I first heard about the LA Cookie Con & Sweets Show on the Food Bloggers of LA (FBLA) mailing list in September of last year… and to be honest, my curiosity was piqued, but it wasn’t something that I felt I absolutely couldn’t miss. I do love baking–very much so–but as I’ve said on here multiple times, I’m not overly fond of eating baked goods. One of the main draws on the initial emails mentioned a lot of free samples, and I figured that it was something my waistline probably didn’t need.

Another reason that initially held me back from attending was the convention’s newness. I’ve been to first annual events before (626 Night Market comes to mind) and–through no fault of their own–tend to be disorganized and overwhelmed with logistics they cannot anticipate prior to the date. This is not a new phenomenon, nor is it one that I unreasonably expect new organizations to avoid. There are no soft openings, no practice runs for conventions or expos. I still remember the vitriol spewed on the Yelp event page for 626 Night Market’s first year, and cringe.

With all of that said, I slowly came to see the light over the next few months–my coworkers at the bakery were attending (and excited to do so), and I continued to check on the website for updated information. And now that I’ve attended, I’m so very glad I did! Not only did I have a blast with my friends, but I also got to talk to a lot of the bakeries and businesses with booths. The experience was fun, educational and completely worthwhile. It was a little hairy at times–and I’ll get into that further below–but overall, I do think it was a great event and I already anticipate an even better con next year.

Before I begin: A Full Disclosure! I did get a VIP Press & Media pass for the event, so my experience is probably a little different than con attendees with regular passes.

A Sheepish Note: I tried to get business cards for every booth I took pictures of, but lost one of my bags with cards (and a cookie! Geez!) at the convention… so please let me know if I haven’t credited your booth and I will happily do so.

The Line Stops Here: We arrived at 9am anticipating a line–but had no idea that the line would wrap around the block an hour before the ribbon-cutting ceremony! The VIP/Press line was much shorter (it’s the line on the right), but since one of my friends had a regular pass we decided to wait in the longer line until we got close to the front. Once people were let into the convention center to register, they were then funneled back out through another door to the holding area to wait for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and subsequent start of the con.

Things were much more lax for VIP/Press passholders, or at least that was my experience. Once we were given our wristbands, we were more or less allowed to wait inside while awaiting the ribbon-cutting. There was a bit of confusion with the official staff  for the event and the Le Cordon Bleu students helping the event–when I asked if I needed to wait outside with the rest of the regular passholders, I heard 2-3 different things. My friend and I decided to wait indoors until the ceremony began, in fear of being herded into the back of the crowd. It looks like a lot of other VIP/Press passholders had the same idea, as there were a lot of people lounging around the registration area.

The Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony: Apparently the mayor was running behind (or so I heard from the various event staff with walkie-talkies), so the ribbon-cutting ceremony was 15 minutes later than initially advertised. Not a big deal for me, but I did feel kind of bad for the general passholders that were stuck waiting under the morning Pasadena sun.

A few pictures were taken with some of the Masterchef and Masterchef Junior contestants before Ron Ben-Israel made his appearance as the official ribbon-cutter. What a nice guy! He mingled right into the crowd, made small talk, and happily obliged with every picture request. When the official ceremony started, he jumped up and down and joked that “what happens here, stays here.” His infectious energy made everyone smile–and while I’m not as familiar with his show on the Food Network, I was similarly swept up by his excitement.

Welcome to the 1st annual LA Cookie Con & Sweets Show!

The Frenzy Begins! After Mr. Ben-Israel’s dramatic ribbon-cutting, we immediately jumped inside of the convention center in order to beat the crowds. [And boy, was I happy about that–as the day wore on, the crowds got more and more intense and pushy.] As soon as we walked through the doors onto the main convention floor, the smell of sweets and the promise of samples hung in the air. My normally no-sweets-preferring stomach rumbled in anticipation.

I really liked the way they set up the booths–there was ample space between each booth, and the aisles were spaced so that at least 5-7 people standing side-by-side could walk through comfortably. At the very beginning of the day, it felt un-cramped and quite spacious! The displays for each booth would vary–some were very well-staged, and others were quite bare-bones. There were a healthy mixture of booths at the convention: cookies, cakes, baker’s tools, baker’s ingredients, commercial booths (Keurig and Whole Foods come to mind), even wine tastings in the “VIP lounge”.

