Fire Department Shield Cookie

I found this previously unposted picture of a fire department shield.  It is a very large cookie and one of my favourites!

Vintage Airplane Cookies

Created to match the invitation and decorations, these are some of my favourites of late!

Cookies Celebrating the Grammys

Do your Sunday night plans involve the Grammys?  While award shows are not that interesting to me, I love a good musical performance (I thought the Band Perry was outstanding last year) and the clothes sucker me in every time!  Personally I would like to see Mumford and Sons, Adele and Deadmau5 walk away winners tomorrow night, but I must admit I will probably PVR it and fast-forward through a number of the performances while nibbling on some snacks, including these yummy cookies!

Christmas 2012

The offerings for Christmas 2012. Place your orders immediately, space is extremely limited!

To ensure I don't miss your order - email me at sweethandmade@rocketmail.com

 

Large Christmas Cookie set

This set of 18 delicious cookies include a snowman, 4 ornaments, 2 mittens, 2 christmas trees, 3 snowflakes, 3 stars and 3 candy canes. $40

 

Hockey jerseys - perfect team gifts, customized with your team's names and numbers! $30 for 12, $3 each additional cookie.
 

 

 

Small Christmas Cookie set

This set of 10 delicious cookies include a snowman, 2 mittens, 2 christmas trees, 3 snowflakes and 2 stars. $24
 





Gingerbread snowflakes - 8" across, not suitable for shipping. $8 each.

 

 

Christmas Cookie Kit

Unlike any cookie kit available in the stores, my "Christmas Cookie Kit" comes freshly made for you with 12 ready-to-decorate chocolate or gingerbread cookies (flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and chocolate or molasses and spices), a piping bag of royal icing (simply sugar and meringue powder), small candies and dragees. This is very different from the store-bought variety which has been sitting around for months! All you need to do is sit back and enjoy the fun the kids are having. If you are lucky, you'll get to sneak a few delicious bites! $20 per kit.
 

 

Mistletoe and Mittens Cookie Set

This set of 12 delicious cookies include 2 snowflakes, 2 mittens, 4 ornaments, 2 holly leaves with berries and 2 mistletoe cookies. $30

 



 

Ornaments Cookie Set

This set of 12 delicious cookies include ornaments in two different colours, accented with sanding sugar snowflakes. $30

 

Snowflake Cookie Set

This set of delicious cookies include 12 snowflakes. $30



Baby Shower Cookies

These beautiful cookies were made for a baby shower with a yellow and grey theme.

Fairy Cake and Cookies

A few months ago I received an email from a mom in Whitby. She had found a picture of my fairy cupcake tower online and was smitten http://www.sweethandmade.blogspot.ca/2011/03/fairy-cupcake-topper.html. She had already ordered a birthday cake from a local baker but was hoping I would be willing to make the fairies to place on her daughter's cake. After a few emails we finally talked by phone and during that conversation she decided to forego her deposit to the original baker and asked me to make the entire cake. Now, Whitby is about 120 kilometers from my bakery and usually way, way out of my delivery area, but we really connected and I was very excited to make this darling cake for her.

Also included in the order was matching sugar cookies. To match the blue butterflies on the fairies, the white and yellow flowers on the cake and the toadstools, I created these deliciously sweet cookies.

Cake & Cookie Decorating Parties

Over the years I have thrown my daughters some incredible birthday parties (tooting my own horn, just a little!)  No matter what the theme, I would always make one of the activities involve icing in a piping bag!  Whether they were decorating cookies or cupcakes, the kids always had a blast!

When my youngest turned 5, each child got to decorate their own mini Barbie cake!

So in response to all the joy I have witnessed when kids wield an icing-bag and after numerous inquiries in regards to parties and cake decorating instruction, I set about organising a couple of cake decorating party test runs with children of various ages and they were very successful.  I couldn't believe how much fun everyone had! 

And so today, I officially announce that Sweet Handmade is offering decorating parties.

