Time to announce the winner of Julia Usher’s book, Cookie Swap!

Thank you all for entering; it was fun to see your cookie responses.  Over 450 entries in total, including twitter.  Wow!!

All the entries from the post and twitter were entered into the draw at www.random.org, at 7:00 pm Eastern Standard Time (23:00 UTC time) and the winner was comment #87; Jasmine!

Congrats! I’ll be in contact to get Cookie Swap sent to you.

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If you didn’t win, another sweet giveaway is on it’s way soon!

Thanks again for all your comments!

xo,

Marian

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Press play to begin streaming the audio or right click the text link to download.

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Right click here if you’d like to download the audio file [mp3]

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I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but, look at this one!

Cookie inspiration at its finest and without even cracking the cover!

Julia Usher is the author of the recently published book, Cookie Swap: Creative Treats to Share Throughout the Year, a wonderful book filled with inspiring party ideas, mouth-watering recipes, and of course - my personal favorite – gorgeous decorated cookies.  Hers are amongst the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and I was thrilled to have her join me for an interview where she shared cookie tips of all kinds!

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To hear the interview click on the play button at the top of this post.  You can also download it to your computer as an mp3 file by right clicking on the text link above.

I’m also happy to announce that I will be giving away one signed copy of Cookie Swap thanks to Gibbs Smith Publishing!  Details on how to enter can be found near the end of this post.

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Not only does Julia focus on cookies beautiful to look at, but she includes a multitude of unique and delicious sounding recipes such as Rosemary Blonde Brownies, Lemon-Thyme Bonbons and Under Her Thumb(print) Cookies pictured below.

I confess I haven’t actually tried making any of them yet, but as far as I’m concerned all I needed to buy this book were pages like this:

And this:

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You can find Julia’s book on Amazon and visit her website at www.juliausher.com for more information.  Enjoy!

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Cookie Swap GIVEAWAY!

Now on to the giveaway!  One lucky winner will receive a signed copy of Julia’s book, Cookie Swap!

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How do you enter?

It’s easy.   Just leave answer the following question in the comment section below before 7pm EST on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010:

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What is your favorite cookie to eat or to make?

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Another way of entering the draw is to retweet this post on twitter.  Tweets will be added to the draw!

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The contest is international and the winner will be chosen randomly at www.random.org.

Hope you enjoyed the interview and good luck with the giveaway!

xo,

Marian

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Time to announce the winner of Martha Stewart’s Wedding Cakes and the Cupcake Charm necklace!

Thank you all for entering; it was fun to see your responses and many of you left really sweet, informative and encouraging comments!  Thank you!!

Hélène, Grace, Lisa and Courtney P.; you asked about the winter coat.  Click here for the coat’s details.

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Drumroll please.  

All the entries from the post and twitter were entered into the draw at www.random.org, at 7:23  pm Eastern Standard Time (17:23 UTC time) and the winner was comment #113; Nicole!

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Congrats to you! I’ll be contacting you to find out which color Cupcake Charm you’d like and will send you the prizes through Amazon.

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If you didn’t win, another sweet giveaway is on it’s way soon!

Thanks again for all your comments!

xo,

Marian

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If you’re looking for gingerbread house inspiration, I can’t tell you how awesome Teresa Layman’s books are.  I’ve only mentioned her a kazillion times already.

I copied her Gingerbread Toy Shop back in 2003 and ended up raffling it off at the school I work at.

Our principal won it.  Fair and square – really it wasn’t rigged!

This post has to be short and sweet - Off to finish some Christmas cookies!

It’s time to announce the winners of Peggy Porschen’s newest book, Cake Chic!

All the entries from the post and twitter were entered into the draw at www.random.org, at 6:57 Eastern Standard Time and the winner was comment #84; Alicia! Congrats to you! I’ll be contacting you to send you the book. 

Thank you for your suggestions and comments!  I’m going to try post about all the ideas you left – in good time of course.   

The next giveaway for Cookie Craft Christmas and details about the 3-day class Peggy taught will be coming up soon!

I am thrilled to announce that I had the opportunity to interview Peggy and will be sharing that interview with you here.  I’m also happy to announce that I will be giving away one signed copy of Cake Chic, also named Simply Spectacular Cakes.

You may have already noticed that I’ve mentioned Ms. Porschen and her books on numerous occasions.  It’s because my journey on this sweet adventure began due to the inspiration of Pretty Party Cakes… not only pretty to look at, but resourceful as well. 

Many cake book authors seem not to want to share their secrets and Peggy’s books stand out as ones which share them all.

