Wishing you and yours an Out of this World Christmas!

From a galaxy far, far away...otherwise known as Texas...we're wishing all of you and your families an out of this world Christmas!
{groan. I know, I know...Mr. E's corny jokes have rubbed off on me after all of these years.}


In case you want to pick these Star Wars cookie cutters up for next year, they're from Think Geek. I think they'd be perfectly cute all year long. Wookie Cookies!
The storm trooper is my favorite. 

Gingerbread recipe here.
Royal Icing recipe here. 

(The gift tag seemed appropriate for Catholic school Christmas gifts, right?  I'm sure if the teachers didn't think I was a weirdo before, THEY DO NOW.)


Have a very, merry Christmas!  
Or, as Yoda would say, "Have a merry Christmas, you will." 

On Dasher, On Dancer...

I'm not a blogger who has Christmas recipes made and posts scheduled in October. Usually, if you see it on the blog, I was stuffing it in my face the day before. ;)

These little reindeer, though, I made back in August. AUGUST! A magazine (!!!) that I really like asked if they could interview me about cookie parties and also if would I create a Christmas cookie for their holiday issue.

I was on Cloud 9. (I'm not sure if Cloud 9 is capitalized, but it seems like a proper noun to me.) Anyhoo...I was on Cloud 9 because not only do I love this magazine, but I love pretty much ALL THE MAGAZINES!!!


One of my favorite things about being a flight attendant was that sometimes people would finish a magazine and LEAVE IT IN THE SEAT POCKET!!! Those were the best days ever. (I always make sure to do this now.)  When I get a pedicure, I look forward to flipping the pages of People almost as much as getting pretty toes. In other words, I love glossy pages, quizzes, perfume samples, and tables of content that you can't find until you get past the ads on page 30.

So, December 1st rolled around, and I hightailed it to Barnes and Noble to find my magazine. I spied the magazine...and looked for that table of contents. Hmm...no cookies mentioned.  Let me look in the recipes section. No. Hmm...let me look in the editor's picks section. Nope. OK, now I need to sit on the bench to flip through ALL of the pages.

No cookies. 

I stop by Godiva to eat my feelings, then head home. I did some emailing, and it turns out, they didn't have enough space to include them. I get it, but MAN, soul crusher for a few minutes there.


You know what, though?  That means I get to share the cookie tutorial here, so...

THERE'S NO CRYING OVER COOKIES ON THE EDITING ROOM FLOOR. 

(Unless they are ACTUALLY on the floor, then you can cry...or dust them off and eat them.)


To make these reindeer face cookies, you'll need: 

• Cut-out cookies, reindeer face shape (I got this one at my grocery store)
• Royal icing
• Gel paste food coloring: brown, white, red, green, and black
• Disposable icing bags
• Icing couplers and tips: #2, #3, 4, #1
• Squeeze bottles
• Toothpicks

Divide the royal icing and tint: dark brown, light brown, white, red, green, and black.  Divide the white icing into two bowls. Cover each bowl by pressing a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the icing to prevent crusting.


Spoon the dark brown icing into a piping bag fitted with a #2 tip. Outline the face of the reindeer and pipe the antlers.

Thin the light brown and one bowl of white icing with water, a little at a time, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You’ll look for a ribbon of icing dropped back into the bowl to disappear in a count of one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two.

Cover the thinned icings with a damp dish towel and let sit for a few minutes. Stir gently with a silicone spatula and pour into squeeze bottles.

Working 6-8 cookies at a time, fill in the outline with the light brown icing. Use a toothpick to guide the icing to edges and to pop and large air bubbles that have risen to the surface.


Starting with the first cookie filled, drop dots of the thinned white icing onto the top of the reindeer face (on top of the wet brown icing.)  Let the cookies sit for at least one hour.


Spoon the remaining white icing into a piping bag fitted with a #3 tip.  Pipe eyes onto the reindeer.


Spoon the black icing into a piping bag fitted with a #1 tip. Pipe pupils onto the eyes.  For the girl reindeer, add eyelashes.

Switch the tip on the back icing to a #4 and pipe a nose on the girl reindeer.

Repeat for the noses on the boy reindeer using the red icing.


Thin the green icing as above, but stopping when the ribbon of icing disappears in a count of 20, rather than one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two. Pour this icing into an icing bag fitted with a #2 tip. Add a bow to the girl reindeer, using this icing.

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


Christmas is next week and I have about a million more cookies I want to make. And, I kinda want to make these little guys again. Could we have another week, please???

---

Decorating Christmas Cookies? You'll want these tips and recipes!

All year, we've been training for this. December: the Olympics of cookie decorating.


Never fear! I've assembled every tip, trick, and recipe you'll need for successful cookie decorating this year.

Tip #1.  You'll need wine. OK, only if you're decorating cookies with your kids. 
I'm kidding. (Maybe.)

The recipes:
1. Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookies.  These are my go-to cookies, my perfect-every-time cookies. I've made THOUSANDS of them. They keep their shape well and hold up to decorating, packaging, and shipping.