Some of the booths had displays and samples… but were only there for show and not for business, as they couldn’t sell any of their baked goods at the location. That was surprising to me–but this was the exception more than the norm.

And did I mention how beautiful some of the displays were?

Cake display by Caljava Online

Cake Pop display by Charlie Pops Organic Cake Pops

Samples, please! Every booth that was selling baked goods had samples–every one! I thought my tongue was going to go into sugar shock. After a while, I found myself wishing I had a way to rinse my palette because the flavors were starting to run into each other. Samples of cupcakes, sweet bread, cakes, cake pops, cake truffles, cookies, pastries… this was every dieter’s (and diabetic’s) nightmare. And every sample was so generous, too–I never felt jilted, nor did I ever feel guilty asking for a sample if they weren’t readily available. Every booth, every baker was so obliging and willing to chat.

Ensaymada samples from BakerCakeMaker

Oatmeal Toffee Cookie Samples from Jen & Joe’s Cookie Dough booth

But wait, there’s more! Yes, there’s a reason this post has a “Part 1” in its title. Look forward to more sweets, more treats and more rambling from yours truly about LA Cookie Con & Sweets Show in the next post. (There was simply too much to cover, and I’ve never been a fan of overly-long entries.) For now, here’s a snap from The Social Booth Co. that I took with my friends. Yes, I’m the glutton with the cupcake…

Courtesy of The Social Booth Co.

I didn’t choose the baking life… the baking life chose me.

Seriously–for someone who doesn’t really enjoy baked goods that much, I sure make a hell of a lot of them. And now that I bake as an almost-full time job, I am a bona fide slave to the oven. You’d think that I’d keep a large radius of distance between me and my new master on my days off, right? Alas, my friend: that is incorrect!

But I don’t mind jumping into my own kitchen after leaving the kitchen at work to prepare more food, which I suppose speaks to my passion for food and cooking. It’s still just as fun to me as it was before I started working at this bakery; perhaps even more so since I have complete control over what I make in my own house. When I’m at work, I’m following someone else’s recipes and directions–which, while educational, certainly doesn’t offer the same kind of creative stimulus that making recipes at home creates.

So how is baking for a living going for me? Friends ask me whether I still enjoy baking, and the answer is yes. Whether I’m at work or I’m at home, in the end, I’m still making food for others’ enjoyment–and that’s why I find it so gratifying.

Speaking of others’ enjoyment, that is definitely the purpose of these cookies. I can eat maybe one or two of these before I’m chocolate-ed out; based on the reception these had at a recent game night with friends, I am in the minority. I’m normally not a fan of white chocolate, but I really enjoy it in small bursts with this very chocolate cookie. And the best part about this recipe? It makes cookies with crispy edges and a chewy center. Definitely best on the day they’re baked, but you’ll still find them delicious for up to a week.

Recipe adapted from Remodelaholic.

My Facebook news feed has become a scrapbook of engagement, wedding and baby pictures. (Whether the individual accounts fall into that chronological order is a topic for another medium.) The pictures of babies have been especially numerous–here’s Baby B making a funny face! And Baby G is laughing at a sound mama made! While others may tire and eventually grow irate of these particular updates, I enjoy them immensely. I get to see stunning pave engagement rings. I’ve never been shy about my preference for children: I’ve volunteered with adopted children at summer camps in the past, I’ve been a babysitter for as long as I can remember, I always make a beeline for the babies at potlucks and gatherings… and so on. I’m completely sure that my energy for kids will wane somewhat when I have my own child to watch around the clock, but for now, I’m happy to help!

James’ fellow resident and his wife (also known as our neighbors and game night partners-in-crime) recently had their first baby, and getting to meet her only a few days after her birth was amazing. I’ve never seen a friend’s baby so soon after delivery–she is so tiny and delicate! And her eyes are the same clear color as her mom’s; I know that babies have pretty poor eyesight at birth, but when she lifted her eyes to mine I really felt like she was looking right at me! I was so grateful for the chance to see her and meet her.

I had toyed with the idea of baking something for them right around her due date, but since the baby’s gender was unknown, I decided to hold off on planning anything. After my impromptu visit, I figured I would jump right in and bake something pink to celebrate! (Which is not to say that pink is for girls only, of course.) But the idea of pink cookies wasn’t terribly appetizing to me. So I thought: why not turn to natural colors? And that’s how I ended up with a dark-pink blackberry glaze.