Her new book, Cake Chic, doesn’t disappoint.  As usual, it’s a feast for the eyes and includes some new ways of helping the reader understand how to create her gorgeous treats.  

As someone new to making cakes, I also appreciate the range in complexity of projects available – decorating for people at all levels. 

You might just find Peggy on one of the pages of your favorite magazines – she has been featured in Glamour, Marie Claire, Delicious and Brides wedding magazine {and so many more!} and has designed cakes for celebrities such as Elton John, Stella McCartney, Madonna and Anthony Hopkins.  Her first book, Pretty Party Cakes, won the 2005 Gourmand Award for the Best Entertaining Book in the Word. 

Curious about her yet?  Here’s the interview followed by the Cake Chic giveaway details:

Interview with Peggy Porschen:

Marian:  Peggy, I’m so excited to be speaking with you!  I love all your books and the sugar masterpieces you create. 

People associate you with cake decorating and baking, of course; but actually I kind think of you also as a style person too.  You’re not really just about baking cakes, cookies and cupcakes… you have a style all your own.  You have this beautiful balance between traditional and modern; I think it’s one of the secrets of your success.

Where do you find your inspiration, may I ask? 

Peggy:  Yes, sure; to be honest, there isn’t anything specific.  Personally I love sort of girly things.  I like to look at fabrics, fashion accessories, wallpapers; you know those kinds of things.  Generally, I always felt I had a really good eye for color, so when I find beautiful color combinations I keep samples or just memorize them really well. 

Also, when I mix colors I don’t just use plain colors or just one color to mix my icing; I always tend to mix.  

Part of that is also from working at Konditor & Cook which is a cake shop here in London.  They have sort of crazy, wacky cakes and one thing the owner, Gerhardt Jenne, told me right from the start was, “Forget about tradition, just let your imagination go and go wild, and do what you want to do.”  So it really made me less scared of working with colors.

M:  I notice that every recipe I try from your books turns out really well.  May I ask, are they from Cordon Bleu where you studied, or are they a derivative of the recipes you tried there?

P:  I think mostly, the best experience in terms of recipes I made are probably from Konditor & Cook because they are sponge and are much more usable for decorated cakes.  Basically my recipes are based on a simple Victoria sponge cake.  I just worked with it myself and adapted flavours and added syrups to find out what works best.

The best or biggest advice I could give is really don’t be stingy on your ingredients.  You know if you don’t use good stuff you can really taste it. 

M: What new cake decorating tools or equipment are you excited about lately?

P:  Something new that came out over here is the PME lustre spray.  I don’t know if it’s in Canada or America but over here it’s a fairly new thing.

It just makes adding lustre to your petals quick and easy.  It saves you literally hours of work.  You could also alternatively use an airbrush, but setting up the airbrush, if you don’t have it all ready to constantly use, can be a bit annoying.

M:  Do you see yourself as a cake artist first or a baker?

P: Cake artist.

M:  What inspired you to write your first book?

P: Oh actually I was asked; never in my wildest dreams would I have thought to write a book.  It was a lucky coincidence really because I was selling cakes at a Christmas fair and a publisher saw my cookies, and just said we want to make a cake book with somebody; would you be interested?  I was absolutely amazed!

At the time I wouldn’t say I had a signature style, so I then was in the lucky position to be able to go part-time and slow down with my job, so that I could focus completely on the book.  It just really helped me to come up with ideas and sort of create my own designs.  Some of them were designs I already had in my head for a long time; like the rose tower in Romantic Cakes – it was a cake I was dreaming about making for so long and just never got around to it.

M:  It is beautiful!  And I love how you use charming accessories like the birdcage with the white butterflies.  How do you get inspired for your photo shoots?

P:  Some ideas are inspired by working with bridal magazines.  I find things are always a team effort.  Sometimes the magazines will come and say for example, “We’ve got a scene with birdcages – they’re big right now”, so I have to admit it’s not always completely my idea.

M: I think we all get ideas from everywhere.

P:  Exactly; I think if you wouldn’t work with other people and exchange ideas you just wouldn’t evolve.

M: I also have to say, you’re one of my inspirations and you are my cake hero.  Do you have any ‘cake heros’? 

P:  Thank you!  I guess you can probably tell I find Wendy Kromer incredibly inspiring.  But also Ron Ben Israel; actually there are quite a few.  I mean I guess Ron Ben Israel for his flowers and Wendy Kromer in general.  I find she’s really innovative.  I don’t like all of her designs I have to admit, but sometimes she’s got such genius ideas.  You know, just so beautiful and aesthetically new and different. 

I also like Cheryl Kleinman from New York very much.  Unfortunately she hasn’t got a website, which makes it harder for all the other cake makers to look at her cakes.  She features a lot in American wedding magazines and if you google her you’ll find her cakes.

