Cookies and cakes and all the sweet treats

      I love cookies!
      I’m not at cookie monster level, but I enjoy a tasty cookie ever so often.
     My favorites are peanut butter, chocolate chip, monster cookies and Oreos. I like Nutter Butter cookies, Vanilla Wafers and about anything Little Debbie, too, but I don’t buy them often.
      Most days, there’s usually a bag of cookies or package or Oreos on the kitchen counter. I often dig into the sweet treats, especially after work at my day job, or after supper.
    We enjoy pizza most Friday nights. The pizza joint has homemade cookies, too, and they are good. We usually pick up a dozen to enjoy throughout the week. Sometimes they don’t make it past Sunday.
    Debbie says she needs to install a cookie camera to see how many times I dip into the Oreo package. I admit, I sometimes eat more cookies than I should.
     They are good and not too many calories.
     I like cake as well.
   Back in the day, my mom made some of the most beautiful cakes. She made wedding, anniversary and birthday cakes for friends and family.
     Watching her make a cake was like watching a sculptor piece together an art project.
     She had a cupboard full of custom Wilton cake pans including many cartoon characters, Raggedy Ann and Andy, a guitar pan and even a grand piano. I have most of the cake pans that I got in the estate. I’ve thought about selling them, but haven’t brought myself to doing that.
     My mom designed her own cakes on occasion. She made the best icing, too. It was light and sweet, not the fluffy kind.
     My brother, Tom, followed in our mom’s footsteps and started making cakes a few years back. He made our parent’s 50th wedding anniversary cake in June 2007. It was a beautiful cake. He doesn’t make too many cakes these days, but he learned from one of the best.
      My mom had her own business cards. She called her cake business “Muffs.”
      I remember when I first met Debbie. I bought a Wilton heart cake pan. I had big aspirations, but never got around to making the cake for her.
     I did make her a regular cake using my mom’s recipe, courtesy of my brother. The cake tasted good with icing. It was the writing part where I needed help. I can write a story, but writing a message on cake using a tube of icing with a metal tip is much more difficult.
      I’m sure  got an “A” for effort.
     At Christmas, my mom made fudge and old-fashioned divinity candy. Pecan divinity is one option for the sweet treat. I don’t remember my mom making pecan divinity, but maybe she did. There is an abundance of pecan stores in the Tulsa area.
     She had an antique cooking thermometer and I would watch as the divinity would boil on the stove. It had to be just the right temperature before pouring it in the pan. Beyond that, I don’t know a thing about making divinity.
     My mom also made a Jello cake. I called it the glass bottom boat cake. She used Gelatin and would mix in a half dozen different colors of Jello, all diced and stirred together.
     I was going to make a Jello cake for Christmas a few years ago, but never got around to it. I think the Jello has since expired.
     In Tulsa, there is Bama Pie Companies. The company, which was founded in 1927 and is still in business to this day, is located at 11th Street and Delaware, right on Route 66. The company was famous for their mini pecan pies. They also made biscuits for McDonalds. I checked the company website and learned they also make fruit-filled turnovers.
     Back in the day, they had a discount bake store right across the street from my junior high school. I would ride my bicycle there and pick up a dozen damaged mini pecan pies for a $1. No wonder I was a big kid in school. Too many pecan pies. Too many sweet treats.
      I better get on Amazon and look into buying a cookie camera.
​      Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always.