Holiday Giveaway -- Sign Up, Refer a Friend OR Send Me a Chocolate Chip Cookie Idea

So you all know how much I love Bakerella and what a baking and blogging inspiration she has been to me.  Well, last week she was at the Bloor Street Williams Sonoma signing her Cake Pop book.  I went down to meet her, get a book signed to give away on my blog (KEEP READING:) and get my used copy signed too, plus I made some totally cute Bakerella-inspired cake pop cookies to give her.

What a great time!

I made some friends in line -- HI Noelle and Emily -- hope your exams are going well.  It was nice to meet the two of you.  You are both so cute.  Special Merry Christmas to the two of you.

Plus I got to meet Ms. Bakerella -- she is sweeter than sugar and so very talented!  She gave great tips for creating really beautiful cake pops and nice blogs that provide fun and information at the same time.

So if you would like a signed copy of her book here is what you need to do ...  sign up to follow my blog.  If you refer a friend, you will get an extra entry -- your friend just needs to sign up and send me a note saying you referred them.

I figure it is the season to give so please do this before Monday December 20, 2010 so you will have the book to try out over the holidays.

I still have my chocolate chip blog in my head and will probably get to this for right after the giveaway -- but start thinking of scor chips, craisins, peppermint snow.  Hey, I just thought of something, you can get another entry in the random contest IF you send me an email to shelly.shapero@sympatico.ca with a great chocolate chip filler that I actually MENTION in my chocolate chip blog.

And just so you know, this random draw will be supervised by no accounting firm but rather, the very honest firm of my husband and two dogs.

Chanukah or Hanukkah & Christmas Too!

I love the holidays and this whole season.  The number of cookies that are made and exchanged simply make everyone happy.  And while most people have voted chocolate chip cookies as their favorite on my blog, this season is best represented by gingerbread and sugar cookies.  But fear not, I have taken your votes seriously and am planning a week dedicated to the chocolate chip, if not next week then the week after (and I'm thinking from traditional to ones full of brownies and chocolate dipped blueberries, so please stay tuned).

But lately I have been thinking about making a Chanukah Menorah out of cookies.  I could not find a great candle cookie cutter (but am determined to do so next year) -- so I made one myself by cutting rectangles in two sizes -- one shorter for the regular candles and one taller for the shamash.  I added in a dreidle, gelt and a Star of David (Jacob, thanks for the great idea).  Is this not the yummiest Chanukia you have ever seen?

But I still think Christmas cookies are the most fun to make.  Snowmen are just so cute.  I used orange royal icing and a little orange chocolate sprinkle for the nose.   Snowflakes are probably my favorite because they can all be different and unique as they always look so beautiful and sparkling.

But I could not resist making some melted snowmen too -- the face is a marshmallow cut in half and the eyes are a Wilton food writer.  The buttons are tiny chocolate covered sprinkles and the arms are royal icing.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season with gifts galore -- but real presents full of love and peace.

Pink Cookies for Breast Cancer

So this week I'm baking pink cookies for a fund raiser at Cindy's Needle Art for the Odette Centre's PYNK program at Sunnybrook. Pynk is a breast cancer program for women diagnosed under the age of forty.  I made pink bikini's and pink ribbons.

I hope Cindy's makes lots of money for the Odette Center's PYNK program. I'm so excited to support this cause by donating lots of super cute pink cookies AND because I'm going to leave my business cards out to promote that I am now officially open for business!