Beep! Beep! It's Christmas!

 
Guys, I've had this cookie cutter for YEARS.  It intimidated me.  Every year after Christmas I would think to myself, "next year, I'll use that cutter."  And, the next year rolled around and I just couldn't get the design quite right.

This year, though, the King Arthur Flour holiday catalog featured...Christmas Truck Cookies!!!  (After my last post, you guys might think all I do is sit around reading catalogs.)

Armed with inspiration from King Arthur Flour, I broke out my cookie cutter and went to work.

To make Christmas Tree Truck cookies, you'll need: 

 

• truck cookies, using this recipe (similar cutter here...and truck and tree cutter here!)
  
• royal icing tinted with AmeriColor super black, super red (two shades), egg yellow, grey (made with black), leaf green, chocolate brown, and bright white
• disposable icing bags
• squeeze bottles
• decorating tips (#2, #3) and coupler
• meringue powder
• small paintbrush
• white sanding sugar

Use a #2 tips to outline the wheels (black) and truck body (darker red).. Reserve some of this red piping icing for later.

Thin the black, light red, grey and yellow icings with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a rubber spatula to pop any large air bubbles that have formed. Transfer to squeeze bottles.

Fill in the outlines with thinned icing.  Use a toothpick to guide into corners and pop large air bubbles.


Let the cookies dry for at least one hour.


Use a #2 tip to outline the wheel wells (fenders?) in the darker red icing.  Pipe a line across the truck body and one for the door.


Thin the dark red icing as above and fill in the outlines.

Use a #3 tip to add centers to the wheels in white.  

Let the cookies dry uncovered, 6-8 hours, or overnight.

Once the cookies are completely dry, combine equal parts meringue powder and water, and brush the mixture onto the wheel wells and piped detail lines. Sprinkle on the sanding sugar and shake off the excess.

Use a #2 tip to pipe branches for the trees in green.  I made one layer, then when back over and added several more on top.

Use a #2 tip to add a truck with brown icing.

Do you have any cookie cutters stashed away that intimidate you just a little bit?  

Painted Christmas Tree Cookies...inspired by Sur La Table dishes!

It would make more sense to get cookie decorating inspiration from the COOKIE DECORATING section of the Sur La Table catalog.  As soon as I saw these dishes, though, I ripped the page right out, knowing those trees needed to be cookies.

Painting on cookies is really fun...and this simple design is perfect for someone like me who is not artistically inclined.  Another bonus is, you'll only need one color of royal icing: white!

I'll always be grateful to Renee from Kudos Kitchen from whom I learned the proper technique for painting on cookies.  She's a master.  

To make these painted Christmas Tree cookies, you'll need:

• tree cookies, using this recipe
• royal icing tinted with AmeriColor Bright White (the food coloring is optional here, but using white ensures a white-white cookie)
• disposable icing bag
• squeeze bottle
• decorating tips (#2 & #1) and coupler
• AmeriColor Leaf Green, Electric Green, Chocolate brown
• water
• artist palette
• paper towels
• small paintbrushes
• red sprinkles 
• tweezers

Use a #2 tip to outline the trees in white icing. Reserve some of this piping icing for the next day.

Thin the remaining icing with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a rubber spatula to pop any large air bubbles that have formed. Transfer to squeeze bottles.

Fill in the trees with the thinned icing.  Use a toothpick to guide into corners and pop large air bubbles.

Let the cookies dry uncovered, 6-8 hours, or overnight.


Once the cookies are totally dry, mix up your painting medium.   Mix equal parts food coloring with water. (Start with 1 drop of each.)

Dip a paintbrush into the mixture, then blot very well on a paper towel, almost to the point where you feel like you've blotted all of the food coloring off.  Brush onto the cookie, alternating between leaf green and electric green branches.  You should be able to paint several branches with each dip into the "paint."

Repeat this technique adding a trunk with brown icing.


Remember, perfection is overrated here.  Art is not perfect!  Have you looked at Picasso's work lately?!? ;)

OK.  Now, place a #1 tip on the bag of reserved icing.  Dot icing where you'd like to place the red sprinkles.

