We Want To Send You Cookies!

Sometimes things are too good to be true!!  In this case, it's not.

If you read the title, you might be pinching yourself with glee.  Cookies!  Free cookies?!  What in the world is going on?

Here's the deal, and it's very very simple: we want to send you cookies.  One batch of cookies, which usually amounts to 2-3 dozen cookies.  We will mail them, but you'll have to pay for shipping above $5 (higher mailing costs = faster mailing times = fresher cookies)  Keep reading if you're interested.

Rules for Free Cookies:

1. You must be somewhere in the United States.  We're not sending cookies internationally.
2. The cookies can be made for any time between November 1, 2013 and January 31, 2013.  If you don't cash in on the free cookies before then, you lose out.  Sorry.
3. You cannot resell the cookies.  Even if it's for a child's lemonade stand (if you live in a place that lets you have a lemonade stand in December). 
4. If the cookies are mailed, we will cover $5 in shipping, the rest is up to you to cover.  You can pay through PayPal, or send us the money in the mail.  We will not ship your cookies until we receive the funds!  We also won't bake the cookies until you OK the shipping charges. 
5. You have until 11:59pm on October 15, 2013 to submit a request for free cookies. 
6. We will not take special requests for dietary needs for these cookies.  They contain sugar, eggs, flour, butter, and vanilla.  They are made in a kitchen that also regularly uses nuts, especially almonds and walnuts.  If you have a severe nut allergy, we suggest you do not request some free cookies
7. The Catch: (isn't there always one?)  It's not too bad...as we already stated, if you're too far away to deliver the cookies personally, we will ask you to cover shipping charges.  If you are a local delivery, we will give you a dozen or so business cards that we would ask you hand out.  No, we're not going to double check that you did, we're doing this on the honor system, but since we are baking you free cookies we would remind you that you do, sorta, owe us one...
8. By submitting your name into our free cookie campaign, you confirm that you have read the above rules, understand them, and meet the requirements mandatory to submit your cookies.

 

How To Request Free Cookies:

• Click on this link and fill out the information.  It's seriously that easy!!

 

 

How To Win:

• Multiple people can request cookies for you...brides, if you have a cookie table, have all your bridesmaids write in...they don't want to be stuck baking all these cookies themselves
• Don't cheat (we'll see if you enter more than once...we'll be watching)
• Have a good reason for asking for the cookies.  It doesn't have to be a charitable reason, but if it's funny, and honest, and we like it, you can win.

 

That's it!

 

Best of luck to everyone!  We're excited to fire up these ovens for a good reason...

The Case for Gluten-Free

Ahhh, gluten-free baked goods.  The bane of our existence.  The baked goods you want to hate, but end up loving.  The red-headed stepchild of the baking world.

Remember when lactose intolerant was the cool fad "dietary issue" everyone had?  That is so 1998, though, and in the new millennium everyone seems to have developed a hatred towards gluten.  As someone who purposefully fasts for an entire day to guzzle down Olive Garden bread sticks, we don't get the gluten-free fad.  It's expensive, limits what you can eat, and, in our opinion, not the best dietary choice one can make.  We can make the same argument for enriched, bleached white flour, don't get us wrong, but no one seems to be getting on the bleached white flour-free boat, so we're not sure that's ever going to become a thing.

Now, for some people, we understand you legitimately cannot eat gluten.  And to you people we say, "Boo hoo!"  We're sorry, really we are, that gluten upsets your stomach.  Gluten-free bread is some of the most disgusting food "products" we've ever had.  We really do feel for you.

Our old college roommate has the craziest digestive system we've ever seen, and a few years ago she decided to cut gluten out of her diet to try to help herself.  Great for her, bad for us and our "Taste Testers Wanted" need.  If she couldn't eat all of our delicious goods, what were we going to do?

What we decided to do, is to become familiar with gluten-free baking.  It's an expensive experiment to get involved with, as a small bag of gluten-free flour can run you $12 at Whole Foods.  But we were determined to find success.

