- Hey guys, so Mother's Day is coming up next month
and I thought we would do something extra special
for the occasion.
I'm gonna show you how to make
some delicious lemon thyme sugar cookies.
And then, my friend Robert Mahar,
who many of you might remember from Kin Community,
is coming to show us how to package them up
in a cute little DIY cookie package.
I'm so excited for this, I love Robert,
he's such a talent and if you aren't familiar
with him and his work, I'll leave a link
in the description to his website
where you can get caught up.
First, I'm gonna show you how to make the cookies
and then Robert is gonna join us in a minute.
The first thing we're gonna do is take one cup
of room temperature butter and beat that together
with one cup of sugar.
I find for sugar cookies like this,
that is the perfect ration,
one cup of butter to one cup of sugar.
You cannot go wrong.
And then, once your butter mixture is nice and fluffy,
you're going to add one egg.
And then, for a little bit of texture,
I also add the zest of one small lemon.
Over the years I've found when you bake
with lemon zest, it sort of bakes off all the flavor.
I find that lemon zest is really great
for things that you're serving fresh,
so that's why I use both the zest and the extract.
With the zest, you get to see the little specks of lemon
and people get a hint of what's to come.
The extract kinda gives you all the flavor,
so I do like to use both.
We're also gonna add two teaspoons of freshly minced thyme.
This time of year I grow a lot of lemon thyme
in my garden, and that's the variety that has
that beautiful variegated leaf to it,
so it's a little bit yellow and a little bit great.
It has the most incredible flavor to it.
If you don't grow lemon thyme, not to worry
you can use regular thyme.
I like to add herbs in my baking
because I think it's really unexpected
and just look so beautiful too.
Especially, for something like Mother's Day.
You can set that aside,
and put together your dry ingredients.
We're going to whisk together three cups
of all purpose flour, three quarters teaspoon of salt,
and a quarter teaspoon of baking powder.
You can whisk that all together
and then add that just in thirds to your butter mixture.
You wanna beat this really well
until the dough really starts to form
into small little balls.
That way you know that that butter
and the flour are really well incorporated.
Then you're gonna turn it out onto a floured surface,
roll it into maybe three balls, flatten them into disks,
and then wrap them up in some parchment paper.
Now because these are cut cookies
you do wanna refrigerate this dough for at least two hours,
overnight is even better,
that way you'll get a really clean cut
and a really beautiful shaped cookie.
You're gonna cut out your cookies and place them
on a cookie sheet that's been lined with parchment paper.
The final step is just to take some raw cane sugar
and sprinkle them on top.
You could use cane sugar, you could use turbinado sugar.
I like those heavier sugars because I find
you'll get a really nice decorative effect with it.
If you just use plain sugar, it ends up kinda melting
into the cookie and you don't kind of see it
or feel it as much.
We're gonna bake our cookies at 350 degrees fahrenheit
for just about 12 to 13 minutes.
Now the secret with these cookies is really
to take them out just when they're full baked through
but they don't start to turn golden brown.
That's where they're the most beautiful
and I think the most buttery.
Once they're done you can place your cookies
on a cake stand or turn them into kind
of a nice little escargot pattern in shallow bowl,
and then place some fresh thyme in the center.
Or, if you wanna package these off to give as a gift,
luckily Robert is here to show us how to do it.
Robert, thank you so much for coming,
I'm so excited. (laughs)
- I'm so happy to be here with you
in your beautiful kitchen.
Thanks for having me.
- Oh, you bet.
And now, this is what we're making, this beautiful package.
- It is, I mean you're cookies look delicious,
they smell so good, and I think a special cookie needs
some special packaging.
Especially, when you're gonna be giving
it to your mom on Mother's Day.
- There's nobody better for the special packaging
than this guy. (laughs)
- Oh, thank you.
One of the things that I really love about this packaging
that we're gonna create together today
is the simple materials.
We're gonna be using some really inexpensive wood rounds
that you can find at your local craft
and hobby supply store.
They're in the woodworking aisle.
And then, we're gonna be using
single sided corrugated cardboard.
Typically when you think about corrugated cardboard
you think about the ridged pieces where the corrugation
is sort of sandwiched in between two pieces,
makes it nice and stiff.
But, if you have the single sided,
you get this really flexible material
with this beautiful ridge surface.