A Sweet Handmade birthday party is an easy party for you!  Thoughtfully planned out, all you need to do is provide each party-goer with a work area and I will take care of the rest; I set up each work station, lead the group with 1 1/2 to 2 hours of decorating fun and I clean up at the end.  There is no need to purchase a party cake because the demonstration cake becomes the party cake - and this delicious cake is one you will want to eat!  There is also no need to purchase a loot bag or take-home gifts, as each child will bring home their cake and cookies, boxed for ease!  Starting at $180 for up to six children, $30 for each additional child to a maximum of 15 children.

Enjoy these pictures of young budding cake designers as they try their hand at cakes, fondant, cookies, frosting, cutters, piping and fun!

After set-up, this young party-goer has her sugar cookies and frosted cake ready to decorate.  After a quick and easy demonstration, she will be ready to go.

A little help is sometimes needed!

After I demonstrate some super sugar cookie decorating techniques like outlining, flooding and marbling, the kids try out what they learned and come up with their own designs.

An occasional lick is part of the fun and so yummy!

The party is surprisingly quiet as the amateur decorators work on their craft.

I then lead the group to channel their inner-cake-designers, first by demonstrating how to colour and roll fondant, then how to cover their cakes and how to finish the design with fondant cutouts and piped icing.  Each child then works on their own cake.

Using cookie cutters and fondant balls, this party-goer made her cake beautiful.

This cake was decorated in beautiful bright colours - stars, teddy bears and hand prints.  Super cute!

Always different, always special, always delicious and always super fun!

Contact me today to book your next party - suitable for ages 5 and up.  What a wonderful time!

Valentine Mini Cookies

In a play on a box of decadent chocolates, this box is actually filled with cookies!  Make your Valentine extra happy with this box of most delicious all-butter sugar cookies disguised with royal icing to look like the best quality chocolates!  A special thank you to Maryann, the Cookie Artisan for the inspiration.

These special Valentine cookies come complete in a box with a lovely ribbon finish, ready to give your special someone!  Box of 16 1" cookies: $20.  Place your order early!  Pickup days are Saturday, February 11th until Tuesday, February 14th.

Valentine Heart-Shaped Cookies

These delicious all-butter sugar cookies make the perfect treats for your child's class on Valentine's Day, a wonderful treat for your office or just a nice treat with a cup of tea!

These special Valentine cookies come individually packaged, ready for gift-giving.  The 1 1/2" cookies (minimum order of 20) are $1.25 each and the 3 1/2" cookies (minimum order of 10) are $2.50 each.  Place your order early!  Pickup days are Saturday, February 11th until Tuesday, February 14th.

Gingerbread Ornaments

I love a Christmas tree filled with edible treats!  Candy canes, shiny foil wrapped chocolate balls, strings of popcorn and delicious gingerbread cookies.  Here are my offerings for the most delicious Christmas tree.



These 5" gingerbread snowflakes are so fragrant and yummy, made with butter, dark brown sugar, molasses and spices including cinnamon, ginger, cloves and pepper.  Decorated with royal icing and a shiny red ribbon, they add something special to your tree and are a delight to sneak off and eat!  $3 each, minimum order of 4.

These 3" gingerbread ornaments are decorated with royal icing and edible silver dragees.  They will be a focal point on your tree, as well as add a delicious gingerbread smell to your home.  These cookies come in a box of 9 for $22 and make a wonderful hostess gift.  Send me an email at sweethandmade@rocketmail.com to place your order.

Christmas Cookie Kit

Unlike any cookie kit available in the stores, my "Christmas Cookie Kit" comes freshly made for you with 12 ready-to-decorate chocolate or gingerbread cookies (flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and chocolate or molasses and spices), a piping bag of royal icing (simply sugar and meringue powder), small candies and dragees. This is very different from the store-bought variety which has been sitting around for months! All you need to do is sit back and enjoy the fun the kids are having. If you are lucky, you'll get to sneak a few delicious bites! $20 per kit.