{I used red sprinkles from a Christmas sprinkle assortment...now, what to do with all of that extra green and white?!?  Remind me of this when St. Patrick's Day rolls around.}

Use (preferably only-for-the-kitchen) tweezers to place the sprinkles onto the icing.


Ta-da!  Painted cookies!!!  So easy, right?

Where do you find YOUR cookie inspiration?

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Christmas Cookies

Have you seen the Reese's White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups?  They exist.  Oh yes, they do!

After making these turkey cookies for Thanksgiving, I couldn't wait to use the white chocolate peanut butter cups for some Christmas cookies.  

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Christmas Cookies!

Visions of the *cutest* Santa cookies danced in my head for weeks.  I was SO excited to make them.

Except, they were totally creepy.  Mr. E actually took one look at them and started laughing.
Wanna see?!?

I was determined, though, so I came up with second best...carolers, red-nosed reindeer, and ornaments.

The cookie base is a white chocolate peanut butter cookie.  Buttercream is used for the decorating, and for attaching the peanut butter cup.


{psst...you can find white chocolate peanut butter cups on occasion in stores, OR you can order them by the case *ahem* from Hershey's or Amazon (gotta love free 2-day Prime shipping for such emergencies.)} ;)


You'll also need to spend about 20 minutes of your life digging through a bag of peanut butter M&Ms separating out the red ones. What you do with those other colors is your business.

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Christmas Cookies...you can find the recipe and assembly instructions at Imperial Sugar.  

Gold-Adorned Christmas Wreath Cookies: Color Challenge

Hey guys!  Remember the first color challenge...the color was bright pink?  Well, this time, the color is GOLD!!!

Gold screams "fancy;" it does (!), but I wanted to incorporate gold into cookies in a super simple way.  I know I say this all the time, but I love a simple cookie.  It leaves more time for eating.

These gold-adorned wreath cookies incorporate gold in two ways: 1. edible gold star glitter (!!!), and 2. a gold luster dust bow.

To make them, you'll need:

• wreath cookies, using this recipe
• royal icing tinted with AmeriColor Forest Green & Gold
  
• disposable icing bags
• squeeze bottles
• decorating tips (#2) and couplers
• gold star edible glitter
• gold luster dust
• vodka (yep.)
• small paintbrush

With a #2 tip, outline the wreath bow in gold icing.


With another #2 tip, outline the wreath in green icing.

Thin the green & gold icings (reserve a bit of gold for later) with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a rubber spatula to pop any large air bubbles that have formed. Transfer to squeeze bottles.

Fill in the wreath with the thinned green icing.  Use a toothpick to guide into corners and pop large air bubbles.

Add the star sprinkles.

Fill in the bow with the thinned gold icing.  Let dry at least one hour.

Let dry at least one hour.

With a #2 tip add a center to the bows.

Let the cookies dry uncovered 6-8 hours or overnight.

Get out your luster dust supplies:  Luster dust, small ramekin, small paintbrush and vodka (a good excuse to always have vodka in the house).

Mix up your luster dust with a few drops of the vodka and brush it on. (The alcohol will evaporate, leaving just the gold sheen.)  Add a few drops of vodka to the ramekin as you're working if it starts to get clumpy on you.  A little goes a long way, so don't worry about using all of the container in one shot.


You can see here the difference between the plain iced bow (right) and the luster dust bow (left).

I hope you'll add some gold to your holiday cookies this year!

Now, go check out the other GOLD color challenge blogs.  These ladies are SO talented!!!  

Simple Decorated Gingerbread Cookies

I love simple, don't you?  I'll be honest here.  Sometimes outlining and flooding and bagging and be-ribboning and boxing and delivering takes more hours than I have time.

Sometimes, simple wins.  Whether you have a schedule of Christmas plays and parties, all of your Christmas shopping still to do, or given recent events, you'd just rather spend that time loving on your family...cute Christmas cut-outs are still attainable, and easy.

First, you'll need gingerbread cookies.  A thick, spicy, chewy gingerbread cookie is just perfect for a simple outline design.

This is the recipe I created for the book.  I love it.  I think you will, too.  I've copied the page right from the book for you here:

Now for the easy decorating...whip up a batch of royal icing and you're ready to go.  I tinted just a bit of it with AmeriColor gold for the star on the tree, but you could certainly do all-white here.  Or use a star sprinkle, or a tree cutter without a star on top...even easier.

