I’ve been racking my brain for something interesting and witty to say to you all about cookies. Alas, the muse of baking wit appears to be on holiday. Probably off lounging in a love seat getting cherub-chubby off all the Valentines goodies her swooning admirers have sent her. That harpie.

But it occurs to me that this matters very little, since once you see photos of delicious, decorated, waiting-to-be-eaten cookies you will no doubt stop reading anyway and rush off to make some of your own.

When you do, try adding some food colouring to the dough, as seen below. I can’t imagine why, in my entire life, I had never previously thought to try this, but it’s fun and it looks great. Man did those cookies ever turn out pink! I should hold a bake sale in front of Victoria’s Secret.

Another thing to try is cookies on a stick. Take a small blob of dough and press one end of the stick into it, dab a tiny bit of water onto the dough, set dough-blob-with-stick on your baking tray, then take your cut-out cookie and drape it over the d-b-w-s. Bake! They turned out very well for us, and they’re just so fun to eat. Because I did all this cookie-making with my friend Mary McBride, who owns mountains of fancy baking and decorating paraphernalia, we used actual [insert baked good]-on-a-stick sticks from Michael’s. But I imagine popsicle sticks would work too.

The photos below are compliments of Mary, who is an excellent cook, baker and cookie decorator, and also dabbles (in a seriously talented way) in photography, illustration and general craftsiness. Check out Mary’s blog, and if you live in or near Victoria, BC, stay tuned for possible near-future announcements of where and when you can sample her delicious confections!

And here’s my favourite cookie of the day:

Happy Baking!