I think these are sort of the main ones that have inspired me to get where I am, and there are many more whose styles I love and admire.

M:  Who are your favourite cookbook authors?

P:  I think what I really like are all these sort of new, scrumptious-looking recipe books about the cupcake trends.  The Magnolia Bakery started it all off, and now over here we’ve got the Primrose Bakery and Hummingbird Bakery.  They have just recently released books and I’m quite keen to try out some of their recipes but I haven’t had a chance yet.

M:  You alluded to trends a little with the cupcakes.  What, if any, are your cake trend predictions for 2010?

P:  I noticed about 4 years ago it was all sort of fairly colourful and minis and cupcakes were popular.  For weddings I find it’s going back to traditional cakes but with a contemporary approach. 

I think people generally like a traditional, classic, white, stacked tier cake, but then they like contemporary touches like swags and pearl piping which looks sort of like the crystal chandelier design or damask.  Lace is still quite big but I think it’s slowing down a bit.  And sugar flowers.  Back to sugar flowers.

M:  Would you be able to pick your favourite cake, cupcake or cookie from your new book?

P:  Well, yes, if you put me on the spot, I’ve got a couple actually (laughing).  Out of the cookies, I think that the Scotty dogs and the Silhoutte cookies are pretty – they’re my favourites.  Out of minis and cupcakes, I’d say, the cherry blossom fancies…

M: Oh that’s on the cover?

P:  Yes, exactly.  And then out of the cakes, button flowers is my favourite; also the style of photography is so pretty, and the Summer Symphony.

M:  Do you have any plans to write more books, may I ask?

P:  I surely do.  I do generally like to have a creative break because I sometimes feel otherwise you start repeating yourself.  You want to come up with fresh ideas, so it would probably take another year before I start thinking about new ideas.  I’ve got some concepts in my head, but I guess I’ll be careful to say anything because I don’t know where it’s going to go.

M:  I noticed in your books that you make the instructions easy to follow and include a range of projects in terms of complexity.  You have some which are easier for beginners and some for those who have been doing it for a while.  Do you have a target audience in mind with your books?

P:  I do, because generally, first of all, I think that it’s really nice that I’ve managed to motivate so many people who’ve never done cakes before to actually get started.  So I feel it’s important that there’s something in there for beginners.  That’s what it’s all about really.  You know when I started my training, I also just learned about basic sugar craft and I taught myself most of the skills through books.  I find books are really important for people who want learn about making cakes. 

And the more tricky ones, the thing is that it’s also for my name and my reputation… I feel that I need to have some challenging projects in there in order to be ahead of things, if you know what I mean.  Also for myself, I just like to come up with something that’s different. 

M: I like the fact that you have some more challenging things because it gives people something to aspire to.

Peggy I would like to thank you for taking the time out to do this interview; I appreciate it!

For anyone interested in taking classes with Peggy, she is focussing now on holding more of them.  The information is on her site under Masterclasses (Shop) here:  http://www.peggyporschen.com/shop/

She also recently flew to Malaysia and is coming to Toronto, Canada this November, to the Bonnie Gordon School of Cake Design. I know I’m completely thrilled to be signed up for the 3-day course. I’ll keep you posted on that!

Her book, Cake Chic, has been released on Amazon in England, France, Germany and Japan, but not yet in Canada or the United States.  It will be released here in April 2010.  I’ve checked Ebay periodically and have seen it there and on other on-line book sites, however it’s often being shipped from England or Australia.

If you’d like to order or pre-order her new book, they’re available at bookstores everywhere and on line.  Specifically through the following Amazon links in:

United Kingdom

United States

Canada

Cake Chic Giveaway! CLOSED

Now on to the giveaway!  One lucky winner will receive a signed copy of Peggy’s book, Cake Chic.  How do you enter?  It’s easy.   Just leave a comment answering either of the following questions before 7pm on Tuesday, November 24^th, 2009:

• What is one question you would ask your ‘hero’ (if you have one), in an interview?

OR

• What or who would you like to see featured on Sweetopia next? 

The contest is international and the winner will be chosen randomly at www.random.org.

Another way of entering the draw is to retweet this post on twitter.  Tweets will be added to the draw! (One per twitter user please).

Hope you enjoyed the interview and good luck with the giveaway! ;-)

xo,

Marian

Have you heard of Teresa Layman?

None of my friends or family have, that’s for sure, but to the gingerbread enthusiast, the name is usually familiar.

Who exactly is she?

