Cindy’s Christmas Party Tips
Post #2:
Hello again and
Merry Christmas! In my last post, I
talked about iconic items that instantly evoke the feeling of Christmas. And in today’s post, I’m going to talk about
another one of those items—decorated sugar cookies. A good Christmas party should never be
without them! Please note though: While
Carol, in my book Yes, Carol . . . It’s
Christmas!, is supposed to be an expert when it comes to decorating
cookies, I am not nearly as talented as my fictional character. Ha!
That’s the difference between fiction and reality . . .
So if you’re
not an expert baker, don’t panic, because I intend to make this easy for
you. Let me start by sharing my
top-secret, fail-safe sugar cookie recipe.
After you have
all the cookies you like, and they’ve cooled nicely, now comes the fun
part. Here’s a tip that I learned the
hard way—there is frosting and there is icing.
Frosting is something that goes on a cake (and often comes in a round
container at the grocery store), but icing—specifically, royal icing—is what a
person uses to decorate cookies. Here’s
my recipe.
32-ounce bag of
powdered sugar
6 tablespoons
meringue powder
1 cup warm
water
3 teaspoons
Karo light corn syrup
Mix the dry
ingredients (the powdered sugar and the meringue powder) together first, using
a fork. And a word to the wise—be very
careful when you’re messing with all that powdered sugar. Never just dump it into a bowl or you’ll have
a kitchen covered in a white layer of sugar that will be sticky for weeks. So pour it in very slowly and gently. Once you’ve mixed the first two ingredients,
start adding the water a little at a time.
Use your fork to slowly mix it in, one small section at a time. Keep adding water until your icing becomes a
consistency that you can work with in a piping bag. If the icing is too thick, add water. If it’s too thin, add more sugar. And finish off by adding the Karo syrup.
When your icing
is ready, separate it into different bowls and add food coloring to each
one. If you haven’t decorated sugar
cookies like this before, I’d suggest not going too crazy when it comes to your
colors. Meaning, don’t start out with
every color under the sun. You can see
in my picture that I recently made a batch using red, blue, green and
white.
To decorate
your cookies, put the icing into piping bags (which are sometimes called pastry
bags). I highly recommend using these
disposable bags without tips. You won’t
have to worry about washing them later and you can actually see the icing
inside the bag. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DJ6F2WY/
As soon as you
have icing loaded up into the bags, twist the top closed so the icing will stay
in the bag and not ooze out the back. Then
snip the very tip of the bag. Keep in
mind, this is where the icing will be coming out. So the bigger the snip at the end, the larger
your piped line of icing will be. I
suggest starting with a small hole first, while you’re adjusting to your technique.
You can always cut it larger later if you want to.
When piping (or
pushing the icing out through the little hole in the piping bag), you’ll be
doing two different steps. The first is
to “Outline” the area of the cookie. I
like to do this and then give it a few minutes to dry. The second is to “Flood” the rest of the area
with icing so that the icing sort of slides into place. Some people even suggest that you add a little
water to your icing at this stage, so that it “floods” the outlined area a
little easier. From my pictures, you can
see that I might have benefitted from thinning my icing a smidge, because I
ended up using a knife to spread them to the edge of the outline.
After you’ve iced your cookies, you can also
add sprinkles, just to give them a little more pizzazz.
When it comes
to decorating sugar cookies, remember, you’re going for “pretty” and not
“perfect.” If you’re a professional
baker or someone who’s been doing this since the dawn of time, your cookies
will probably look like something in a baker’s window. But for non-professionals, these cookies are
simply meant to be fun and Christmassy.
And they’re meant to evoke the happy feelings of Christmas for your
party guests to enjoy.
Thank you,
Julie, for hosting me here today! And
now, please join us tomorrow for my third post on Christmas party entertaining
at another wonderful blog, Heidi
Reads. See you there!