That's what we're gonna create
for the exterior of our package.
We're gonna start actually by prepping our wood rounds.
When you get these from the craft supply store
they are pretty smooth, but it never hurts
to take a little bit of fine grit sandpaper
and just kinda ease the edges a little bit.
If you just do a quick around the edges,
and it's likely that you had to remove a price tag
from one side, so once you do that if
you give it a light sanding it removes
any of the residue that might be left over on there.
- Yes, great idea.
- Let's do it quickly on both sides.
- Now this is easy, right Robert. (laughs)
- This is super simple, it really is simple.
If you can sand and glue you're gonna be good to go.
- That's good because I love to cook,
and I like to be very detailed when I cool
but I'm not a real crafter.
I'm insecure with my crafting. (laughs)
- Oh, well you shouldn't be.
Hopefully, by the end of this
you'll feel pretty confidant
at putting these together.
- Well, you're such a good teacher.
- Thank you.
- I feel very at home with your instruction. (laughs)
- That's really kind, thank you.
One thing to keep in mind with these wood rounds,
is you wanna make sure that they're large enough
to accommodate the cookie size that you're creating.
You can see they create the little end caps,
so they control the diameter of our packaging.
Beth, used this really lovely sort
of scallop edged cookie cutter
and when you hold it up against the wood,
you see that it's gonna fit perfectly inside of there.
- Good.
- We're good to go.
- Yes, good to double check before you set out.
Yes, okay.
- Once you have sanded your wood rounds
we can set those aside.
We're gonna move onto our corrugated cardboard.
I have cut a piece of the corrugated cardboard
for us each that is 13 by eight inches.
Now the eight inches is because that's how wide
we want our container to be.
You wanna note that the corrugated side
is gonna be on the outside, and the smooth part
is gonna be on the inside.
- [Beth] Got it.
- There are a couple of things that we wanna do
before we start gluing onto our wood rounds.
And one, is to create a little closure flap
for one end, it looks a little bit like an envelope closure.
The way we're gonna do that
is we're gonna take our ruler
and we're gonna measure the midway point on the short end.
These are eight inches long.
We're gonna make a little pencil mark right
at the four inch mark.
- [Beth] Okay, sounds easy enough.
- And then, on the two sides,
measure down an inch and a half from the end.
This is about as complicated as math for this project
as we're gonna get.
(Beth laughs)
So, not to worry.
- [Beth] Inch and a half?
Is that what you said?
- Inch and a half on either side, yeah.
- [Beth] Okay, gotcha, mm hm.
- Now, once you have done that,
you're gonna take one of your wood rounds
and you're gonna center it right up against
that center mark, and you're gonna lightly trace that end.
You're just gonna kinda get a little curved marked there.
- [Beth] Alright, oh just a little curve,
not the whole circle.
- [Robert] Yeah, you don't need to do the whole circle.
- [Beth] Okay, there we go, got it.
- [Robert] And then, we'll take our rules
and we're gonna draw a straight line
from that inch and a half mark just
to the edge of that curved line.
- [Beth] Got it.
- This way that point on sort of the envelope flap
is gonna have a beautiful curve right on the end.
- [Beth] Oh right, oh okay.
- [Robert] Yeah, you see what I'm doing there.
- [Beth] Yes, so I have to do it from the curve.
- [Robert] Yeah.
- Yeah, okay.
Robert, where do you get all these ideas?
These are all so clever,
I love how you come up with these things.
- Well you know what?
I'm always looking for projects that look good,
but honestly the effort that you have
to put into them is often minimal
and the materials are really accessible.
That's why I love something like this,
working with cardboard
and it's gonna be lovely when we're done.
- I know, it is.
And you know, as a mom, I love to get things
that are homemade, I think those are the best gifts.
- They are.
- And you keep them.
- And you're gonna hang on to this
because it's reusable.
- Oh, that's great.
- So bonus
- Okay, there ya go.
Is that good?
- That looks perfect.
Now we're gonna take our scissors
and we're just gonna cut that out.
- Oh my gosh, look at these fancy scissors.
- It's gotta little lock on the inside there.
- Oh, I love that, oh these are pretty, okay.
And you probably want something sturdy to cut
through cardboard, is that why you like these?
- [Robert] Well, you know what?