Only the best gingerbread house author out there!  (Kudos to other authors – there’s lots of other gingerbread talent, but Teresa is the queen in my books).  I have every gingerbread book out there I can get my hands on, and no one tops her yet.  Here’s a small sampling of my book collection:

Oh boy… it’s out… I’m a bit of a cake/cupcake/cookie/gingerbread house book JUNKIE!!!

Ahem.

Back to Teresa… I’ve even written to her and ended up chatting with her on the phone.  If you’re interested you can read about that post right here.

Like I said, a bit of a junkie.

This Halloween Gingerbread ‘House’ (actually really is a gingerbread ‘facade’), is the second project I made from her book, and as a newbie ’sugar crafter’ back in 2002 I was pretty satisfied with the results.   (Although it’s not as nice as Teresa’s).   I set it near the door for the trick-or-treaters to see when they came for their candy.  The kids seemed to love it!

Ms. Layman describes how to make every step of this Halloween gingerbread project in her book, Gingerbread for All Seasons.  From the perfect gingerbread recipe, to the ghost templates, to the sugar paste pumpkins; she makes it easy.  If I could do it, anyone can!

And now, it’s finally here, and I’m not going to spoil it for you by telling you about everything in it, I’m just going to give away two Planet Cake books.  Hopefully you win so that you can check it out for yourself!

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment about what your favorite cake flavour is.   Contest closed.

No eye-straining missing cookie this time.

I’ll be using www.random.org to draw the winning comment.   Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything with random.org.  I’ll take care of that just by entering the number of comments on this post, and hopefully your number will get picked!  Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you if you win (email/blog), so that I can send you your prize. 

The contest will be open for one week; until Tuesday, June 16th/09, 7:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time. 

Just so you know, no one has sponsored this… I’m not getting paid to promote this book or anything; I just like it, had fun doing the last giveaway and meeting you.

Good luck!

Marian

I had some barnyard cookie fun this week.  This is how it started:

 Those (arrow pointing upwards =)  became these (downwards):

 *Snap* your fingers!  Just like magic they transformed from one to the next.  lol  

Originally, my friend Michelle asked me to make cookies for her Dad’s 70th birthday party.  Since he’s a cow farmer, she was thinking cows, cowboy hats; a barnyard theme.  I took the opportunity to finally use some of my untouched cookie cutters too…  Yay! 

 What would a barnyard be without a pig?

 Well, a barnyard without a pig you say? (ha ha)

 Barn cats aplenty annnd snuck in one of my faves… butterflies.

 I’m not so sure a farmer would wear these boots.  lol

 In case the thought crossed your mind; I didn’t give those to Michelle for her dad.   =)  In case this thought crossed your mind; “A barnyard with a cactus?!  And hot peppers?!”  -If you live anywhere near me, you’re probably thinking that.   What can I say; I just felt like using those cookie cutters.  =)

 Now hold on to your hat; you’re about to get dizzy… Take a look at these two pics: (see below – pic removed.)

Are you eyes going crossed yet? Well, they might even more if you try what I’m about to ask of you. (But I still dare you =)

Can you pick out what the difference is between these two trays of cookies?  I’ll give you a hint, it has to do with a ‘missing cookie’.  (I don’t have a tripod, so the pictures are definitely not aligned exactly… lol). 

If you can find the answer, enter a comment on this post with what your favorite barnyard animal is in general (not the barnyard cookies), and why, and for now, keep the answer to the missing cookie a secret, and your name will be entered to win the book Cookie Craft by Valerie Peterson & Janice Fryer.   (Contest closed).

I’ll be using www.random.org to draw the winning comment.   Don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything with random.org.  I’ll take care of that just by entering the number of comments on this post, and hopefully your number will get picked!  Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you if you win (email/blog), and if you answer correctly I’ll send you the book!  A brand new one; not my dog-eared copy in the pic!   =)

As a side note to any cookie decorators or soon-to-be cookie decorators out there who haven’t gotten their hands on this book; I think it’s one of the best ones out there in terms of helpful hints for everything from decorating to freezing your cookies, and it’s got some pretty lovely cookie designs.  A must-have!

Just so you know, no one (but me, ha ha), has sponsored this… I”m not getting paid to promote this book or anything; I just like it and thought it might be fun to meet some more of my readers and have some fun! 

Oh, and the contest will be open until Friday, May 1st, 7:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time!   (Contest closed).

Good luck to you!

xo,

Marian

p.s.

Here are the pics in larger format for you to see:

Just a little side note; I managed to pre-order it on this Canadian site and I know it’s listed on this American site here.

Here are a few pics from the Planet Cake gallery; you can find them and more at http://www.planetcake.com.au/couturecakes/wedding.php