2. Gingerbread Cookies.  Oh, gingerbread...how I love you. This is my favorite gingerbread; you can also find it in my first book.

3. Cinnamon-Sugar Cut-Out Cookies.  One of my new holiday favorites. Perfect for when you're craving cinnamon, but not full-on gingerbread.

4. Royal Icing. Whether you're constructing a gingerbread house, or decorating cookies, this is the recipe you'll need.

The supplies:
1. Meringue Powder. You'll need this to make royal icing.  Look for it online or in kitchen and craft stores.

2. Gel Paste Food Coloring. Bright, vibrant, and won't dilute your icing. Look for the kind that come in squeeze bottles.

3. Disposable Icing Bags.

4. Couplers and Icing Tips. Start with basic tips, such as plain #1, #2, and #3.

5. Toothpicks. You'll use these over and over again for spreading icing and popping air bubbles.

6. Waxed Paper and Parchment Paper. For rolling dough and baking.

7. Squeeze Bottles. Find these in the candy-making section of craft and kitchen stores.  They're much easier to use than piping bags for thinned icing.

8. Cookie Cutters. You'll need some. You can always hand-cut shapes from a template, but it will take you 4 times as long.

9. Sprinkles, etc. Sprinkles, jimmies, sanding sugar, sparkling sugar, nonpareils, luster dust, disco dust...the more, the merrier.

Tips and Tricks:
1. Yes, You Can Freeze Cookies. Cut-out cookies can be frozen plain, AND decorated with royal icing. Thaw at room temperature.  More details here.

2. Prevent Spreading. Freeze the cut out shapes for 5-10 minutes prior to baking.

3. Even Steven. For perfectly evenly rolled dough, use these guides. No guides, not problem. Just eyeball it.

4. Time Management.  Decorating cookies can be a time consuming process. Bake one day, and decorate the next...or do big batch baking, freeze (see tip #1), then decorate as you have time.

5. Packaging and Shipping.  Make sure they all arrive in one piece.  Video (old!) here.

6. How to Marble Cookies

7. How to Make Flat Dots

8. How to Make Double-Decker Cookies

9. Drying Icing.  Here are three options for drying, but most importantly, make sure the icing is completely dry before packaging.  (I learned this the hard way.)

10. Decorating Cookies with Kids.  Breathe. Here are my favorite tips.


Christmas Cookie Decorating Inspiration:
(from my blog)

1. Charlie Brown Ornament Cookies. A really simple way to pay tribute to the Peanuts Christmas Special without replicating the characters.

2. Vintage Truck with Christmas Trees. One of my favorite sights over the holidays...in a cookie.

3. Faux Bois Christmas Packages. These are made with fondant and a wood grain stamp.  The only piping and flooding you'll do is for the bow.

4. Elf on the Shelf Cookies. Think you need a special cutter for the elves?  Nope...here's how to make them without a cookie cutter!

5. Painted Tree Cookies. You'll need one color of icing for this cookie...white! The trees are painted with simple brushstrokes.

(from other blogs)


1. Jingle Bell Cookies from The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle

2. Pink Peppermint Candy Cookies from Bakerella

3. Santa Belly Cookies from Tidymom

4. Holiday Stamped Chalkboard Cookies from SemiSweet Mike

5. Pretty Piped Pastel Christmas Tree Cookies from Sweetopia


REMEMBER! Christmas cookies are not meant to be perfect! They're meant to be shared...and EATEN!!! 
Repeat after me, "It's just a cookie!"

Happy Christmas baking, my friends!

---

Mini Gingerbread Houses (from ONE cookie cutter!)

Here's another one of those cutters that I've held on to for a couple of years before using.  I found it in my grocery store...gotta love HEB...but I saw some LAST WEEK in Target!
(You can thank me later for giving you another excuse for a Target run.)

*update: there is one at Fancy Flours, too!*


This cookie cutter is pretty nifty.  With one cut, you get all of the pieces to assemble a mini gingerbread house: front and back, 2 walls, and 2 roof pieces.

I was not entirely sure that this would work.  So, I'll let you in on a little secret.  I didn't not use my most favorite gingerbread dough in the world.  I tested it out with pre-rolled, refrigerated Nestle gingerbread cookie dough.  Yep, I did.  Guess what?  It worked AND it was tasty!

OK...first, you'll bake the cookies.  I froze the shapes for 5-10 minutes before baking like I normally do.

Once they cool, you're ready to assemble and decorate.

I used my regular royal icing recipe.  (I quartered that recipe.) To assemble the pieces, I used a #3 tip.

(It occurred to me after putting them together that maybe I should have decorated the cookies FIRST, then assembled.  Oh well.  Next time.)

Once the royal icing set (I gave it about an hour or more), it was time to decorate!

Once again, I used royal icing and lots and lots of sprinkles.


Loving this Gingerbread Boy sprinkle mix...


This one is a snowy little cottage.  I used Bakerella's mini marshmallows for the roof.  The way I did it kind of makes the roof look like it has a mohawk.  It's a punk snow cottage.


Oh, and this one looks like it may collapse under the weight of the sprinkles on the roof.


This little guy is pretty traditional.

