Homemade for the Holidays

We had a change in weather here in the Pittsburgh area this weekend and it was just in time for us to really get started with our Christmas Baking. A little snow on the ground just adds to the Holiday season and makes us happy to turn on the oven in the bakery! We  don't know what our customers will be ordering in the few weeks for Christmas Cookie Gifts so it is sometimes difficult to plan but we enjoy the excitement and bake and bake and bake.

 So far this year, Cookie Assortments are the most popular item. Last year, Chocolate Brownies were very popular so we will just have to wait and see. Since we bake from scratch, we hope everyone orders early but we know we will be baking cookies & brownies until we run out of time for shipping!

This is one of our new Holiday Cookie Gift Boxes that we are offering for an assortment of Classic homebaked Cookies such as Chocolate Chip, Cranberry White Chocolate, Creamy Peanut Butter, Snickerdoodle, Double Chocolate Fudge and decorated Gingerbread Cookies. It's called the Merry Christmas Box & I love the Red, White & Ivory colors. Very festive. Tis the Season, Enjoy!

Treat someone with Halloween & Fall Sugar Cookies!

Halloween comes at just the right time of  year to keep our minds off the craziest Holiday

around our Pittsburgh cookie bakery, Christmas! Red and Green are Ok colors but  I especially love the Fall colors of cookie decorating, the oranges, yellows and merlot wine colors. I especially love merlot wine too which is why the comparison came to me so easily. I could have just as easily compared the deep purple colors we use to grapes. Or Cabernet or Burgundy.

But I am on the subject of sugar cookies, not wine. The sugar cookies below were baked just for fun. We don't offer these in our bakery, way too much food dye but these are easy to do at home. Just take your favorite sugar cookie dough and add a gel type food coloring. Work the dye in with your hands until you are happy with the color. I would advise wearing disposable gloves to keep from staining your hands especially with the darker colors of purple and black. Plop pieces of dough down on your work area, putting together as a puzzle and then roll lightly with your rolling pin and or hands. Remember your days of Playdough. Or ask your kids to help. Don't over roll or the colors will all run together.

Then cut as usual with your cookie cutter, sprinkle with a sanding sugar and bake. They are yummy right out of the oven, no further decorating necessary.

 Wouldn't these cookies look great in a Cookie Gift Box for a college student studying for exams, or as a way to keep in touch with friends and family before the busy Holiday season is upon us? Trick or Treat? I say treat with Cookies!

Fabulous Fall Cookies

 The cooler fall months of the year are wonderful for baking cookies. Cinnamon, Ginger, Raisins and Chocolate combine to remind us of our favorite classic cookie flavors such as Snickerdoodles, Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Raisin. When I walk into the Cookie Bakery in the early morning the aroma of these cookies baking puts a smile on my face.

We start to get busy after a lazy summer and  plans are starting to come together for our busiest time of year, Christmas! ( Holiday Cookie Gifts will preview soon) But for now, we are enjoying decorating Sugar Cookies in the shapes of leaves and acorns and baking our featured Cookie of the Month, Ginger Chocolate Chunk. Shown below, we've added both dark chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate chunks to a classic molasses cookie which is then rolled in sugar and baked. Out of this world yummy, this cookie stays soft in the middle but has a nice crunch on the outside.

 Once the cookies are baked and decorated, the fun continues with creative Gift Packaging. Fall Colors of chocolate brown, ginger, golden yellows and burgundy reds are perfect for any gift occasion from a Happy Birthday Cookie Gift to a special Thank You Gift.

    Warm orange, golden yellow and chocolate browns combine beautifully for a delightful autumn color palette. Stacks of hand decorated sugar leaf cookies tied with Bakers Twine from the Twinery.

     Who wouldn't enjoy Coffee and Cookies on a sunny but cool Autumn Day!

We love our new mini fall sugar cookies. So cute and bite-size, they are hard to resist!

