Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Holiday Sugar Cookies

Hi everyone! 

My mother and I always made iced sugar cookies for Christmas - she would bake them by the hundreds, and then we would frost and frost and frost!  Sadly, she passed away several years ago, and it's been too painful to try to make these without her.  This year, I decided that it was time, so I baked five dozen (more manageable amount) in batches, sticking them in the freezer as I went.



I used the Martha Stewart sugar cookie recipe, found here, but you can use any recipe and/or slice and bake dough.  Just flour your your board and roll out the dough to 1/4 inch, and cut out using cookie cutters.  I spent some time looking for an icing recipe that was glossy, but would dry hard.  My mother's recipe used egg whites, and I didn't want to get into all that, but I finally found one that worked beautifully -  you can find it here.

I made a decision not to go to the route where you outline the cookies and then flood then with royal icing...I've done that in the past, but I really wanted something that looked homemade.  I used white icing for the base, and then added red and green as accent colors.

 
 
They came out really cute!  I had different color sugars and sprinkles, and just had fun with it.  I love the little snowmen:
 
 
 
 
I frosted the hat red and stuck a tree sprinkle in it, then did the rest white.  While the white part was still wet, I dragged a toothpick with red icing through it to make the scarf.  You could do this after the white was dry, but I like this look.  The eyes and buttons are Wilton Black Sugar Pearls (you can get them here) and the mouth is a red sprinkle.
 
Some other shots:
 
 
 
Marbled two colors by swirling with a toothpick:
 
 
 
You can package these any way you want, but I did them three ways.  I found the Merry Munchies bags at my drug store, and the other two boxes online.
 
 
 


 
Hope you enjoyed these cookies...they brought back some great memories for me.  I'd love to hear in the comment section what you're baking for the holidays!
 
- Sugar Baby

 

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Baking with BeBe, Henry and Ella!


Last week, I had a baking day with my friend Laurie's two kids, and we had such a great time!  Laurie had mentioned to me that Bebe, Henry, and their friend Ella love the show Cake Boss, so I offered to come over and have a baking day with them.  I prepared nine different colored fondants (tutorial here) and brought rollers, cutters, frosting, edible ink pens, sprinkles, etc. plus two dozen unfrosted cupcakes (due to a time restraint). 

We had such a great time!  I covered their table with a vinyl tablecloth in an attempt to contain the mess, showed the kids how to roll and cut out fondant, and then let them at it:



Here are the final cupcakes - aren't they fun?



Then we molded chocolate bonbons and tulip lollipops (tutorials here).  This required a bit more supervision because it involved the microwave, and the chocolate was fairly hot - but they quickly got the hang of it:

 
 
It was a fantastic day, and I strongly encourage you to do some baking with the children in your life.  Honestly, I think I had more fun than they did!
 
- Sugar Baby