Thumbrpint Experiment

I saw a raspberry thumbprint cookie on one of my favorite baking blogs, and I had to try something like it for myself and possibly the shop. I decided to make the base of the cookie out of almond shortbread and the filling out of organic raspberry jam. I like using organic jam because it is better for you and it is less sweet and more berry-flavored so it balances the almond flavor of the shortbread. I then added a little black pepper to compliment the sweetness of the rest of the cookie. Once they came out of the oven I topped them with an almond powdered sugar drizzle. I took them to a dinner party later that night and got rave reviews. I think they could use a little more pepper to make them unique, but with a little work I definitely think they will make it into the shop.

Help from Wally

The Hot Cookie is going to be handing out samples at the Chocolate, Blues and Business networking event this Thursday. In order to get ready for the event I was working on a painted sign this afternoon when my dog, Wally, decided to come visit me. Being the wonderful dog that he is he decided to help me with the painting. This is what happens when dogs try to help paint.

That paint will NOT come off. So I think Wally will now be the unofficial The Hot Cookie spokesmodel.

My Other Kitchen

My Other Kitchen is the lovely commercial kitchen The Hot Cookie calls home. It is located in an adorable little house in downtown Carmel, IN. The kitchen is in the addition on the right side of the house, and the rest of the house is home to an event planning company, photographer and other offices.

There is our orange door.

Here is Sarah working on some more delicious cookies inside the kitchen. It has nice natural light and cheery yellow paint. Sarah and I love coming here.

Here is another photo of Sarah hard at work in her green cap along with the impressive stove and convection oven. We will be there again this week getting ready for the Chocolate, Blues and Business event and the Tuitive open house.

Sneak peak! Cookies for the 5,000 Member Party

Sarah again! Hello everyone. Karli and I have been very busy today, preparing yummy morsels for all who attend the 5,000 Member Party which is tomorrow (the 19th) at 5:30 at the Rathskeller. We wanted to give you a sneak peak of our handmade goodies which will be FREE for the tasting at this fantastic event. So come early before they are all gone!

Here, Karli is cutting out bite sized Toffee Shortbreads.

They look so pretty all lined up, ready to be baked.

This cookie cannot be complete without a dip in some gooey, melted chocolate.

We thought you all needed a taste of St. Louis with Karli's St. Louis Specials.

Our famous Chocolate Fudge cookie is a cure for any chocolaholic's craving and must be brought for you to sample.

Dang, Karli's so good. She should be a food stylist.

New experiment with packaging. I like it. How about you?

We thought these little boxes might look nice on a pillow at a bed and breakfast or something.... Just brainstorming.
Hope to see you tomorrow at the Rathskellar. Please introduce yourself to Karli and me. We're fun people, and we'd like to meet you.

All Natural, Peanut Butter Not-So-Uglies!

Sarah here. Success! I made appetizing, ALL NATURAL, peanut butter cookies. Although I got rave reviews for the taste and the name of my so-called "Peanut Butter Uglies", they were just too ugly for me. Let's take a look at the new cookie on the block: Peanut Butter Pretties. (Eww. That's too girly for me. This cookie will have to be named later.)

Oh no! The zee peanut butter is eating zee butter! Helps!

Here's where the magic happens. Never ask a magician the secrets to his tricks.

Ahhh, see. Much more appealing! And this dough is terrific unbaked - although it's not a good idea to eat raw cookie dough. I do it. I'm a rebel.

This one got ran over by a car. (I did the usual press a few, leave a few. Just an experiment.)

My little peanut butter gems. Cooling off on the rack. Question: Do you prefer the pressed ones (on the right) or the non-pressed ones (on the left) ?

I approve and my body does too because it's all natural! Yay! Hope you all will approve as well.

Business Card

As a start-up business there is a lot more that goes into The Hot Cookie than just delicious treats. Karli has been working hard to create an identity for The Hot Cookie which will appeals to many different types of people, as well as, illustrate what kind of business we are. Here is the business card design we came up with. Would you buy cookies from us if you saw this card?

Hazelnut Thins again. Yums!

Practiced baking some more hazelnut cookies.

Every great batch of cookies begins with the right tunes. I'm in a Kings of Leon phase. They make my cookies taste extra delicious.

Here's the batter with sugar, butter, and hazelnut cream before the eggs are incorportated.

Eggs give the batter a nice, smooth texture.

Added some air to fluff things up.

Finished off the batter with some flour, and now it's ready to be scooped.

Hazelnut Thins, meet everybody. Everybody, meed Hazelnut Thins.

Pile of yum.

