Decorating Christmas Cookies

I gave my first try this year at decorating Christmas cookies. For a lot of major holidays growing up, we would cut out sugar cookies. My mom would make a ton of dough, and using food coloring, she would dye the dough different colors. On one counter there would be purple, another would have green, another would have red, and another would have yellow (or whatever the colors were for that holiday). The kitchen table was covered in cookie cutters that matched the theme. There was always a little pile of flour next to each cutting station where we would dip our cookie cutters before we cut anything out. My mom taught us to always cut our cookies as close to the edges as we could. We would run back and forth to the table, putting cookie cutters back and choosing a new one while my mom walked around with a spatula. She would place all of the cookies on baking sheets and be responsible for taking them in and out of the oven. My favorite was having the same kind of cookie cutter in multiple sizes (such as hearts or circles). We would then cut out a big read heart and then cut out a small heart out of the middle and replace it with a white or a pink small heart. It was our way to decorate cookies without ever using frosting.

This year, after being inspired by all of the beautiful sugar cookies out there, I decided to take some time and really decorate some good-looking cookies. I made sugar cookie dough and then followed a royal icing recipe. I outlined each color individually with a thicker version of the royal icing and then thinned it out with water to fill in on the inside. I chose to just do basic Christmas colors so I could decorate a lot of different types of cookies and still have them look connected. Along with the royal icing, I used some different colors of sugar, sprinkles, and mini- M&Ms. I am really happy with how they turned out.

I especially enjoyed decorating the snowflakes and mittens.

A funny side story about the cupcake cookie cutters -

When we were visiting my sister this last spring I ran across the cupcake cookie cutters. I decided that those were going to be my souvenir for the trip (I have quite the collection of cookie cutters). On the same day on the other side of the world, my mom bought me a set of cupcake cookie cutters while she was on vacation. She so gets me.

We enjoyed eating this tasty treats at our families' homes this Christmas - although they did taste a little bit bland (one of those things that are prettier than they are tasty), although they held there shape in the oven and were still nice and soft to eat.

Next year, I am going to try to find a better tasting sugar cookie recipe.

I hope that you enjoyed a good treat this Christmas!

Linking up to: Tatertots & Jello, Tip Junkie

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