A Cookie Delivery that says Thank you from your pet!

I grew up on a farm in Southwestern PA where dogs and cats ran around outside with the horses chickens and pigs. Dogs and Cats did NOT come into the house and though we loved them, they were just another part of the farm animals family. Move ahead to 2011. Now our pets are living right next to us inside the house and yes, they are part of our family. We take photos of them with us, buy their favorite pet treats and include their names on certain gift cards. Although my parents still living on that farm have a Newfoundland dog that they adore and he lives outside with the horses and does not like entering the house.

He's way too large anyways.

 On to the point of this post today. We noticed at our Cookie Bakery that customers were including their pets names on their gift cards, thanking their Vet for excellent care, sending thank you cookies to friends who watched their pet while they were on vacation, etc. We designed this box for those kind of occasions, a PET LOVERS BOX complete with a natural eco-friendly box and matching ribbon with paw prints.

The decorated sugar cookies are cut-outs made with butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs and flour. In other words, people cookies. These cookies are not meant for pets to eat, though I think that may be a fun business to run. We can even personalize one of the cookies with your pet's name!

We are now offering a CAT pet lovers box and a DOG pet lovers box. We also add an assortment of our gourmet cookies too such as chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, oatmeal raisin and peanut butter. Enough cuteness and good taste for anyone to enjoy! We will start shipping these adorable cookie gifts  in early June. I think they could be a unique thank you gift for your pet sitter this summer!

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk Cookies

    My new favorite cookie: Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk: Chocolatey, Chewy and Salty. We'll have these baking next week for the month of April in our bakery. I think they would make a wonderful cookie gift for someone who likes a little old-fashioned and a little gourmet in their cookies.

I've been craving these cookies for awhile now. I love chocolate, I love sweets, I love salt. I know salt does not have a healthy sound to it with all the talk of "too much salt is bad for your blood pressure" but I do love salt. Combine salt with my OTHER favorite flavor of Sugar and then add chocolate and something chewy ( caramel ) well, you've just tasted one of my new favorite cookies. I recently said that the blueberry cobbler cookies we were baking at Country Cupboard Cookies in March was my favorite, but well, it's a new month and this cookie, Salted Caramel Chocolate Chunk is my Favorite.

We baked this cookie using our original Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, everyone has a favorite, just be sure to use butter and the best chocolate you have. We use Barry Callebaut chocolate chunks, a nice semi-sweet chocolate here in our bakery, but any high quality chocolate will work. Then we added bits of Caramel. We used caramel bits from CK products, but you could caramel bits from the grocery store. One thing I learned is not to use large sizes of caramel, you want small pieces, no larger than a chocolate chip. This way the chewiness is not over-whelming and you won't spend all your time chewing and not enjoying the rest of the cookie! Press down the cookie slightly before baking and then sprinkle a nice Sea Salt over the cookie. Bake as usual. I found that a lot of the salt does dissolve when you bake so I added a very slight sprinkle after they came out of the oven. Don't overdo the salt, just a surprise flavor while you are enjoying the caramel and chocolate!

Pre-Holiday Baking

Baking for the Holdiays AND supporting the Pittsburgh Penquins Hockey Team