From all of our GF friends we've talked to, GF products fail because they are dry, crumbly, and gritty.  They lack the ability to hold together (that's what gluten does, students!), so most of the time when you bite into a cookie, it just kind of dissolves everywhere.

We wanted to work on these issues, and we did so by mixing and matching different rice flour substitutes.  The results, while not perfect, aren't half bad.  In fact (brace yourself here) there are times where the taste of a GF cupcake is equal to its gluten-filled rival.  That's right, it's not half bad!

We still have a long way to go to perfect what we feel is the ultimate GF friendly cupcake, but we're happy with the progress we've made so far.  And as our favorite taste tester can attest to, they're pretty delicious once they're iced and decorated.

Interested in trying some of our GF baked goods?  Look to your right, fill out the form, and hit submit.  We're here for you and your GF needs!!

Enjoy the weekend, friends!

Baby Shower Cupcakes: Jungle Animals

Back from the dead, never fear!  It's been over a week since we've posted, we apologize but we've been enjoying this gorgeous weather.  Autumn is probably our favorite time of year, and since we don't have allergies we don't have to worry about all the leaves and stuff.  Sorry allergy sufferers, that's not us.

To update you on our lives a little bit, this past weekend we had the chance to make some cupcakes for a baby shower.  A friend of ours was attending the baby shower, and admitted it was for a coworker.  The friend works at a vet clinic in Pittsburgh, so automatically an animal theme came into play.  Animal themes are already a solid baby shower theme, but when everyone in attendance works at the same vet clinic we're pretty sure it's a mandatory theme.

We have a love/hate with fondit, because it has such a wonderful look on cakes and cupcakes, but eats up so much of your time.  For example, creating 30 animals for 30 individual cupcakes took us 2 1/2 hours to complete.  There are so many details that have to be accounted for, so many tools to be used, and if the results weren't so breathtakingly awesome we'd probably chuck the lot.  But you have to admit, these animals couldn't be any cuter if they tried!

What mommy-to-be wouldn't love these?

Happy to have been given the opportunity to make some delicious treats for a fun weekend shower.  Now on to the next recipe!

Have a fantastic week, everyone.  Buccos finally have a winning season!! :-)

Cookie Cakes and Cream Puffs

^Could you get a higher calorie count in a blog title?

Hello friends!

Happy Labor Day Weekend!  We love extra long weekends, they make everything seem sooo much more relaxing.  Instead of 48 hours to squeeze in all the fun you want in your life, you can stretch it out for 72.  That sounds much better!

So we've been a little busy these past few weeks, and our blog posts have been limited.  Sorry about that. Sometimes the world just kind of gets ahead of you.  Since we have 72 hours to enjoy our weekend, though, we thought we'd update.

We told you in our last post that people have really been loving cookie cakes this summer, and last week was no different.  We made a fun cookie cake for a co-worker's dad's birthday as a surprise.

Apparently he loves cookie cake but didn't ask for one for his party, so his daughter decided to make sure he had a fun surprise waiting for him.  He thought he was getting just a regular old birthday cake, but instead had a PSR original cookie cake.  Yum!!

Cookie cakes are a ton of fun to make, because the time we have to devote to real cakes isn't involved.  Bake the cake, let it cook, decorate it with some icing, it's very, very minimal.  Not that we don't love decorating, but if we only spend 2 hours in the kitchen instead of 8, well...that's a win in our books.

In addition to updating our blog this weekend, we're also going to try our hand at an old standard, the cream puff.

We've made cream puffs before, but it was eons ago, before we learned all of our important baking knowledge we now possess.  They're fairly simple if you pay attention to them (think of them as an adorably cute puppy that will pee in your house if you're not careful) but our biggest challenge will be trying to find a good pudding/icing combination to stuff them with.  Any suggestions?  Hit us up in the comments.

It's September, folks.  Where did this summer go??  Have a fantastic extended weekend with friends and family.  We'll be updating the blog a few times in the coming week as we have two big projects coming up. Chocolate lovers...you're gonna wanna buckle up for the one order we have!

Cheers everyone!