   Fall Cookie Gifts for Delivery
  

Pink Cookie Buffet




Pink Cookie Buffet

We designed this cookie table for my daughter's Summer Wedding this past June, 2012. Pink & Silver were the colors of choice. The monogram cookies were fun to do, hearts are always pretty & the little tiered cakes were time-consuming, but so cute! My favorite were the dark chocolate cookies with our double chocolate batter rolled in sugar and topped with a hershey kiss! We used a backdrop of pink, silver and ivory double satin ribbons for a elegant ribbon wall that really brings the colors together.



Cookie Sandwiches with fillings of vanilla creme, peanut butter creme and pink strawberry buttercream were a hit with this Cookie Table. Pink M&M chocolate chip cookies, zebra hershey kiss cookies and mini Chocolate Brownies in cute paper wraps added to the pink theme. We also included plenty of buttery Shortbread Cookies, classic chocolate chip cookies and a total of 12 other flavors from cranberry white chocolate to toffee almond and peanut butter with Reese's Pieces ( the brides favorite). It really was a feast of cookies!

New Cookie Gift Boxes

We are introducing new gift boxes this fall, a return to our original handmade look, back to basics.

We're so excited to offer these new natural kraft bakery style boxes filled with a natural kraft fill and wrapped with assorted ribbons, bakery twine and raffias. We've discovered a paper ribbon from  Paper Jacks a wonderful online company offering both paper ribbons and charming labels to make gift packaging fun and unique!

 We were looking for a gift wrapping idea to add an element of personalization and charm to our homemade cookies that we bake from scratch and package for gift giving. It's so exciting to start working with new packaging ideas and we plan to use a lot of this wonderful paper ribbon this fall and Holiday season!

 I just love the ability to make each gift box of cookies unique and personal for each special occasion. When our customers order a Cookie Delivery , we want to wow the recipient not only with the fresh baked cookies inside the boxes, but also with the first impression of the gift box. We use a lot of chocolate brown ribbons and I love the many designs we've been able to come up with so far. Watch for our homemade Christmas Cookies this year in our new handmade packaging!

Cookie Sandwiches

  We baked Cookie Sandwiches for my daughter's wedding last month and they were a hit! Chewy oatmeal cookies filled with vanilla buttercream flavored with just a hint of Cinnamon, Peanut Butter Cookies with creamy peanut butter buttercream filling and my favorite, Triple Chocolate Cookies with pink strawberry filling. I should have taken a photo of the chocolate ones, but just didn't get a chance before they were gone!

Cookie Sandwiches with Buttercream Filling



More Cookie Sandwiches





Cookie Sandwiches will be coming this fall at Country Cupboard Cookies!

Cookie Sandwiches are easy to make and a great way to create some wonderful flavor combinations. Take 2 favorite cookies, use a piping bag with a large tip, fill with your favorite buttercream frosting and top with 2nd cookie. I like the ooze of the frosting so I am generous with the filling. Get creative with your buttercream. I've added cinnamon for a spice cookie, peanut butter for chocolate cookies, cut up peanut butter cups, dried berries, mint with a touch a green food coloring, etc. Just be careful to use a large enough tip on your pastry bag if you add ingredients such as fruit and candies to avoid clogging. 

We plan on offering these cookie sandwiches later this fall and for the holiday season this year. I'm picturing a cute handcrafted kraft gift box with bakery twine and filled with assorted cookie sandwiches in flavors of gingerspice, double chocolate and peanut butter. We'll see what we can come up with this year for a new Holiday Cookie Gift. Yes, it is time to brainstorm for Christmas Cookie Gifts!

Black & White Wedding Cookie Table

Wedding Cookie Tables are very popular here in the Pittsburgh, PA area. We think traditional and homemade cookies such as chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin and peanut butter cookies are wonderful for any event but decorated sugar cookies can add just the right touch of color and elegance to any Cookie Table. It's a great way to add texture, color and your own creative ideas.