Use a #2 tip to outline and fill in a star on the top.

Use a #2 tip to outline the tree.

For the holly, I used a #2 tip for the leaf and a #5 tip for the berries.

Easy peasy.

The next day, or after they have dried completely, feel free to add a little sparkle and shine.

On the trees, I added a little gold luster dust to the stars.  Just mix the luster with a bit of vodka and brush it on.  Don't worry, the vodka evaporates.

For the holly, mix a 1/4 teaspoon meringue powder with 1/4 teaspoon water and brush the mixture wherever you'd like sparkling sugar to stick.  Sprinkle on the sanding sugar and brush off the excess. Or, leave them plain.

This pretty sparkling sugar is from King Arthur Flour. 

If you haven't made gingerbread cookies yet this season, it's time.  

Seriously.  Go do it.  Simple or fancy...you won't be sorry.

Faux Bois...ooo-la-la!

I'm a little obsessed with faux bois (foh bwah).

Maybe the obsession has to do with the fact that it's one of the few French phrases I can pronounce.

"Excusez moi"

"S'il vous plait"

"Ooo-la-la Sasson"

&

"Faux Bois"

Don't EVER ask Mr. E about the time when we were newly married and visiting New Orleans. We were having breakfast at a little coffee & beignet place, and I just could not work out in my head how to pronouce the coffee.  Cafe au lait. Cafe au lait.  I didn't want my new husband to know that I was unsophisticated, so I didn't ask him.  The waiter came to our table and I ordered...

Cafe O' LOT.  Yeah.
Did I mention Mr. E took French in high school? He laughed. I gorged myself on beignets.

Spanish, on the other hand, oh...I work on it.  EVERY DAY I work on my "easy breezy" ala the Sophia Vergara CoverGirl commercial.   We look really similar, so it comes pretty naturally.

*cough*

Back to faux bois.  Obsessed.

I found this stamp at Michaels and knew it was meant for cookies.  There's a little controversy brewing in the cookie world about whether stamps are safe for cookie decorating.  Here's my take.  I washed the stamp.  I pressed it into fondant for about 5 seconds.  I'm not eating THE STAMP.  If it scares you, place a piece of cling wrap between the stamp and fondant.  The image just won't be as sharp.

To make Faux Bois Package cookies, you'll need:

• sugar cookies
• white fondant (I like Satin Ice)
• corn syrup
• wood grain stamp
• AmeriColor Chocolate Brown
• vodka
• small paintbrushes
• royal icing, tinted with AmeriColor SuperRed
• #2 tip and coupler
• disposable icing bag
• squeeze bottle
• toothpicks

Roll the fondant on a surface coated with corn starch. (Roll it thin, mine is a bit thick.) Use the cookie cutter to cut the fondant, and slice off the bow section.

Brush the square part of the cookie with corn syrup.  Place on the cut fondant and press lightly to adhere.

Combine food coloring with vodka.  No real measurements here...the vodka will help the food coloring dry and the alcohol will evaporate.

Press the clean stamp into the fondant.  Press firmly and be sure to apply pressure up and down and side to side to imprint across the entire cookie.

Dip the paintbrushes into the food coloring mixture and blot on a paper towel. "Paint" the indentations made by the stamp.

{Note: why I didn't just paint the stamp, I'll never know.  It didn't occur to me until I was in bed that night.  Try it.}

Use a #2 tip to outline the bow with royal icing.

Thin the icing with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed.  Pour into a squeeze bottle.

Fill in the outline with the thinned flood icing, using a toothpick to guide to the edges and to pop large air bubbles.

If desired, go back over the bow with the piping icing to add detail.  The wet flood icing needs to dry uncovered 6-8 hours or overnight.

Don't you love it in white, too?  You can really see the texture of the fondant.

It reminds me of a cable knit sweater.  Hmm...anyone have a cable knit stamp?

I could totally see these as a circle or square cookie with a really pretty star tip border.  So, they're not just for Christmas packages!

Faux Bois...say it today.  It's fun.

Oh!  If you are a faux bois-lover, take a gander at Mandi's fabulous painted faux bois FLOOR!!!  I just love her style and fearlessness when it comes to decorating!