Cookie Photos

We at The Hot Cookie have been working our tails off perfecting our cookies. The ones that we have settled on recipes for are now ready for photos which I took last week and have posted here. I can't wait to take more pics of the rest of The Hot Cookie family.

Peanut Butter Uglies

Hey, it's Sarah again. It appears that the peanut butter cookie is a challenge for me. I perfected my peanut butter cookie, or so I thought. I was using regular ol' peanut butter. The kind that we all grew up with, the kind on our lunchtime PB & J's, the kind filled with a bunch of junk that's bad for us like palm oil, cottonseed oil, etc. Honestly, I'm partial to this fantastically tasty, mostly bad peanut butter, but I wanted to make a cookie that the health-conscious could feel good about. So I bought a jar of all natural peanut butter. The ingredients are: peanuts and salt. That's it. I baked a batch of each to see and taste the difference.

"Lunch box" peanut butter VS. all natural peanut butter.

Here's the batter for my perfected "lunch box" peanut butter cookies. I threw in some peanut butter chips to see how they would fare in the baking process.

They look beautiful. Nice, light, and chocked full of peanut buttery goodness.

Here's what the natural peanut butter batter looks like. Darker already. Hmmm... They look like little monsters.

I had to add extra sugar because there was absolutely none in the jar. I also put peanut butter chips in half of the batter.

No. This is not the desired apprearance at all. Natural peanut butter, you are making me work extra hard. Why don't you cooperate? Here we have a crumbly mess; one sweet, blobby mess.

I here by name this batch Peanut Butter Uglies. They taste like a peanut butter cookie, but they need a make-over. I'll be working on this.

Tell me, do you care what kind of peanut butter you eat? What kind is in your pantry right now? Thanks!

Coping with Coffee. Bleh!

So coffee is a pretty popular drink. It's third in line under tea and water. I never got on board the coffee train. My place smells like coffee right now because of my latest batch of cookies, and I'm pretty grossed out. There's a demand for coffee flavored cookies, so I had to bite the bullet and make some. This first coffee experiment went like this:
I went to the store and bought some of that stinky, black stuff because there was none to be found in my place. The roomies don't drink it either. Bless them.

Here's the stuff in liquid form. I'm sure most of you are on a first name basis with it, which is fine. We can still be friends.

The dough is so misleading. It looks like a nice, lightly chocolaty dough. It is not. It smells like coffee.

Not knowing what this dough would do, I did the normal dough drop shape...

...and pressed a few, just for kicks.

Here's the coffee monster after it's emergence from the oven.

Being the baker, I had to try one. I pinched my nose and held my breath...not really. They actually weren't that bad for me. The coffee taste wasn't too overwhelming. Maybe I should add more coffee? I don't know! I left the taste testing up to my roommates' co-workers. I will know the tastiness by tomorrow evening. To be continued...

St.Louis Specials - the First Attempt

Karli has a favorite cookie which hails from her home town, St. Louis. She had a recipe, and we tried it out. They are definitely delicious, but I had to figure out how to make it truly OURS and not someone else's. So I did some testing.

The dough is so light and airy. Very pretty.

This dough goes through the ol' roll-in-the-powdered-sugar game. It's a good game. The cookies like to play it often.

PS - I was wandering around this wonderful city and came across a very cool open-air market, called Locally Grown Gardens. It was highly recommended that I go and check it out, and I was not disappointed. I got these beautiful eggs there. Gorgeous, flavorful, nutritious.

Back to the subject: St.Louis Specials. They look like they could be winners.

Mmmmm. They taste like winners, but will they pass the St.Louisian's test? Karli, come and give these a try!

Our First Order!

Karli and I headed to My Other Kitchen in Carmel to prepare for our first official job. A wonderful woman in Muncie, who is a part of an art co-op called ArtWorks, placed an order for three different kinds of cookies. They will be up for grabs tomorrow for an event called Art Walk, which is the first Thursday of every month in Downtown Muncie.

The cookie line up:

Honey Vanilla Drops. We made all of the cookies bite-sized. That was the request. They are ADORABLE when they are to tiny.

Here's some Oatmeal Raisin and Honey Vanilla Drops gathered together.

Up close oatmeal. I can't get over the cuteness!

Here's Karli being awesome. PS - my hands still smell like latex because of those gloves. Even after SEVERAL hand washes. Will it ever wear off?!

Fudge cookie.

Tiny tiny, scrumptious scrumptious.

Karli caught me stealing a cookie. Like the hat? I borrowed/stole it from my brother. I don't wear hats. They are boo.

And this is why I keep Karli around. She makes things look SO good! Karli, you are awesome!!!