Wedding cookies have become a very popular, creative and affordable favor for wedding guests in recent years. If you are thinking about starting a cookie business that includes decorated cookies, be sure to explore this lucrative opportunity. If you are intimidated by making decorated cookies in large quantities, know that the decorating process can often be set up in an assembly-line fashion enabling you to complete large orders systematically and bring in hundreds of dollars in sales in a weekend. If you don’t do decorated cookies, you might want to consider adding that skill to your toolbox. There are many cookie decorating courses out there that can train you in no time.

As we’ve seen with the entire wedding industry, if you can make a good impression on a couple in the first stages of their live together, you can have life-long customers (house-warming parties, baby–showers, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) who will refer you on to their business and come back to again and again. Another reason making wedding favor cookies can boost your business is that there are hundreds of perspective customers who will sample your product.

A lovely and inexpensive way to prepare cookies as wedding favors is in clear bags with ribbon ties and personalized favor tags.

Tags: weddingcookies

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I just had to try these Lemon Whoopie Pies from Joy The Baker. These just scream springtime, so if you’re finally enjoying some lovely weather, bake up some of these delights. They are perfect with a nice cup of tea or coffee. If you’re looking for a lovely seasonal cookie for your business, these are a strong candidate. Follow the link for the recipe.

These cookies are a play on the traditional chocolate and marshmallow whoopie pies. They come out to be absolutely enormous, so feel free to make minis if you don’t have as big a cookie capacity as I do. They’re best a day after baking, served cold from the fridge.

Lemon Whoopie Pies at Joy The Baker

Tags: recipe

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Image from WikipediaI hear this question all the time from friends who have trouble with a variety of recipes. The key is your oven. Even if you’re not starting a cookie business from home, and just love baking, cookies that just don’t turn out right is so frustrating and costly. Here is some simple advice:

you need to calibrate your oven to see if the temperature is off. For example, when you set it to 350 is the oven heating to 360 or 370? If the oven is reading too high,

your cookies will brown too quickly Also,if you use dark-colored baking sheets, consider switching to aluminum pans or sheets. If you choose to stick with dark colored sheets, reduce your oven temperature by 25 degrees F (15 degrees C). If cookies brown too quickly on bottoms your oven rack may be too low or the cookie recipe you’re using may have too much sugar. Likewise, If cookies brown too quickly on top the oven rack may be too high.

While every oven is unique, you should periodically check how the oven is heating up and calibrate accordingly. This may be as simple as adjusting the temperature manually (i.e. setting the temperature 10 degrees higher or lower, or adjusting the hardware on your oven as seen in this video:HGTV

For a detailed understanding of your oven’s temperature as well as a review of oven thermometers, check out this article at Cook’s Illustrated

Conversations with David Anderson, senior product manager at Whirlpool, revealed that the average oven designed for home use does not simply heat up to the temperature set on the dial and then stay there. Anderson noted that an oven’s heating elements are either on at full power or off-with no middle ground. To maintain the desired temperature, the heating elements cycle within a manufacturer-determined tolerance, heating up and cooling down to temperatures just above and below the desired temperature.

Tags: ovens, cookie tips

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