Let It Snow!

I love snowmen.  They say winter in that fresh, fluffy snow way – not the cold, mushy, slippery way.  So these cookies just make me smile, want to pull out my skates, grab a hot chocolate and embrace the winter.

Last year I made gingerbread boys, girls and snowmen inspired by Bakerella, one of my favorite bloggers.  Last week I was making cookies for a baby naming similar to ones made by Bridgette from Bake at 350.  And then I thought I think I can combine the two styles to come up with my new favorite cookie ever – and it’s very Flour Child.

You can be as simple snowmen or fancy pants as you want with these cookies and here is how I did it.

Materials Needed for Decorating:

- large square cookie cutter (I used the large square scalloped one from Copper Gifts) – it is such a great cookie cutter that can be used in a kazillion different ways)

- gel past to colour some of the royal icing (I used royal blue)

- royal icing – as always, I really like the Ateco meringue powder

- piping bags

- sprinkles, coloured Tic Tacs and food writing pens

Instructions and Tips:

To make the snowmen heads. Draw circles on a piece of parchment paper.  I used a Sharpie and drew circles around 1¾” or 3½ cm.  Flip the paper over and trace with royal icing. Let them dry overnight.

Use a food writer to draw on the eyes and mouth.

Add sprinkles to embellish cheeks and facinators.  Tic Tacs are the perfect ear muffs.  I used white royal icing to add the sprinkles

Orange royal icing is the perfect carrot nose.

Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe and cut out the squares.

Outline each cookie with white royal icing

Fill or flood the cookies.  I like using the squeeze bottles because it is so much cleaner then a piping bag when flooding cookies.

Use a toothpick or bamboo skewer to pull the icing to fill the cookie.  If you just use the squeeze bottle there is a chance that you will overflood the cookie – it is always a fine line between the perfectly flooded cookie and a cookie that is over flowing with icing.  The toothpick “pull” really helps ensure an evenly flooded cookie.

Want another trick?  I use a Silpat when decorating cookies so they don’t slip around.

Place the snowman head in the centre of the flooded cookie.  I also used a few little snowflake sprinkles that I found at the local bulk food store.

Let the cookies dry overnight.

PME 1.5 is my favorite writing tip so I used it to write "Let It Snow" on each cookie.

I love the way these cookies turned out.

Now I'm just waiting for it to snow (sorta).

Oh Christmas Tree

I am always torn between the simple beauty of white lights and festive fun or multi-colour lights on a Christmas Tree.  The great thing about these cookies is that it is pretty simple to change it up and the light bulbs never go out.

What colour lights do you put on your Christmas Tree?

Lights!

I do love Christmas lights – they way they sparkle and twinkle and light up the streets in the winter.  I used disco dust on the white highlights of these cookies so they actually sparkle.

It’s December 1^st so I think it is totally acceptable to pull out the Christmas lights.  That will give you plenty of time if you need to untangle strings and replace burned out bulbs and get set for the holidays.

Also if you start decorating now, it will give you plenty of time to enjoy the magic of the season before you need to take it all down.

When do you start decorating for Christmas?  When do you take it down?

Keep Calm

The “festive holiday season” can be stressful.  All the cooking, baking, shopping, anticipation … can make it difficult to sit back and remember that the holidays are about family and friends.

I do some things to try and “keep calm” which include preparing stuff in advance (like my husband’s snowball cookies), shopping in October (yes I’m done) and using ingredients like William-Sonoma’s Handmade Peppermint Snow because the snow is so much easier than crushing your own candy canes and for whatever reason, don’t ask me why, hand crushed candy canes are simply not as perfect as this product.

I love the way these cookies came out.  They are keeping me calm.

What do you do to stay calm during the holidays?

The Little Black Dress

Do you have to go to a corporate holiday party? Do ya wanna go?  Are you wearing black or red?  Are you wearing anything as tasteful as these cookies?

I originally got this cookie cutter to make a classic LBD for a 1962 party -- but realized it would be perfect for holiday party dresses.  

Now I'm thinking of a job in fashion design -- now I'm thinking I wish I could sew.

Let the festive holiday season begin!

Cookies and Milk for Santa

Christmas is a holiday full of tradition.  And tonight I’m sure lots of people are taking off their Christmas sweaters, putting on PJs, reading “The Night Before Christmas” and putting out cookies and milk for Santa.  I love the tradition of putting milk and cookies.  Not sure if it because it involves cookies or because it involves believing in something.  Everyone needs to have faith in something and a jolly guy in a red suite who brings presents to all who believe is still a good thing.   

I made these cookies in September and kept thinking they would be great as a letter to Santa in case the letter sent to the North Pole got lost.  I supersized this letter to Santa and made it out of a gingerbread cookie.  I used the side of the house of the Wilton Gingerbread House Cutter Set – it is about 5”x 7”.  I flooded the cookie with white royal icing (as always I use Ateco meringue powder) and blue and red for the lines on the paper.  The cookie dried overnight.  I used black AmeriColor Food Colour Markers to actually write the note.  Pete wanted a white Christmas, which I’m not sure will be happening in Toronto this year, so I included a snowflake sugar cookie too.  This letter can be personalized as you wish or your kids can actually write or sign their own letter. 

What kind of cookies are you leaving for Santa? 

Merry Christmas!

Reindeer Noses - Last Minute Idea

I have always had a soft spot for Rudolph.  Not sure if it was because all of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names (those other reindeer were really like mean girls) or because he was just so darn adorable – red nose and all!  I think these cookies provide a nice tribute to Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and are pretty cute too.  And the best part is that they are super simple.