As for the cookie itself… have you ever wondered why limes don’t get the same kind of love that lemons do? Admittedly, it’s not one of those pressing questions in today’s world. But other than key lime pie, we don’t see a lot of lime-centric desserts out there in the wide world of recipes–which is a shame, seeing that the lime has a sweeter, less mouth-puckering flavor than its citrusy cousin. I know that my recipe is like a tiny drop in a bucket, but hopefully it will encourage you to see limes in more ways than one.

And to my two friends–congratulations on your precious little one! I can’t wait to see the pictures of her in the knitted caterpillar suit.

The cookie drought is over! Hallelujah!

I think my soul just missed baking. Now how dramatic is that?

Truth is, as much as I love cooking and throwing together meals for friends, baking has always been my first love. Which is a bit strange, I’ll admit–since I don’t really eat most of the things I bake. My sometime sweet tooth allows for me to taste whatever baked good I’ve made for quality-checking purposes, but I usually try to pawn all of my baking off on others (as my friends will attest). But certain cookies wiggle their way into my heart despite my best intentions… this is definitely one of them.

The original recipe actually uses olive oil and fresh rosemary for a savory-sweet twist; I chose to use Kona coffee because we recently returned from Hawaii with bags of the stuff! The basic recipe without my additions (powdered sugar, butter, salt and flour) make for an excellent basic shortbread recipe with which you can try other combinations with. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ll see variations of this recipe on this site in the months to follow…

The consistency of these shortbread cookies is fantastic: light and crisp, with just a touch of vanilla sweetness. The small, coarse grounds of Kona coffee add texture and a very mild coffee bite; the glaze is strong but sweet, almost like coffee ice cream. I enjoyed these with coffee (obviously) but they go well with a nice hot cup of tea or by themselves!

If you don’t have vanilla beans, you can substitute 1 tsp. of vanilla extract; I know vanilla beans are expensive and not everybody has them lying around. Likewise, you can use any coarsely-ground coffee instead of Kona–just make sure the bean is a milder and less bitter variety. The roast should still be medium to dark, though. Lastly, the glaze–James and I are huge coffee fans, so I threw in the espresso powder to kick up the coffee flavor. If you don’t have it on-hand, you can make the glaze without and it will be fine–it’ll just be lighter in color.

And if this all looks like too much work for you, you’re in luck: Trader Joe’s has a version of this cookie (in fact, their cookie is what inspired me to make this in the first place). I like to think that mine is better, but you can be the judge on that if you’d like.

Recipe adapted from The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting, and Drinking, with Recipes.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not the biggest fan of sweets–which, if you follow the pattern of the recipes I post on here, seems pretty hypocritical. I think the biggest word in my tag cloud for this site is “BAKING” as of today (which is very closely followed by “DESSERT” of course.) So why all of the sweets love on this site? James has always joked about how “Baking Holiday” is a more apropos name for what I write about on here–and there is a whole body of evidence on my Recipes page to back up his claim.

I myself may not eat a lot of sweets or candy, but I do love how other people react to desserts and baked goods. Someone may love cheeseburgers–yet another may prefer quinoa salad. Tastes vary across a wide spectrum when savory foods are involved. Yet desserts seem to transcend these preferences; who doesn’t love a sweet note at the end of a meal? Baking to me is really baking for others to enjoy.

Baking is also simple in theory but complicated in practice. To really achieve optimal results, it’s important to know your tools, your techniques and your ingredients. Does your oven heat up evenly? When you mix your sugar into the butter, are you watching for total homogeneity? Have you tested your baking soda recently for its continued ability to cause a rising reaction? (Yep, my science geek is showing!) When you cook something and you mess up–you can usually supplement it with something else in order to salvage it from the trash. Once you place your baked good in the oven… well, if you made a mistake in the preparation, it is mostly a lost cause. The intricacy of the steps present a challenge to me, and I love rising to the occasion.

Lastly… and this is probably the most shallow reason I love baking desserts so much… desserts are pretty. So very pretty, and fun to photograph. Honestly, the only reason this isn’t a dessert blog (and the only reason my husband and I aren’t roly-poly) is because I don’t like eating sweets. And hopefully there is some self-preservation ingrained into that preference as well…

These s’mores cookies are a crowd-pleaser. They’re chewy on the inside and out. They’re liberally mixed with gooey, slightly bitter chocolate and salty-sweet graham cracker crumbles. They’re dotted with soft, pillowy marshmallows that are placed on top after baking to imitate the texture of a s’more–instead of meting into the cookie and being ignored. The knowledge of your kitchen and tools is what keeps the cookies chewy, and damn if they aren’t picturesque to look at. Baking is amazing, indeed.