This is actually thin enough
because of the single sided corrugated,
that most sharp crafting scissors,
- Would work, you don't need the fancy scissors.
- will work perfectly.
And so, what you see there,
is just that nice little rounded edge
so that when this curls around,
it's gonna close over the top just like a little envelope.
- Look at that!
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Now, one more thing.
That's perfect Beth, looks really good.
- I'm so impressed with myself! (laughs)
- You're a pro.
- Okay. (laughs)
- One more thing before we start gluing.
- Yes.
- [Robert] We're gonna take our ruler
and our pencil one more time,
and on the end opposite of your flap,
we're gonna measure seven inches from the bottom.
Just lightly make a pencil mark on either side.
- [Beth] Okay, seven inches.
- Now the reason we're doing this
is this is kind of our guideline for our glue.
We're gonna put glue along these ends.
- [Beth] Yes.
- I learned this from a little bit of trial and error
because the first couple that I glued around the wood ends,
I glued a little bit too much
and didn't leave enough room for the cookies.
- Oh yes, got it.
We gotta leave room for the cookies. (laughs)
- That being the sole purpose of this project
we wanna make sure those cookies get in there.
- Okay, so now we have our markings.
- Right, so we've got our lovely sort
of envelope enclosure end,
we've got our glue line markings,
and now we're gonna move onto to the hot glue.
- Okay. (laughs)
- How do you feel about hot glue guns Beth?
Are you all right?
- Well, if it's a straight line, I'm good. (laughs)
- We are doing straight lines.
I'm just using a miniature glue gun,
it's a low temp one.
Sometimes when you're working with hot glue
you've got options of a high temp or a low temp.
Low temp, is sometimes a little bit easier
to control, when you're making a line.
- Yeah, good for beginners like me.
- Exactly, so what we're gonna do
is we're gonna start down in this corner,
and we're gonna do a line of glue right
along the edge that's about two inches long.
- Okay, I'm gonna watch you first, make sure I do it right.
- So it's just a nice little thin line.
- [Beth] Oh just a thin, yeah real thin, okay.
- [Robert] I usually keep a piece of cardboard on the side
to rest my hot glue gun on.
- [Beth] Which, I think is a great idea, yeah.
- Now, you have to work
a little bit quickly with the hot glue,
and I'm just gonna stick the edge of this wood round
as close to the edge of the cardboard as possible,
roll the cardboard up along it
and then just hold it in place for just a second.
- With the glue, okay, yeah.
So I wanna roll, it's like a little wagon wheel.
- Yeah, exactly.
And then, just hold it in place
with your fingers for just a second.
- I have a little flap, there we go.
- [Robert] But you know what, that's totally fine.
- [Beth] Yeah, we can just move it, there we go, okay.
- And I always say, with any project
you're first one, it's like the first pancake.
- I know. (laughs)
- You know, it doesn't always work out perfect
but that's why you do a couple at least.
- That's how you learn, exactly.
- So now, I'm gonna go to the second side
and I'm gonna again, add just about
a two inch line of the glue.
And if you haven't worked with glue guns before,
you kinda get used to, you'll figure out the right
amount of pressure to apply to the trigger.
- [Beth] You've got that down.
- Seriously, yeah because our inclination
is to push really hard,
but then you end up with a lot of it.
It's sort of like working with a icing bag or something.
- Yeah, exactly, yep,
you do get the hang of it after practicing.
Okay, and then we're doing the same exact thing
on the other side?
- [Robert] The exact same thing.
So, you can see now, we got it started on either side,
this guy's leaning in a little bit
and I'm gonna kinda correct that as I glue it up.
- Oh, this is so much easier
than I thought it was gonna be. (laughs)
- Really, not difficult at all.
- Not at all.
- I'm just gonna continue now working my way up,
again just adding another two, two and a half inches
of the hot glue.
And then again, rolling it around,
trying to keep the wood round as close
to the edge of the cardboard as possible.
- Yeah, I see what you mean here.
- Always sort of holding it in place
for just a few seconds.
What that does, is it gives the glue just a second
to cool down and it sets it up nice and secure.
And again, remember we're only gluing up
to that little seven inch mark that we created initially.
That way, it's gonna leave an opening
that's wide enough to include our cookies.
- And include the cookies.
So, can you guys see that?
You see there my pencil marks right here,
I was about to keep going, but your right,
now I see why you do that.