I know everyone is scrambling for last minute holiday “stuff”, so this easy peasy idea is sure to bring a smile to many -- including you because, did I mention, simple, easy and relatively effortless?

Using whatever size circle cookie cutter, bake 9 round cookies.  Just so you don’t waste precious baking time trying to figure out all of the other reindeer names they are: 1. Dasher 2. Dancer 3. Prancer 4. Vixen 5. Comet 6. Cupid 7. Donner and 7. Blitzen.  I made the Rudolph noses out of sugar cookies with red icing and red decorative sugar and all of the other reindeer (you know the mean ones;) out of my chocolate sugar cookie recipe.  I actually also made these all out of sugar cookies of which 8 were decorated with brown icing and brown sugar and because it was so popular I also did them in plain gingerbread.  So your choice – the gingerbread and chocolate sugar cookies do not need to be decorated at all.

This is a fun, kid friendly baking idea even on a foggy Christmas day (which is what the weather outside in Toronto looks like right now).

Let me know if you make these -- send me a note or better a picture –- I love seeing how your creations work out.  Happy baking!  And, in this case if you sing along, that is perfectly acceptable.

Gingerbread Heaven

The "BOYS"

The "GIRLS"

The "MEN"

Why is it that when we think of Christmas we think of gingerbread cookies?  I mean gingerbread has to be some of the yummiest cookies and why most people make them only at the festive holiday season really does not make any sense at all. 

For those of you who have been following my baking you may have noticed that I will never succumb to this December gingerbread fetish – I make ginger cookies throughout the year.  In March, I made gingerbread Purim masks  and in July I shared a Ginger Doodle recipe.  Maybe, subconsciously, I want that holiday feeling all year long.  The feeling of peace on earth and goodwill towards our neighbors – not to mention the sweet smell of gingerbread baking.

Here are some sweet gingerbread cookies I made recently.  These cute gingerbread boys, girls and men, were inspired by Bakerella, and a lot of sprinkles.  Sitting down to the great smell and a ton of sprinkles allowed my mind to go and my creativity to fly.  They were as fun to make as they were to eat.


Wishing you a holiday season full of joy, Santa and gingerbread.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, Do You Hear Christmas Coming?

Do you know the Eric Carle / Bill Martin Jr. book Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?   It’s a great question and response book that draws kids into a fun interaction as they imitate animal sounds.  While I was making these fuzzy (that is to say sugary) polar bear cookies I kept thinking of the book and saying Polar Bear, Polar Bear do you hear the holidays coming?  These cookies are cuddly as a bear and will look super cute individually wrapped with any colour ribbon.  I must say I love white cookies for the holidays – they just work.

"Pecan Puffs" or "Snow Balls"

I’m not the only baker in my family.  My husband has some favorites from his childhood including his Mom’s recipe for “Pecan Puffs” or as he calls them, “White Balls”-- which may have been fine 40 years ago but today has a whole different connotation.  I think they are a fabulous holiday cookie so I’m calling them “Snow Balls”.  One of the reasons they are such a great Holiday cookie is because they can be made and frozen in advance.  You can pull out as many as you need when guests arrive, recoat with icing sugar, and still have more for New Years.  They are a very festive cookie, look really pretty in mini-baking cups and totally melt in your mouth yummy. 

Here is a jump start on your holiday baking -- you can thank me later by posting how they turned out or how great it was to have them in your freezer for any pleasantly unexpected guests who show up around the holidays.

Ingredients

1 cup butter (room temperature is always easier)

½ cup icing sugar (plus more for coating)

2 cups flour

1 tsp. vanilla

¾ cup ground pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 300⁰.

Cream butter and icing sugar until really smooth.  Stir in vanilla.

Add flour and stir until combined.  Mix in ground pecan.

Roll into 1½ inch balls.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, until the bottoms are golden brown – don’t forget to ALWAYS turn the cookie sheet half way

Put some icing sugar in a small bowl.  While still warm, roll each cookie in the sugar, and set on a rack to cool.

Once cool, you can put in a bag or container for the freezer. 

Pull out as many cookies as required.

Re-coat with icing sugar before serving.

Makes about 40 cookies – could be more or less depending on cookie size.

So whether you call these cookies Pecan Puffs, Snow Balls or White Balls we hope you enjoy these childhood favorites of the “other” baker in our family.

Chanukah or Hanukkah & Christmas Too!

I love the holidays and this whole season.  The number of cookies that are made and exchanged simply make everyone happy.  And while most people have voted chocolate chip cookies as their favorite on my blog, this season is best represented by gingerbread and sugar cookies.  But fear not, I have taken your votes seriously and am planning a week dedicated to the chocolate chip, if not next week then the week after (and I'm thinking from traditional to ones full of brownies and chocolate dipped blueberries, so please stay tuned).

But lately I have been thinking about making a Chanukah Menorah out of cookies.  I could not find a great candle cookie cutter (but am determined to do so next year) -- so I made one myself by cutting rectangles in two sizes -- one shorter for the regular candles and one taller for the shamash.  I added in a dreidle, gelt and a Star of David (Jacob, thanks for the great idea).  Is this not the yummiest Chanukia you have ever seen?

But I still think Christmas cookies are the most fun to make.  Snowmen are just so cute.  I used orange royal icing and a little orange chocolate sprinkle for the nose.   Snowflakes are probably my favorite because they can all be different and unique as they always look so beautiful and sparkling.

But I could not resist making some melted snowmen too -- the face is a marshmallow cut in half and the eyes are a Wilton food writer.  The buttons are tiny chocolate covered sprinkles and the arms are royal icing.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season with gifts galore -- but real presents full of love and peace.