Cookies are welcome at any party. Everyone loves getting and eating cookies. If you want to include cookies in your wedding, why not make them as favors? With a little ingenuity and a little practice, you can make really fun and adorable wedding cookies.

Start with a really good recipe for sugar cookies. Don’t even consider store bought as they won’t taste or look good in the end. Then, decide on a cookie shape. You can choose a cookie cutter that looks like a wedding cake, a heart, a flower, a shoe, or even just an elegant square or oval. Use a big enough cookie cutter so that you get a nice sized cookie out of it that will take decorations well.

Each cookie will need to be hand decorated. You can easily make royal icing or use fondant to create a surface layer for your embellished designs. Pipe icing onto the cookies after they have cooled. Use your new initial or pipe on rosettes, dots, or even a word or two. Once you get the hang of using a piping bag, you’ll want to get creative with what you put on the cookies. Wrap and you have edible cookie favors.

Sugar Cookies (from joyofbaking.com)

3 cups (390 grams) all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Royal Icing Using Egg Whites:

2 large egg whites

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

3 cups (330 grams) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

or

Royal Icing Using Meringue Powder:

4 cups (440 grams) confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

3 tablespoons (30 grams) meringue powder

1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)

1/2 cup - 3/4 cup (120 - 180 ml) warm water

Food Coloring (I use Gel Pastes that can be found at cake decorating and party stores or else on-line)

For Sugar Cookies: In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 minutes). Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have smooth dough. Divide the dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about one hour or until firm enough to roll.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Remove one-half of the chilled dough from the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch (1 cm). (Keep turning the dough as you roll, making sure the dough does not stick to the counter.) Cut out desired shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to the prepared baking sheet. Place the baking sheets with the unbaked cookies in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes to chill the dough which prevents the cookies from spreading and losing their shape while baking.

Note: If you are not going to frost the baked cookies, you may want to sprinkle the unbaked cookies with crystal or sparkling sugar.

Bake cookies for about 8-10 minutes (depending on size) or until the edges are just starting to brown. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. Frost with royal icing, if desired. Be sure to let the royal icing dry completely before storing. (This may take several hours.) Frosted cookies will keep several days in an airtight container. Store between layers of parchment paper or wax paper.

Makes about 36 - 4 inch (10 cm) cookies.

What do you give when someone far away has a birthday, an anniversary, or a new baby? If you want to ship a gift, you usually have to go and shop for the gift, wrap it, and then look for a suitable box to ship it in. By the time you write the label out and get to the UPS store or post office, you’re exhausted! There’s a better way to send a gift with a few simple clicks of your computer mouse.

We sell these tasty cookie gift baskets online! They’re made to order and then ship right to the recipients' door so you never have to run around town getting in and out of the car.

Cookie flowers have been popular for some time now. These decorative cookies are really more like pops as they come on long stems. They resemble a cookie rose. But they can be decorated with any kind of theme imaginable.

Cookie companies have really turned this into an art. The frosting and colorings that are being used now are so vivid, you’d swear that the cookies are real and not just representations of flowers.

Go for a theme that matches your gift-giving holiday. Cookies for Mother’s Day can mean red rose cookie blooms. New baby? How about a basket filled with long-stemmed baby bottle cookies or ducks or even baby faces? The icing artists who make these cookies are so skilled that the frosting really pops to life.

There are cookie bloom baskets for every holiday, no matter how obscure. Nurse’s Day? We have nurse cookies! Send over a basket to your favorite hospital staff complete with nurse’s hats, thermometers, and stethoscopes done in sugar. How about Groundhog’s Day? You can get a representation of that little fuzzy shadow-seeker, too! There’s really no limit to what you can order in the cookie realm these days.

You can also create your own cookie blooms. It’s really easy. Just choose a sugar cookie recipe and a cookie cutter that’s big enough to accommodate icing detail. Small, intricate cookies don’t work well for cookie blooms. You want a big and bold shape like a giant star or sunflower or teddy bear outline.