Christmas Sugar Cookies

The Christmas season is just about here, and I am now taking Christmas orders.  Over the next few days I will post the cookie packages available for order now and available for pick-up until December 23rd; cake and cupcake ideas to follow.  Today I am posting the two sugar cookie packages available.  These delicious all butter sugar cookies are flecked with vanilla bean seeds (so yummy!) and are individually iced with a sweet royal icing. 

The large platter (above) includes 20 cookies as shown, comes boxed and costs $44.

The small platter (above) includes 10 cookies as shown, comes boxed and costs $22.



If you are interested in individual cookies, they come packaged in a clear celophane bag and range in price from $2 to $3 each.  They make perfect stocking stuffers!

Contact me to place your order.  Tomorrow - the first of the gingerbread cookie options.

Thanksgiving cookie place settings

A long-time fan of Martha and all her perfect-ness, I imagine how my Thanksgiving table could look...  a golden-brown, moist turkey, neatly carved and placed "just so" on a platter, all the sides steaming in their perfectly matching bowls, each spot set with the appropriate silverware, stemware and napkins, each family member looking regal in their best Thanksgiving attire,....  Well, a girl can dream, can't she?!  I know one thing that will grace my table this year, a beautiful cookie at each setting.  Here is how I imagine it will look:

If you want this look at your Thanksgiving table, stop by the Bradford farmers' market tomorrow morning where I will have a limited number of these cookies available, as well as my Caramelized Apple Bundt Cake!

Thanksgiving cookies

When the kids head back to school, the nights turn crisper and the leaves on the trees start to change colour, my mind starts turning towards fall events that keep us happy and busy until Christmas.  Most of my American friends are already deep into Halloween baking and preparations, but we Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving first!  Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October, which is then followed by Halloween and then, you guessed it, a two month lead up to Christmas!!

This beautiful Thanksgiving cookie platter (inspired by the incredible talents of the Cookie Artisan) features eighteen beautiful harvest designs, from pumpkins, acorns, sunflowers, oak and maple leaves, to a squirrel and a turkey as well as a sweet banner cookie.  My super-delicious sugar cookies are made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs and are speckled with vanilla bean seeds.  They are frosted in royal icing and make a truly wonderful hostess gift that will be ooh'd and aah'd over.  Orders must be placed by October 3rd - boxed and ready for gift giving.

Tractor Cake and Cookies

For Susan's husband's 53rd birthday we decided on a John Deere riding mower/tractor design for a cake and matching cookies. The mower is Mark's newest "toy" and Susan thought the cake would be delicious in lemon poppyseed poundcake with a lemon curd filling and Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.

 
It was a devine flavour that everyone who tasted loved! Happy birthday Mark!

Mandelhoernchen

I lived in Kitchener for almost 10 years and during that time was a somewhat frequent visitor of the famous Kitchener Market.  In addition to the fabulous meats, cheeses and produce, there were a number of really great bakers, including many German ones, in homage to Kitchener's heritage, of course.  One particular stand I would frequent each week carried these wonderful Almond Horns, which I think I must have eaten as a child in Holland.  The outside was crunchy, the inside chewy, dipped in delicious chocolate,.... mmm!  I haven't had any that even faintly resembled those gems since leaving Kitchener in 2001, believe me, I've tried to find some! 

So, the other day I was checking out some sites on the web and found a blog that had a recipe for Mandelhoernchen - yes, the elusive Almond Horns (thanks for sharing, Gesine).  I was so excited.  I could almost taste them and quickly printed off the recipe and practically ran into the kitchen.  Now, I must admit, my first attempt (with store-bought marzipan) did not pan out, but I wasn't giving up!  So, I made my own marzipan (almonds and sugar), added the rest of the ingredients - basically more almonds and sugar and this time success!  I dipped the ends in chocolate and look at these beauties!  They are every bit as tasty as the "bächer" used to sell me in Kitchener! 

Good news for those of you with food issues - this is one of my recipes that is made without either wheat or dairy.  And a special thank you as always to my dairy-free husband for taking the snapshots.