- At this point, we're looking pretty good.
- Look at us, this is great.
- And this is actually ready to fill.
- Amazing.
- Yeah.
- Absolutely amazing, okay.
- Now, one thing I do like to do
is cut down a little piece of baking parchment.
It acts kind of as a barrier between the cardboard
and the cookie, yeah.
You cut that out, slip it right inside,
and then Beth, I'm gonna actually ask for your assistance
on filling this up with me.
- Oh you bet, oh that's great.
Yeah, that works out well.
Okay, and I'm just gonna lean it up against the wood, right?
We're just gonna splay them a little bit,
which I think is a pretty way
to display kind of the pattern of the cookies.
- Yeah, you get to see those nice scalloped edges.
See how beautiful that looks.
- Yeah, oh that's so great Robert, I love that.
That's so cute.
- So, at this point then you can kinda tuck
your parchment paper around it, roll your flap down,
and in order to secure this,
we're just gonna use some simple ribbon.
- Okay, do you need me to hold it for you?
- Yeah, actually that would be fantastic.
This is a one inch satin ribbon
you can find at your craft supply store.
I'm just gonna tie it right around the center
try and do a nice little bow.
If you get a double sided satin,
you don't have to worry about which side faces out.
- [Beth] Oh, that's a good idea.
- Which makes it a little bit easier.
Now Beth, we have put so much effort into making
a beautiful presentation, we really need
a lovely finishing touch, and that's gonna be a gift tag.
I'm gonna give that to you.
I actually have some fun news,
because over the last year and half
I've been working with a company here in Los Angeles
called Knock Knock, developing a line
of gift and stationary projects.
- I love that for you, what a great idea.
- Thank you.
One of my favorites is this kit,
it's a stamp and tag kit made just for you bakers.
It comes with a rubber stamp, a little ink pad,
16 beautiful tags, and some twine
to tie it onto your packaging.
So, really with this the star of the show is the stamp,
it says I baked this gift, it is delicious, you love it
and agree it tastes far better
than anything else money could buy.
- I couldn't agree more. (laughs)
- Right?
It's a little bit tongue and cheek,
I think it's hilarious,
but then again I think I'm hilarious.
(Beth laughs)
And hopefully you're mom will too.
- This is so cute, I love this.
I think also, 'cause I have the worst handwriting
when it comes to gift tags,
and I love that it's all neat and tidy
and I just have to put the name.
- It is, all you have to fill in is the to and the from.
- Looks so professional.
- Yeah, so we'll get it nice and inked up.
You can if you want, you can always practice
on a piece of paper before you do it on your actual tag.
But, we're gonna go for it. (laughs)
- Oh my gosh, you should go for it.
Press-y, press.
- [Robert] And then lift it up.
- Okay, let's see. (gasps)
oh, amazing, how 'bout that?
- So, all that's left now is for us
to fill in the to and from.
I'm just gonna do this with a marker, to mom, from me.
- I like that, that's cute.
- And then, with your twine on the ends,
you can just sort of tuck it right around your bow.
I'm a big fan of double knotting,
just to make sure stuff doesn't fall apart.
I think we are already for gift giving.
- I think we're already,
this looks amazing.
Now wait, we also have some news about the kits.
We're gonna be doing a little context,
right, or giveaway.
- Yes, we're gonna do a little giveaway.
Our friends at Knock Knock are gonna be kind enough
to sponsor this for us.
If you head over to their Facebook page
and we'll put a link in the video description below,
leave a comment on the post,
they're gonna pick five commentors at random,
and send you you're very own kit.
- Oh, I love that, that's so great.
And if you don't want to wait for that,
and you wanna buy it right away.
I'll put a link in the description
of where you can buy these online,
as well as Robert's website, and you can learn more
about Robert and of course the playlist from Kin Community
of some of my favorite videos that you started. (laughs)
- Thank you.
- They're always my favorite.
- Well, Beth, happy Mother's Day to you.
- Thank you.
- Happy Mother's Day to all of you mother's out there,
we love and appreciate you,
and we hope your mom loves these cookies,
beautifully packaged.
- We really do.
Alright you guys, we will see you back here next week.
Be sure to subscribe for more quick and easy recipes
and we'll see you again soon.
Bye. (laughs)
- Bye.