Cookie Republic

My friends have decided to have a dress-up Star Trek outing to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Star Trek. Basically we’re going to go bar hopping in full Star Trek uniforms and maybe get into some bar fights. So on a whim, I googled “Star Trek Cookies” and came up with Bakingdom, an absolutely amazing page about baking!

Full instructions are on their website. I’m not sure if I’ll make these cookies for the outing, but these are so cool!

Back in March, Pokemon Black and White came out. To celebrate, me and my friend Cat made Pokeball cookies.

I just took some Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix and plopped it into my cupcake trays.

The reason for the cupcake trays was to make them as perfectly circular as possible. It worked really well!

Perfect Circles

Once they had cooled for a bit, it was time to ice them! Again, I just used store bought icing in tubes. Cat did the red half and I did the white.

They're 2 different sizes because I had full size and min size cupcake trays.

Cat had done me the honor of making black icing for the center of the pokeballs.

There's a Voltorb in the corner.

This batch has an Electrode. Watch out!

When they were done and the icing had hardened, they not only looked good enough to eat, but good enough to catch a pokemon with! (I didn’t try it though, there were no pokemon around.)

The cookies turned out delicious and I hope to make more of them the next time a Pokemon game comes out!

The Baltyk Bakery

Baltyk Bakery
10557 Kingsway NW, Edmonton, AB T5H 4K1
780-428-2207
Google Maps

I’ve been told often that someone can judge the quality of a Chinese restaurant by seeing how many Asians are actually eating there. “This place must be good, it’s full of Asians!” When I went to the Baltyk Bakery, I experienced that feeling. It was full of Poles.

Last Thursday,  I decided to swing by and check it out.  It was my first time there and I don’t think I could have picked a better day.  It was super busy and the only English to be heard was when I was placing my order. The place smelled wonderful, and was full of fresh baking like breads, jelly rolls, pastries, and other goodies. They even have a freezer with pierogis. As I waited in line, the cookie showcase caught my eye. It was loaded!

A showcase filled with various cookies

Ontop the showcase, was some Harlequin romance novels. I assume they’re in Polish.

Would you like some romance with your loaf of bread?

Something I noticed when I was waiting for my turn, was every single customer bought these little icing sugar dusted pastries by the boxful. One old man, started to shovel them into his face immediately after the saleswoman took the weight reading of his purchase while it was still on the scale. No exaggeration on the shovelling part, he was rather barbaric.

I figured since they’re obviously the most popular item of the day, I’d have to order some. I got them, plus some sandwich cookies and meringues.

Faworki aka Chrust - the most popular item at the Baltyk Bakery on tłusty czwartek

Needing to know more about these cookies, I asked my friend Ashia for more information. She explained to me that I happened to shop at the bakery on “tłusty czwartek” or “Fat Thursday” (Polish, Greek, German feast). tłusty czwartek happens on the last Thursday before Lent, and then you fast until after Easter. In Ashia’s words, “…you fill yourself with greasy goodies!”

She told me the cookies everyone was crazy for was called Faworki or Chrust.

Traditionally they are made with durum wheat flour (which is very close to Semolina) but it will be very hard to find.

Basically you just roll out the dough thinly. Then cut in rectangular shapes about 3cm wide, and let’s say about 7-10 cm long (whatever fits in your pan). Then you make a slit in the middle about let’s say 4cm and loop one side through. Then you deep fry them and sprinkle sugar. mmmm

She said they are easy to make and sent me this link for a recipe and more information.
http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Faworki

Even though they’re easy to make, I’ll probably buy mine from the bakery for now. They’re super good, not greasy and not too sweet.

Found this at Bulk Barn for $14.99.

Thanks to Dan for being my Vanna.

I considered picking one up and filling it with cookies. But the idea of beating Cookie Monster with a stick until his belly splits open and the cookie guts all come spilling out is sort of morbid and traumatize children. More importantly, it would probably be really messy having pulverized cookie bits flying everywhere!

I have a love for cookies.

The funny thing is that I don’t eat a whole lot of cookies. My passion for cookies comes from the joy they are to create and give away. I’m also fascinated with the actual process of making the cookies, the ingredients, the tools, trying new things, techniques, decorating, presentation, and so on. Maybe I can make something new an interesting.

The idea of this blog came from a day of binging on online videos of Cookie Monster. I thought about it. A site about cookies would be fun to do. I like baking and photography and talking about food so content shouldn’t be a problem. And there’s more too cookies than just sharing recipes.  I plan to talk about project ideas, decorating, fun videos, cookie jars, t-shirts and other paraphernalia.

As for the name, “Cookie Republic”, well, there isn’t a lot of meaning behind it. The URL was available so I went with it!

I hope you enjoy the blog. If you would like to leave any feedback or have post ideas, please drop me a line. Thanks.