Cookie Press Review and Giveaway-With Special Guest Star, L-Fab

A few weeks ago I was contacted by CSN Stores about doing a giveaway or review on my blog.  I decided to do both.  I decided to do a review of a Deni Automatic Cookie Press which I ordered from http://www.cookware.com/, which is a division of CSN Stores.  I had never used a cookie press before so this was all new to me. 

This cookie press is battery operated and came with 15 small discs and 10 large discs.  You basically put dough into the base and shoot it through the discs to make different shaped cookies.  It also comes with some decorating tips for icing but I did not try that out yet.  My assistant, L-Fab and I made a basic vanilla cookie dough recipe that was included in the instruction manual.  (As you can see above, she was in charge of preheating the oven and all things involving the spatula.)  Then I followed the directions from the manual.  It took me multiple tries to get anything that looked decent but then I got on a roll.  However, each time I changed out the disc, I would again need several tries to get something that looked good.  There were a couple discs that I just could not figure out and the cookies came out looking like piles of dough.  Also I was not a huge fan of the dough that I made.  It wasn't very sweet or flavorful but I guess the icing would make it taste better.  I think I would like a manual (as opposed to battery operated) one better, so I would have more control over the dough coming out.  My sister caught on to it a little faster than I did.  She is clearly a genius in the kitchen.  Overall I think this could be a really great tool.  I just need more practice.

Bad

Better

Best!

Ok, onward to the good stuff.  CSN is sponsoring a giveaway.  I will be giving away a $30 gift code to one lucky winner that you can use at CSN stores to buy anything you want (perhaps a cookie press).  They have a bunch of stuff.

How to Enter...3 different ways to Enter...
1-Leave me a comment below (anything you want to say, maybe something about how great L-Fab is at baking
and/or
2-Follow me on Twitter (and let me know in a comment).  (see that twitter button over there------> on the right somewhere)
and/or
3-Tweet about the giveaway (this is worth 3 entries)  If you tweet just leave me a separate comment telling me that you tweeted about the giveaway with a link to your twitter.

PS-Semi Important Info-This giveaway is open to U.S. and Canada residents only.  And there may be shipping charges or in the case of Canada residents, international fees, for certain products.  This giveaway will close next Sunday 8/29 at 9pm (eastern standard time) and the winner will be randomly selected and announced on Monday 8/30. 

Alright.  That's it.  Good Luck.

Do you know what a cookie press is?
Have you ever used one?
Any one have a good cookie press cookie dough recipe?