Contemporary Black & White Cookie Table

Simple & delicious monogram sugar cookies

 Recently my niece was married and the colors chosen for her wedding were black & white.
 Contemporary and chic. Even her gown had splashes of black, just gorgeous. The bridesmaids carried gerbera daisy flowers with hot colors of purple, red, green and orange which added just the right touch of color!

Tuxedo & Bride Sugar Cookies

These tuxedo cookies are some of my favorite wedding sugar cookies. Simple design and yet so elegant. Decorated Sugar Cookies can add just the right touch of color to any dessert or cookie table.

Barnyard Sugar Cookies

We created these barnyard sugar cookies for a Barn wedding taking place this weekend.

Along with chocolate chip, toffee chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, cranberry white chocolate, salted caramel and a few other specialty gourmet cookies, we wanted to add an assortment of fun and delicious cookies for the wedding guests to enjoy.

These sugar cookies are small bitesize cookies, the red barn is a larger 3.5 inch cookie. We flooded and piped them with royal icing so they will withstand the high temperatures of 90 degrees we are expecting this week in Southwestern Pennsylvania. I see some improvements we would make the next time we decorate these cute farm animal sugar cookies, but for a first try, we think they are cute. They will add a touch of whimsy to the wedding cookie table. I'll add a few more of our wedding cookie creations after the wedding!

Send some love with homemade cookies for Mother's Day!

Hearts & Flowers for Mother's Day

It's a little early in the season for sunflowers, but not cookie sunflowers.The colors are so warm and I love baking them, so we are offering them for Mother's Day this year 2012.

All of our Mother's Day Cookie Gifts are packaged in cute natural kraft gift boxes and tied with assorted raffias in pretty spring colors. We also use gorgeous grosgrain ribbons for the larger gift boxes in springtime colors such as orange cream, raspberry and lime green. Perfect for a gift box of flower sugar cookies!W                  

Daisy and Butterflies are also two of my favorite sugar cookies to decorate in the spring and summer months. Almost any color scheme will work, for example these colors of turquoise, golden yellow and chocolate brown. For other examples of different colors of butterfly cookies, visit our website Country Cupboard Cookies

    We bake farmhouse- style wholesome cookies also such as Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Walnut  Raisin and Peanut Butter Chocolate cookies baked from scratch using creamy butter, unbleached flour and whole eggs. They go so well with the hand decorated sugar cookies and are an ideal gourmet Mother's Day treat. We ship nationwide via UPS or FedEx and the cookies are fresh baked, packaged and shipped the same day.

Hearts & Flowers Sugar Cookies just in time for Mother's Day!

We flooded these pink sugar hearts with light pink royal icing. After drying them for 4 hours, we added an outline of royal icing using a #3 tip ( use larger tip if you want more sugar ) then dipped them in hot pink sugar crystals. So sweet.



Hearts & Flowers Cookie Gift

 



Pittsburgh Sugar Cookies



Cookie Greetings from the 'Burgh

Country Cupboard Cookies is located in Pittsburgh, PA but we ship our fresh baked gourmet cookies all over the United States. We love hearing from customers who are originally from the 'Burgh but now have moved away. We try to take time to chat while taking their order and it's always a good conversation. Our Pittsburgh Black and Gold colors are legendary here and we thought fellow Pittsburghers would like to share the goodness with friends and family. We've designed a way to  order a Birthday Cookie Delivery or a Thank you message to someone who has moved away from Pittsburgh but would still love to enjoy a few hometown sweets! We're wrapping our select Pittsburgh Gourmet Gifts in black & gold boxes & ribbons.  The fun and delicious sugar cookies are decorated in Black,Gold and White and can be included with the homemade cookies and brownies. 

Decorated Sugar Black & Gold Cookies from Pittsburgh

We will be adding new decorated cookie designs  this year to promote our new line of Pittsburgh Cookies. The whimsical Black & Gold Gingies were a hit last Christmas and we plan to offer them throughout the year and of course this year for a special gift in our Holiday Cookie Gifts section. Keep on eye on the Pittsburgh Gifts Cookie Section of our website for new ideas and enjoy!