The only real trick is to get long stemmed lollipop sticks at the craft store and insert them before you bake the cookies. Many a disappointed home baker has tried to get the sticks in after baking and it’s just impossible. You’ll end up with crumbled cookies. And don’t try to move the cookies off the sheet pan before they’re completely cool or you’ll end up pulling the whole stick out.

Decorate with royal icing and icing tints or food coloring powders. The powders are found wherever cake making supplies are sold. And that’s how commercial bakers get the colors so vivid—a tip from the pros.

Stand your cookies up in a floral foam block or a cube of Styrofoam, then place in a basket that has been lined with fabric or a linen napkin. Make sure to hide the foam so it looks like the cookies are standing on their own. This is one thinking of you gift you’ll want to carry over to a friend’s house instead of trying to mail.

Today fortune cookies are popping up everywhere!  You can find fortune cookie party favors for weddings and birthdays, or logo fortune cookies for corporate events and trade shows. You can order them with just about any saying you like inside. There are companies devoted to nothing but custom fortune cookies. You choose the saying and the flavor and the accents. Go with a chocolate fortune cookie with sprinkles or a vanilla fortune cookie with coconut and white chocolate. And, of course, you can always still get the traditional original flavor.

In addition to the pint sized version of the fortune cookie, you can also order them in a jumbo size. Have a special saying put inside like, “Will you marry me, Kate?” or “Guess who’s expecting twins?” Fortune cookies of the grandiose kind are prefect for making announcements that are just as big. Play around with wording and think about fun situations where you could present someone a giant treat. Boss’s day is a great time to thank him with a big cookie dipped in chocolate. Write the words, “Thanks to the best boss. From your staff.”

What are some other things you might say on your custom cookie? Here are some ideas:

For Weddings

• Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.
• Don and Martha October 12, 2011
• Thank you for joining us at our wedding.
• When you love someone, all of your saved up wishes start coming true.
• True love forever…Kate and John 10/12/2010
• Couples who love each other tell each other a thousand things without talking.
• Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.
• When we meet, you fill my eyes; When we part you fill my heart.
• Only you can make my heart crumble…
• You will spend the rest of your life with the man (or girl) of your dreams.
• Roses are red, violets are blue, I am so happy that I love you!
• It is your good fortune to share life’s special moments with the one you love.

For Corporate of Business

• Your company’s logo
• A raffle prize drawing number
• An inspirational quote
• Your company’s tagline
• "You always pass failure on the way to success."-Mickey Rooney
• "You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play."-Warren Beatty
• "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."-Henry David Thoreau

For Birthdays

• “At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30 the wit; and at 40 the judgment.” - Ben Franklin
• “Live as long as you may. The first twenty years are the longest half of your life.” - Robert Southey
• “Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.” Georges Clemenceau
• “After 30, a body has a mind of its own.” Bette Midler
• “Thirty five is a very attractive age;London society is full of women who have of their ownfree choice remained thirty-five for years.” Oscar Wilde
• “Life begins at forty.” W. B. Pitkin
• “Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.” - French Proverb
• “Looking fifty is great--if you're sixty.” Joan Rivers

There are so many options to choose from, and for so many occasions, that you will not run out of ideas! Not to mention, each bouquet is delivered with care and priority. So hurry up and browse all these great cookie bouquets, they won't last long!

Click on one of the delicious iced cookie bouquets below to start shopping.

Sale ends August 31, 2010

Do you have a birthday coming up?  Is someone in need of a pick me up?  Or maybe you just want to let someone know you're thinking about them.  Our cookie gifts are perfect for any occasion!

Our delicious arrangements are made from butter-creme cookies, which are baked and shipped the same day for maximum freshness. Each cookie is about 4-5 inches in diameter, and is personally decorated by one of our icing artists.

You can even personalize the bouquets with your own custom message for free!  Choose from a 5, 7, 9 or 12 cookie bouquet - at these prices you may even want to send one to yourself!

Consistently rated 5 out of 5 stars by our customers, this giant fortune cookie features a football-sized crisp vanilla fortune cookie that our artisans dip in a rich caramel and Heath toffee bits.  Then they add a lovely pattern created with fine milk Belgian chocolate.  Add your own custom message to the foot-long fortune that we tuck inside. No matter what the occasion, this gift is a winner!