When you care enough to send the very best tasting

Ever had trouble choosing the perfect card for your loved one's birthday?

You no longer need to spend countless hours wracking your brains when picking out Christmas or Valentine's Day cards or any cards. There is no sweeter deed than sending your loved one a Cookie Card.

Not only are they cute in appearance, but you can slowly consume their edible messages down to the last sugar-coated word.

Furthermore, the Cookie Card frees you from troubling yourself about wondering what you're going to do with all of those piles of cards you've accumulated. It leaves behind nothing but crumbs.

The Cookie Card itself can be decorated with a wide variety of toppings. You can even insert edible pictures next to the message.

"The Cookie Card was introduced in the second half of last year," says Cho Tae-hong, an officer at Happy Birthday, an Internet-based company (www.happybirthday.co.kr) that offers alternative gifts and items like the underwear card, the soap card and the candle card, as well as birthday cakes, flowers, balloons and birthday teddy bears.

"The Cookie Card really caught on among young people around Christmas and New Year's last year," says Mr. Cho. The company is expecting sales to grow once again for Valentine's Day.

The Cookie Cards can only be purchased online and not in any bakery or the supermarket. And to make matters more complicated, the Web site has no English service available. So if you can't read Korean then you'll need to get help from a Korean friend.

The Cookie Card comes in several categories: the Christmas card, the photo cookie card, the letter cookie card, the plain cookie card and the fairy tale cookie card.

Within the categories there are more detailed options that customers can choose from. Some Cookie Cards come in the shape of a heart that is made entirely of chocolate; others look like a Greek sculpture of two lovers kissing each other.

Cookie Card prices range from 12,000 won ($10) for the most basic pastry, to 230,000 won for a three-dimensional, carved variety. Those prices include delivery. When ordering a Cookie Card, allow three to five days for delivery.

by Lee Ho-jeong