2025 cookie box

the cookie box breakdown and some teeny tiny updates

My goal was to finish writing this before the year ended, and I did finish the comic on NYE but then I got dragged down by my stupidly bad health! I’m still not doing great, and I spent most of this new year so far just laying in bed and sleeping a lot, but I managed to finally get up, with my raw skin and half open eyes (my eyelids are swollen!) and I’m plowing through the pain to finally write this. Here’s my 2025 cookie box comic and the wonderful feelings it brought me:

There were probably a couple more kind little gifts and shows of love that I didn’t include in the comic, but I wanted to share some of the things that brought light to my day during the week that I was sharing my cookie boxes with my friends. The comic isn’t to show off the stuff I received or whatever, it’s my way of holding space for appreciation for everyone’s kindness.

I also, sadly, did not get to share my cookie boxes with everyone that I wanted to because a lot of my friends were also out of town! Only the folks that were still in LA got to have some cookies. And some friends are a bit far away! But know that in my heart, I planned to make boxes for many more of my friends. And I think managing to make the cookies was a feat in itself, considering I was in a lot of pain at the time! But because of that pain, I fell behind a bit and had to omit one of the cookies I originally planned for. Soo la voo as they say.

Speaking of planning, let’s break down the cookie box!

I sketched out what cookies I was planning for way ahead of time. I love cookie box season!! I love seeing all my favorite bakers post about their cookie boxes, how they formulate them, what sort of themes they take on, etc. I talked a good amount about the cookies with Amanda (check out her substack!) cause she knows her cookies and goes for a 3 returning cookies and 3 new cookies model for her boxes. Which, turns out, I aimed for the same thing! And sadly failed, since the millionaire shortbread didn’t make it to the final cut. Around the week before I planned on having the cookie boxes ready, I got all my ingredients ready and made sure to plan out my schedule ahead. I won’t show you, but I did write a separate schedule outside of my usual planner for the cookies and for some of the preorder cheesecakes. Hectic week!

I did the dough for the black sesame sugar cookies and the salted caramel chocolate chip cookies ahead of time (several days before baking them off) because I’ve made them before, I know they do well in the freezer, and this was easy for me to do. These two cookies were also from last year’s box! The chocolate chip cookie, though, I altered from last year because I found salted caramel chips from Trader Joes in my pantry that I figured would probably go well in this cookie! It’s a mix of the caramel chips and semisweet chips, but who knows how much of that ratio got in each cookie.

I also made the dough for the thumbprint cookies ahead and froze them, then baked them off a day before I were to give out my boxes. This cookie was also a returner and one of the favorites from last year’s box. I knew I had a bunch of kisses hidden in my wooden fish, Henry, so I wanted to use them up and make this particular cookie again! They’re very easy to make, just a bit of a hassle since you have to take out the rack in the middle of baking to put in the kisses pieces. And I’m allergic to the heat, so I don’t love having to open the oven in quick succession. Also, all my kisses were different! I had some dark chocolate pieces, some hazelnut filled ones, some almond filled ones, and peppermint ones! No idea who got what… but I hope everyone enjoyed them. I somehow had exactly enough chocolate for the amount of dough I made. A Christmas miracle lol.

And finally, the italian polenta swirl cookies and the dark chocolate crinkle cookies were the new contenders for this year’s box. It was my first time making the italian polenta cookies, and I think they turned out really good for a not-so-sweet cookie! Actually, one person said it needed more sugar, but I’m choosing to ignore them.

But listen, this cookie has history for me despite me never having made it before. So the thing is: I’ve been making the crinkle cookies since I was a kid! I remember bringing them in for potlucks a lot in middle school in particular (that, and the junior’s recipe cheesecakes). They are also my stepdad’s favorite cookie apparently. I think these cookies are pretty popular in general today, and I like buying them from other people lol- I’ve seen them called crinkles or crackles. They’re actually called crackles in the book I got the recipe from: Martha Stewart’s Cookies cookbook.

That’s right! My first baking book was a martha stewart cookbook from like two and a half decades ago or something, and I recently inherited it from my mom. As in, my mom had this book for the last like 30 years or whatever, and she finally decided to just give it to me. The pages with the crackle cookie recipe have fallen out and I’ve just washi taped them together (using my very first roll of washi tape from TYPO/Cotton On). This book holds a lot of meaning to me! I remember putting the stickynote tabs in on the bathroom floor when I was a kid. I’ve always kinda been a baker, almost as long as I’ve been an artist (I’ve been an artist since I was 2, I fear). And in honor of this cookbook and my childhood, I decided to pull a second recipe from it. One I’d never tried before: the italian polenta cookies.

i love the way the table of contents was laid out (not my photo btw)

And honestly, I remember now why I stopped making the crinkles. They’re such a pain in the ass to make. I’ll only make them if I have an assistant to roll out the dough for me cause it’s sooo wet and sticky haha! But I made sure to save some to bring home to my stepdad, which he did later enjoy. :)

And that’s the cookie box! Thanks for following along. One friend sent a ranking of the cookie box after I politely asked, which then prompted me to beg nearly everyone to also send me their rankings and thoughts and opinions so I could figure out what people liked and what would likely return next year. So, thank you everyone that did that for me! Everyone did it a little differently, which was kind of funny to see. But more importantly: turns out everyone’s tastes are mostly very different! Some people really enjoyed the polenta cookie because of how neutral it was, and many people really liked the crinkle cookie, and some people thought that cookie in particular was too rich compared to the others, etc. Which leads me to believe I made a very successfully varied cookie box this year, for every cookie to have been someone’s favorite. Overall, the crinkle cookies and the salted caramel chocolate chip cookies were the majority favorite.

A friend got me the kodak charmera and my brother also lined up on Christmas Eve to get me one… and I LOVE the charmera. I’ve wanted once since they first dropped them, but they sell out so quickly and everyone’s scalping them and selling them for like x5 the retail price, ugh. They’re shitty little digicam keychains but I love how crunchy the pics are and how fun it is to take photos with. The body itself is very cute though as a keychain!! Corey told me that we have the technology to put in a much nicer camera in that size of a body, so I love that they chose to make it shitty anyways. Here’s some photos from recently:

I love documenting life through this little camera. Especially with how weird the new iphone cameras are. I’m having more trouble taking photos with my phone now than I did with my previous iphone 11. Kinda miss her, but she kept force quitting my apps so I got a new phone after many years of having that one. Anyway, I’m gonna try to bring my little charmera around with me and take lots of photos and share them in the future newsletters! Some of the photos anyway. ^_^

shop update!

I restocked my sticker sheets and there’s a new one up also! I’m going to try to make more sticker sheets this year since I like using them myself. Hoping to make more merch and hoping that more people will buy directly from artists like meeee. <3 You can check out my store here.

And that concludes today’s publication, lol. I hope this was interesting enough despite being a little bit late. I’m really struggling more and more with my health, but thanks to the support of all of my friends and my wonderful partner Corey, I’m managing to get through it. Some days are much harder than others. The last few days were quite difficult. But today with all the pain that I’m feeling, I managed to get up and do something. And I will be patting myself on the back for doing this!

Lastly, happy new years! And thank you again for being part of my community, and reading my comics and my writings. Support real artists in every way you can!!! This newsletter is basically free except for the occasional thing I put behind a wall, which is always AFTER all of the comics. Consider pledging some money to help me survive this year! Otherwise, please continue to read my comics for free- it means a lot to me that anyone reads these. See you in the next one! :-)
-nicey