain book sale. I bought three cookbooks devoted to cookies for a total of over 500 recipes. The funny part? They'll mostly be inspiration for entirely new cookies... very rarely do I actually follow a recipe someone else has come up with.

I may be letting my interests get the better of me.

Ah, well.

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog for Cookie Cutter Cafe!

Thank you for visiting me. I've recently started trying to sell cookies on Etsy at http://cookiecuttercafe.etsy.com. Please visit!

I've been baking for years. It's cathartic. I bake when I'm happy, when I'm down, when I'm stressed out. It keeps me in a good mood when I'm happy and cheers me up when I'm not. I'm not too bad at it: shortly before I started my Etsy store I competed for my second year in the Tennessee State Fair. Over two years, I got 4 first place ribbons, 3 second place ribbons and 1 third place ribbon. Each in different categories. Some of these cookies were the very first posted on my store.

(The Lemon Sugar cookies won first place in the "Fruit Cookie" category in 2008; the Gingersnaps were the first place winner in "Gingersnap" for 2009)

I'll be blogging about both my trials and experiments and how my attempt at a cookie store goes. Please enjoy!