Valentine Treat Sale!

This year's Valentine's Treat Sale to benefit Food Ministries at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is right around the corner.

It will be held on Sunday, Feb. 14,  from 9 a.m. to noon at the Cathedral in Kempton Hall. Come early for the best selection because we do sell out.

I'm spending most of today planning this year's treats and I promise they will be beautiful, delicious and the perfect sweet gift for those you love.

I hope to see you there and in the meantime, here's a little sample of the treats from previous sales.

Valentine Treat Preview

I just finished packaging my last batch of cookies for tomorrow's Valentine Sweet Sale at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and am happy to say everything is looking great and I'm anxious to start selling and raising funds for Hunger Ministries. 

Here are a few pictures from a busy week preparing for the sale and a few previews of what will be for sale tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon in Kempton Hall at the church (147 NW 19th Ave, Portland Oregon). I hope to see you there!

I dedicated Thursday and Friday to cookie baking and decorating. These brushed embroidery cookies were the first design I tackled.

I also had to include a heart design. I used a heart cookie cutter to make an impression in the cookies before baking. The first step in decorating these was to paint the heart with pink royal icing.

These cookies demonstrate the three steps to decorating the heart cookies.

Finished cookies that just need to dry before packaging.

Of course I also had to make some French Macarons. I thought cherry would be a good choice for Valentine's Day.

I filled the macarons with a Morello cherry buttercream.

I also made some salted caramel macarons because they are always well received and I thought they would look nice packaged alongside the  cherry macarons.

The final touch in packaging the macarons was a homemade tag and some butcher's twine.

Saturday morning it was truffle packaging time. Here I am filling truffle boxes with Dave who with his wife Cheryl made all of the truffles. Our friends Cindy and Terri also came by to help with the packaging.

Each five-piece box contains three dark and two milk chocolate truffles.

The final touch to the truffle boxes was adding a pretty bow and a paper heart. Terri and Cindy tied all of the ribbons and did a wonderful job. I love the way the boxes turned out and I have my friends to thank. If the bow tying was all up to me, I'd still be struggling — it's definitely not my talent.  But like Terri said today, "many hands make light work." It was a team effort and I'm grateful.

Valentine Treat Sale

Mark your calendars for Sunday, Feb. 9th because that's the day to buy handmade Belgian chocolate truffles, decorated sugar cookies and French macarons for all your loved ones and support feeding the hungry in our community.

The Valentine Treat Sale is from 9 a.m. to noon in Kempton Hall at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (147 NW 19th Ave, Portland, OR 97209) and all proceeds go to the church's Food Ministries which supports  The Wednesday Community Meal.

All of the treats will be beautifully packaged and ready to give. And, they are delicious. Just take a look at what was sold last year.....

Cherry Macarons.

Chocolate Hazelnut Macarons.

Handmade Belgian Chocolate Truffles.

Fancy Decorated Sugar Cookies.

Packaged sugar cookies ready to be transported to the sale. All of the Valentine treats are handmade, beautifully packaged and ready to give.

I hope to see you there!

 

Tags For Cookies

A tray of cookies ready to be sold.

The packages look sweet and complete with ribbon and a tag (in the back).

All of the sugar cookies I made and decorated for the upcoming Valentine Treat Sale are wrapped and ready to go thanks to two wonderful friends who came over yesterday and helped me add ribbon and tags.

Adding the tags was a last minute idea that I think adds a lot to the packages and was easy to do. And, it was inexpensive because we made the tags ourselves using a scalloped oval punch and cardstock.

Using a standard hole punch, we punched a hole in the cookie bag and tags. Then, we thread a 12-inch piece of ribbon through both and tied a bow. Not hard to do but super easy with the help of two friends who are much better at bow tying than myself.

Now the cookies are really ready to share. I hope others agree and we raise a lot of money at our sale to benefit The Wednesday Community Meal.

The tags were made using a scalloped oval punch.

The punch is available at craft stores.