Hi everyone and welcome to SmartCookieSam! I’m Sam and have recently joined the big Five O club! I live with my husband and two grown up children (a daughter of 25 and a son of 22) who have both just finished uni. We live in the picturesque Vale of York near the towns of Boroughbridge and Knaresborough and have a very busy life with our dog and horse.
The name SmartCookieSam was chosen as my Twitter and Instagram names when I first started up Sam’s Smart Cookies back in 2008. I had originally been trying to find a suitable name to go with my then new hand decorated cookie business and the name stuck. I was one asked is my surname Smart? Or is it because I think I’m smart? No, not really. It was just a word connected with cookies and it stuck! But my baking now isn’t just limited to cookies! It’s whatever I fancy having a go at in the kitchen or what my customers ask for! Sam’s Smart Cookies finished when I ended up going back to supply teaching but I have kept the blog going since 2012 in one form or another! I now have restarted as SmartCookieSam and sell cakes and cookies locally in North Yorkshire.
On top of all my baking for SmartCookieSam, my blogging and my crochet blanket making, I now also work part time in a local primary school as a Teaching Assistant and a tutor. I originally trained as a primary school teacher and although I love teaching, I want to be able to spend time with my lovely family and to enjoy my other interests in life.
Baking is my way of de-stressing as well as a way of showing creativity. One of my first memories as a child was of baking gingerbread men with my mum, covered in flour and stood up on a chair so I could reach the worktop. The smell of gingerbread men baking still is one of my favourite aromas today! The SmartCookieSam logo is a gingerbread person for this very reason.
No matter what sort of day I’ve had, if I’ve baked something and people enjoy what I’ve made, then I feel like I’ve actually achieved something that day. It gives me a real buzz.
SmartCookieSam can be found on Social Media channels:
Facebook: SmartCookie Sam
Twitter: @smartcookiesam
Instagram: @smartcookiesam
Or can be contacted via email: sam.smartcookies@btinternet.com
Teaching others to bake and cook is a huge passion of mine. A few years ago I ran a hugely successful cookery club at the school where I used to work. I still get ex pupils bumping into me in town saying how much they loved Mrs Smith’s Cookery Club. I also held a couple of cake decorating demos which were tremendous fun. Over Lockdown I made a few live baking videos and would like to do more of these. But time constraints has prevented me from doing this. One of my goals is to open a tea room and use it in the evenings to hold baking classes for all ages.
My SmartCookieSam blog is here to show some of the bakes I’ve attempted over the past few years and to share some of my favourite recipes with you. Not everything comes out perfect, but heigh ho: that’s life!
Some of my posts contain recipes. These are recipes which I have created myself. Other posts contain links to recipes I have used if that recipe is freely available to share online. If I have used a recipe from a book that does not have a recipe online, please do not ask me to share this as this is an infringement of the recipe creator’s copyright. If you share or make any of my recipes, please do credit me in your posts. A lot of time and effort goes into creating posts, as well as a lot of money spent on electricity and all the ingredients and materials.
Just remember- Cake Makes The World Go Round!
Sam xx
SmartCookieSam 