Making these really got me in the mood to make a gingerbread house...or lots of them.  These minis are nice because they're not so intimidating. Which begs the question...why am I intimidated by houses made of gingerbread???

The other really cool thing about these minis is that we actually ATE them! ;)  I've been sending them to school in kiddo's lunchbox.
(Because every 15-year-old boy wants a mini gingerbread house in his lunchbox.  Am I right?)

---

Cinnamon-Sugar Cut-Out Cookies

December is definitely the time to unleash your inner cookiemaker. In my mind, the holidays just aren't complete without cookies…and cookies just aren't complete without butter. Sooooo, the holidays just aren't complete without butter. (That was a logical conclusion, right? I’m having a flashback to SAT prep at the moment.)


If you want to bake some cookies that aren't your typical sugar or gingerbread cookies, try these Cinnamon Sugar Cut-Out Cookies. They’re made with cinnamon sugar (like the kind you’d sprinkle on cinnamon toast) and of course, Land O Lakes® Unsalted Butter. The combination of the cinnamon, butter and a little salt makes these cookies something special; they’re perfect for cutting into shapes and decorating.




The cookies themselves are so good, you might not have any left for decorating.  If you do, how about making some pastel holiday cookies? (My boys are pretty good about putting up with all of the “girly” things around the house, but this cookie version of a pink tree may be the closest I’ll ever get to one in real life.)


To decorate the cookies, you’ll need Cinnamon Sugar Cut-Out Cookies (recipe follows) and Royal Icing, divided and tinted: pastel pink, green, blue, light brown, and white.

Other decorating supplies:
• Disposable piping bags
• Icing coupler and tips: #2, #3
• Squeeze bottles
• Toothpicks
• Pink pearl nonpareils
• Tweezers
• Sanding sugar
• Meringue powder
• Small (clean) paintbrush

To ice the cookies, use a #2 tip to outline the trees in the pastel icings.

Thin the rest of the pastel icing and all of the white 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. A count of 2 or 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 squeeze bottles.

Fill in the outline, using a toothpick to guide into the edges and to pop large air bubbles. Let the icing dry for at least one hour.

Thin the brown icing as above, to a thicker consistency…until a knife run through the middle of the icing. You’ll want to thin to the point where it comes back together in a count of 15 to 20 seconds. Transfer this icing to a piping bag fitted with a #3 tip, and make a trunk by piping in a zig-zag motion. The icing will flow together.

Use a #2 tip to add garland across the cookies. While the icing is still wet, use (clean) tweezers to place the pink nonpareils on it.  

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

The next day, mix ½ teaspoon each meringue powder and water. Brush this mixture onto the white garland, then sprinkle on the sanding sugar.  Shake off the excess. 

Cinnamon Sugar Cut-Out Cookies

Yield: 12 to 18 cookies, depending on the cookie cutter size

Ingredients
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup Land O Lakes® Unsalted Butter, cold and cut into chunks
¾ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup cinnamon sugar*
1 egg
*if not using pre-mixed cinnamon sugar, combine on a ratio of 9 parts sugar to 1 part cinnamon

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.
In a bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and cinnamon sugar until combined and fluffy.  Mix in the egg.  In three additions, add the flour mixture, mixing on low just until combined.

Roll the dough to ¼-inch thickness with a floured rolling pin on a well-floured surface.  (The dough may need to be kneaded together to incorporate any crumbly bits.)  Place the cut-out shapes onto a prepared cookie sheet and freeze for 5 to 10 minutes before baking to prevent spreading.

Bake 9 to 12 minutes, or until done.  Cool on the pan for 2 minutes, then remove to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.  Decorate with royal icing.

Twitter party alert!!!  Come talk cookies! 

Join Ree, The Pioneer Woman, and Becky from the Land O’Lakes Test Kitchen for a Live Twitter Party Thursday, December 4th from 8-9 pm EST. We’ll be talking about our favorite holiday recipes and tips for making it through the busy holiday season.

To join in on the fun, use the hashtag #CookieChatter.  Participants also have a chance to win a holiday baking prize pack from Land O’Lakes, which included a signed copy of Ree Drummond’s cookbook, “A Year of Holidays” (and a few other signed cookbooks *ahem*) and a year’s supply of Land O Lakes® Butter. Use the hashtag #CookieChatter in your tweets for a chance to win. Go to landolakes.com for the giveaway details.

Log into Twitter on Thursday, December 4 from 8 to 9 p.m. EST.
•         Follow @LandOLakesKtchn and @ThePioneerWoman
•         Search for the hashtag #CookieChatter.
•         Join in the conversation! Include #CookieChatter in your tweets so other people can see them, too.
•         Keep an eye out for tweets from special guests @TwoPeasandPod, @spicyperspectiv, @thelittlekitchn @farmgirlsdabble, @thenovicechef, @pickypalate, @bridget350 @fifteenspatulas and @dairygoodlife

*Bake at 350 has partnered with Land O'Lakes for an exclusive endorsement of Land O Lakes® Butter for their Kitchen Conversations blogger program. This blog post is sponsored by Land O'Lakes.

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?