Doug's Birthday

My husband Doug recently had a birthday and asked me to make a chocolate chip cookie cake. It's a pretty simple process, just make the dough and press into the pan, bake, cool and then decorate. I've only made one other cake like this, for a former coworker, and even though that once came out pretty well, I must say my latest one is truly adorable.







This first picture is the cake, cooled and ready to go. Yummy looking at this stage, but there is more to come!








Now the cake is decorated with chocolate swirls and vanilla dots. Yum!!!








And here the cake is complete with a sweet message. All that's left is to dig and enjoy this bad boy. And let me tell you- it was the best cookie cake I've ever had. I filled the pan a little more than I realized so the cake was pretty thick, almost an inch thick. Kinda like eating five cookies at once- so tasty and chocolatey and delicious!!

New Menu and my foray into Etsy.com

After repeatedly being told that my prices are too low, I have decided to re-work my menu, updating my prices and selection. I think the new prices are still reasonable, but only time (and orders) will tell. I'm happy so far with the new cookies I've tried and plan to do a rotating selection, to keep my customers (and myself) from getting bored. I also plan to work on some new decorated sugar cookies and I'll try to post some pics when done.

Also new is my venture into the world of Etsy.com. Etsy is a marketplace for handmade goods and features some really awesome products. After much contemplation I decided to try listing some of my cookies on etsy. I haven't sold any yet, but I'm still new to the process and still figuring out how it all works. Things are looking promising though- I've had a ton of views so far and was even approached by a fellow blogger about doing a give away of my peanut butter cup shortbread. Peggy from luckygirltrading, who also has a great blog all about peanut butter, ran a contest for two lucky winners of my peanut butter cup shortbread. The contest was a great success and the suggestions from her readers were awesome. I can't wait to try to make some of their suggestions.

If anyone is interested you can view my etsy store at http://cookiesbykristin.etsy.com/.

Carrot Cake Shortbread

This is another shortbread variation that I found and couldn't wait to try. After all, who doesn't love carrot cake? All in all they were pretty easy to make, just a little time consuming. Basically the dough for the cookies is similar to real carrot cake- grated carrots, flour, spices, etc. The cream cheese filling is sweet and contains carrot as well, which I thought was the coolest part. Once the dough is made, it is rolled into little balls, flattened with a glass and baked. Once cooled, the halves are sandwiched with filling and then eaten.

The only change I think I would make is to leave out the pecan that you see on the top of the cookie. Most people that I shared these with seemed to pick them off and it was difficult to me to bite through the cookie and the pecan at the same time. Some also commented that the pecan flavor was too strong, almost overpowering. I think instead I will incorporate the chopped nuts into the filling or maybe just leave them out.

All in all they were good, and with a little fine tuning I think they might make it to the next menu.