In order to keep the dough easy to work with, make sure you place the bowl in the fridge while the baking sheet is in use–the colder the dough, the easier it is to roll it into pretty dough balls that turn into perfect round cookies when baked. Make sure you check on them 2 minutes before the suggested bake time if you’re unfamiliar with how quickly your oven cooks–10 minutes works for my oven, but it may not for yours. And if you’re really looking for an authentic campfire s’mores experience, you can eat the cookies after only a few minutes of cooling. I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as my friends do–I doubled this recipe and I still don’t think the cookies survived a full day.

High Altitude Adjustment (for my lovely Colorado friends): Add 2 Tbsp. of AP flour & 2 Tbsp. of water, subtract 1 tsp. of white sugar from the recipe. Set the oven to 365ºF (+15ºF from recipe) and reduce the bake time by 2-3 minutes.

Pardon the dust! I’m totally revamping the site and the cookie recipe can now be found here (or by clicking on the cookie):

High-Altitude Oatmeal Raisin Cookies 

Thanks so much and enjoy!

My father is an unapologetic fan of chocolates and sweets. I remember a never-empty jar of mini-Crunch bars in the den when I was growing up; and a pint of Rocky Road ice cream was ever-present in the freezer. The last time I visited his place in the Philippines, a jumbo-sized plastic jar with assorted Hershey mini-chocolate bars sat just a few steps away from his nightstand. The memories of my dad’s sweet tooth are so strong that I associate these candies with him regardless of the current time or place.

He flies back to the country a few times a year to spend time with the family, and since there are no direct flights from the Philippines to Colorado I get to see him during layovers going either way. Sometimes he stays with James & me in our tiny apartment, sometimes he’s here for dinner and gone in a few hours. Of course, anytime I get to spend time with him is precious. But I figured that I would show him how happy I was to see him again during his most recent trip by baking him a batch of cookies to temper his sweet tooth!

Why these cookies, when the combination of chocolate + cookies is endless? I distinctly remember my mom coming home from the grocery store with chocolate-covered pretzels on a weekly basis and watching them disappear next to my father’s computer. And as much as I love Crunch bars (who doesn’t?), I’ve been trying to stay away from candy for the sake of my own diet—if I had leftover candy bars after incorporating them in a recipe, it would be the end of me!

I brought the batch of cookies with me to the airport when I picked him up, and to say that he enjoyed them is an understatement! Since then, I’ve baked a few more batches: two batches in Boston for my whole family, a batch for my visiting aunt and cousin (and significant other!), and the most recent one… well, I just dropped my father off at the airport to fly back to the Philippines, and I thought it would be a sweet way of sending him off until I see him again for Christmas in a few months. See you soon, Daddy!

This recipe from The Brown-Eyed Baker is pretty solid as-is—the only changes I made were to add more pretzels (at my father’s request, of course!) and to leave them in pretzel chunks instead of finely crushed. The pretzels soften slightly during baking because of the oil in the cookie, but still retain enough of their own texture to make the cookie more interesting to chew on. Because I increased the pretzel “presence” in the recipe, I also increased the chocolate chip ratio. What you’re doing, in essence, is taking a peanut butter cookie recipe and throwing in pretzels and chocolate. Who knew that something so simple could elevate the cookie to another level?

Recipe adapted from The Brown-Eyed Baker

I have very fond memories of my grandmother making snickerdoodles for my family when I was little. She used the same cookbook that she had been using for years—the Betty Crocker Cookbook, published in the 1960’s. The cover was worn and the binding a little tattered, so she covered it with one of our elementary book covers—a picture of Mickey Mouse, books in hand and schoolhouse in the distance. Whenever I saw that book on the counter, I knew that in time the kitchen would be filled with the delicious smell of cinnamon, sugar and butter.

