Julia’s 59th Cookie Connection Challenge (the ninth in the new-ish Watch-Learn-Create series) was hosted as always by the lovely Manu Pezzopane and featured Anna Oliinyk of Sunday Cookers for the second time. (In 2023, Anna was the featured guest for Challenge #54 where she demonstrated how to make her signature lifelike cookie bouquets.) For Challenge #59, Anna focused on two wafer paper techniques that lend interesting depth – meaning texture and dimension – to cookies. The first technique was “wafer paper shredding”, which refers to grinding or shredding wafer paper into tiny pieces. This shred is then sprinkled onto wet royal icing to add fluffy texture. The second technique was “wafer paper plating”, which involves cutting relatively large pieces of wafer paper and then attaching them to cookies with thick royal icing to add dimension. In her challenge kickoff tutorial, Anna recreated the chick, eggshell, and pussy willow branches shown in the image above as a means of illustrating these two techniques as well as 10 others! And that’s not all: Before encouraging viewers to enter Challenge #59 (which closed on June 8, 2025), Anna demonstrated a final “bonus” hydrangea flower cookie that included no wafer paper whatsoever, but which rounded out her springtime set quite beautifully. As with all of Cookie Connection’s Watch-Learn-Create challenges, entrants to Challenge #59 had the rare opportunity to expand their cookie skills with one of the industry’s best, but they also got the chance to win phenomenal prizes! In this case, Julia gave away two randomly drawn prizes: a free tutorial from a previous challenge guest and a surprise gift box of decorating tools. To see the entrants’ many creative interpretations of Anna’s wafer paper techniques, please check out the challenge recap on Cookie Connection.

More about this challenge guest: Anna (aka Ganna) Oliinyk is an award-winning cookie decorator originally from Ukraine, and now based in Portland, Oregon, USA. Together with her husband Konstantine, she owns and operates Sunday Cookers. While Anna focuses on designing and decorating cookies, Konstantine handles baking, delivery, content creation, and the couple’s Etsy shop. A proud mother of two, Anna began her cookie journey in 2018, and it quickly evolved into her life’s purpose. Since then, she has been sharing her expertise via in-person classes and her vast database of prerecorded classes in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. From simple cookies to 3-D projects and floral designs, Anna’s class offering covers it all. Anna has earned widespread recognition for her skills, appearing on Food Network and multiple times on local TV. She was also a gold medalist in the 2022 and 2023 editions of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™ and a cookie finalist in the 2023 American Cake Awards. She currently serves as a judge of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™.

Again, though this challenge is over, please remember: the learning is not! To view Anna’s video lesson, click on the “LEARN MORE” button, and you’ll be taken to the “TUTORIALS: Guest Series” section of this site where you can purchase it for a nominal fee.