Weekly Winners-The Cheryl & Co Edition plus a giveaway!

Congrats to Greis on winning the Cheryl & Co Giveaway! Don't fret...I will have another giveaway coming up real soon!



This past Tuesday I was one of many Ohio bloggers invited to come to Columbus to tour Cheryl & Co's facilities and learn all about the way they make their famous cookies and now brownies for National Brownie Day.

Now I will admit up until this past June I did not even know that Cheryl & Co existed at all, if it wasn't for a trip to the mall in Columbus with my friend, Christina, taking me into one of their retail locations and encouraging me to sample some of their famous buttercream. I had the Orange Spice Buttercream and oh my tasty goodness! Let's just say I am glad that I don't live closer to a Cheryl & Co retail location for I have no self control when it comes to those little beauties.

So Tuesday morning, I got up and traveled the 2 hours and 20 minutes down to Cheryl & Co to learn all about the cookie making process. I was not disapointed.

All photos were taken using my Canon Rebel xsi and my 50 mm 1.8 lens
To view more weekly winners please go to Sarcastic Mom's site
To view more photos from this day and others please view my flickr stream

The day started with us checking in & signing release forms so that they could film & photograph us during the event


After a lovely lunch and some presentations by the executives of Cheryl & Co and 1800 Flowers we doned our aprons and put on our hair nets to channel our inner lunch lady take a tour of the production area of Cheryl & Co.
Here is Jenna with her requested green hair net.


Most of the cookies that they make have a very short shelf life, but these variety of crispy cookies last up to six months once packaged up.


Did you know that they frost all their cookies by hand?!!? A machine puts a squirt of frosting on each cookie but there were a couple ladies that just spread frosting all day long.


The sprinkles, however, were done by machine.


After the tour we were whisked off to the test kitchen (sorry couldn't resist the pun there) to see some of the tasty treats Elisabeth had whipped up to show us


Elisabeth explained to us the test kitchen process and encouraged us to decorate the brownies with some buttercream frosting. Sadly not the buttercream frosting.
Here is Christina decorating her brownie.


While this would probably be frowned upon on the main kitchen floor, we were encouraged to sample the treats in whatever way we saw fit......right Jenna?


All in all it was a GREAT day! I learned so much about what goes into making the cookies and many other treats at Cheryl & Co. I learned that Cheryl & Co gives back to the local community by donating cookies to the Mid Ohio Food Bank. I also learned that Cheryl & Co wants to give to YOU too!

I have one Cheryl & Co Ultimate Brownie Assortment up for grabs. This includes 18 individually wrapped Cheryl & Co brownies including their NEW buttercream frosted peanut butter, classic vanilla and hot fudge. There is also some customer favorites included like the toffee crunch, classic fudge, blondie and oatmeal scotchie varieties included.

What you need to do to enter (And guess what Canadians....you are INCLUDED in this one they ship to all of North America) go to the Cheryl & Co website and tell me what your favorite treat is.

For additional entries you can
1. Follow me on twitter @DExtraordinaire and leave a comment letting me know that you are doing so
2. Follow Cheryl & Co on twitter (@Cherylandco) and leave me another comment letting me know you are following them
3. You can tweet about this giveaway, just copy & paste this to your twitter stream and come back and leave me the URL of your tweet in another comment
I want some win some brownies from @cherylandco and @DExtraordinaire do you? Head here http://ow.ly/Lxrw to enter
4. Write a blog post about this giveaway and leave me another comment with the link.

I will post the winner by random drawing in next week's weekly winner's post, but if you can't wait that long to get your brownies you can always go to Cheryl & Co and use the coupon code BRN10 until 1-31-10 for $10 off any purchase.

FTC Disclosure-I was not paid for this post. I was only provided with a really great day with some friends touring a cookie factory, although I don't think the lunch was made by the said cookie company but it was FAB! I did receive some treats for my family as a thank you for driving the 2 plus hours down to tour said cookie company.