When I became older, she allowed me to assist her with the basics—rolling the dough into balls, tossing them with cinnamon-sugar, and placing the dough balls on the baking sheet. I would hop around with impatience and glance through the oven glass for the next 10-15 torturous minutes as the smell of cookies wafted throughout the entire house. I could barely contain myself when my grandmother pulled them out of the oven and shooed me away as she placed them on a cooling rack. And when I finally got to bite into each cookie, armed with a tall glass of whole milk… the memory still makes me smile, no matter where I am or how I’m doing.

I stole (borrowed?) that Betty Crocker cookbook from my house my junior year of college, determined to bring that happiness to fellow parishioners at my parish’s bake sale. Hoo boy—that did not go well. It was probably a combination of my ineptitude, the 30-year old oven at my apartment, and the fact that I didn’t adjust the recipe to high altitude (which ties into the first reason). Being in a pinch, I ended up “baking” a brownie mix from a box instead. I tried a few more times to recapture the magic that my grandmother had woven with her snickerdoodles, but even after I made altitude adjustments to the recipe I was still at an impasse.

I started trying recipes that I found online, desperate to figure out where I went wrong and what would work best. And after a few tries, I finally found this recipe on Simply Recipes—and it was perfect. Crispy on the edges, soft on the inside, with just enough cinnamon kick to tickle the taste buds. I’ve made this recipe for my closest friends, for my lovely coworkers, and everyone in between. Out of all the cookie batches I’ve made in the past, this one seems to have the most positive response. And although my taste has moved on (my favorite is oatmeal raisin nowadays), the act of making and baking snickerdoodles will always make me nostalgic for those long-ago days in the kitchen where I’m ten years old again–giggling and rolling dough in cinnamon sugar with my grandmother’s sharp-eyed supervision.

Someday, though… someday I’m going to tackle that dang Better Crocker recipe again, and I’ll finally master it! (I still have the book sitting in my bookshelf… no, I never gave it back. What a bad granddaughter I am!)

Recipe modified from Simply Recipes.

I really like my optometrist and his office—I just saw him recently for my second check-up (wow, almost two years of living in LA already?) and I actually had fun. No, really! Instead of saying ‘do you prefer 1 or 2’ for various eyeglass prescriptions, he used fruits (apple or orange?). I was laughing so much during the exam that the Eye Puffs of Doom—er, I mean the pressured air to screen for glaucoma—were minimally startling. And I got re-educated in eye anatomy (aqueous vs. vitreous humor)—anatomy just geeks me out, period. I love it.

I don’t even remember how we got to the subject of cooking and baking, but we talked at length about it… and I made my mind up, right there and then, to bring in cookies for his office when I picked up my order of contact lenses. I bake all of the time anyway—and since James is constantly complaining that I’m going to either make him: a) fat and/or b) diabetic, I figured I could share the wealth. So on a bright and early Saturday morning, I pulled this recipe from a list of ones I’ve been meaning to make for a while and went for it!

I dropped the cookies off a few hours later and they looked genuinely happy to receive them.

“I can’t believe you remembered!” my optometrist said with a smile on his face. Totally made my day.

I actually ran off to do another errand in the same area and ended up walking past the office on my way back to my car, but I was too nervous to run in and ask how they liked the cookies… but judging by my friends’ reactions to the leftover batch at the Superbowl gathering I had the next day, I think they probably liked them?

The beautiful images for this particular recipe inspired me to actually purchase the cookie cutters with scalloped edges… so pretty! I’m sure I’ll find other uses for these cutters… right? Right?

All jokes aside, I had no issues following the recipe and felt no need to make any adjustments to any of the amounts. I did use the weight measurements as opposed to the volume ones (except for the small amounts), but only because I’m trying to wean myself off of volume recipes—I think replicating recipes will be much more accurate using this method.

I also tried cookies at different levels of thickness and I preferred the cookie dough rolled out to ¼ inch—then again, I also have the Sadistic Gas Oven of Overbakedom, so the thinner cookies might be more up your alley. I liked how they softened slightly the next day after being kept in a Tupperware yet didn’t lose any of the characteristic ‘shortbread’ consistency.

The cookies themselves are fantastic—I only used 100g of sugar to emphasize the bittersweet chocolate I used (60% cacao, Ghiradelli) and felt it made the cookies even easier to snack on because the sweetness didn’t linger on the tongue. I think it would be interesting to add espresso powder to the recipe next time I attempt to make it, namely because I’m not sure these cookies can get any more intensely chocolate than they already are!

Original Recipe: Smitten Kitchen