Christmas Party Cookies

Merry Christmas! 

I wonder if a new purse or a fancy pair of shoes is on your wish list.

I couldn't help but buy this adorable set of Fashionista Cookie Cutters from Kitchen Stuff Plus a few weeks ago. I only used two of the five cutters that come in the set, but I just love them!  They are perfect for a shoe-a-holic like me, and I'm sure, like many of you too!

I baked these cookies just in time to be inspired by Marion, from Sweetopia.  Her post on Diva Claus Decorated Cookies was great! Her decorated cookies and designs are always fabulous. 

I have to admit...for these cookies, I did use my own white royal icing, but the red and green icing was leftover from gingerbread house making. I was not too impressed with the quality of the pre-made red and green icing, so these designs are certainly not my best. Nonetheless, I still think the cookies are pretty darn cute!

How about this duo for your Christmas Party?  I would actually wear these shoes...if they came in my size!



Or these?

Not too sure about this combo...but it's still cute!

I love, love, love, shoes!

So tell me...how many pairs of shoes and/or purses do you have hangin' around in your closet?

For the recipe I use to make sugar cookies, click here.

To make these cookies even more festive you could make and decorate gingerbread cookies.

For the recipe I use to make royal icing, click here.

To learn how create feathered stripes of wet flood, click here.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Tree Cookies

Merry Christmas!

I made these cookies a few weeks ago for some gifts for the holidays, using my new tree cutter. Just pipe.

And flood...

For the recipe that I use to make royal icing, click here.

To decorate the trees, be as creative as you like with candy and sprinkles! To adhere the silver dragees, I used tweezers to immediately place each one onto the wet flood. The flooded icing acts as glue to hold the candies in place. For the larger candy balls, I used my hands to place each one.

To package these gifts, I bought some silver cookie containers and styrofoam balls. First, I wrapped the ball in green tissue paper and poked a reindeer cake pop into the middle. To learn how to make Reindeer Cake Pops, click here.

Next, I leaned three cookies against the stick of the cake pop.

Finally, I wrapped each package in clear cellophane.

My gifts were complete.

Merry Christmas!

Reindeer Cake Pops

Happy Holidays! I'm Rudolph, and this is my buddy Dancer.  Mel created her own original version of us from Bakerella's new cookbook, Cake Pops! If you continue to read, you will learn how we can be made, "Mel style!"

Reindeer Cake Pops

(Adapted from Cake Pops, By Bakerella)

Materials you will need:

20 uncoated cake balls

1 pound chocolate candy coating

Deep, microwave-safe plastic bowl

20 lollipop sticks

20 pretzel sticks cut in half, but miniature alphabet E, F and Y shaped alphabet pretzels are recommended

Styrofoam block

20 skittles (red and purple)

Black edible-ink pen 

To decorate:

First, Mel had to bake a cake.  She decided to use half of a white cake mix to form our heads.  She created crumbs by brushing two quarters of cake together into a bowl.

The crumbs and work station looked like this.

After adding and mixing about two spoonfuls of vanilla frosting to the crumbs to bind the crumbs together, 20 cake balls (a.k.a our heads) began to take shape.  Mel put us into the freezer for about 20 minutes.  Boy was it cold in there! We managed to survive the Arctic-like temperatures and were then dunked into melted chocolate candy melts. Yippee! I loved swimming in chocolate! I felt like Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

Once my friends and I escaped from the pool of chocolate, our skittle noses were immediately attached. Some of them red and the others purple.

The ability to see and to communicate was ours at last! Mel used royal icing and purple sprinkles for eyeballs and an edible marker for our mouths! This time, her marker did not work so well, so she is thinking about buying the Americolor Food Marker Writers for next time.

We couldn't hear a thing since Mel forgot all about our pretzel ears. She left us earless for over an hour until she returned from the grocery store. To her disappointment, they did not have the recommended alphabet shaped pretzels to use as ears, so she settled for pretzel sticks. I felt like I was getting an ear infection as she glued the pretzel sticks to my head.  She used additional melted chocolate as glue to adhere them onto our chocolate heads!

Peek-a-boo! Are you still listening?

  Major close up!  Of my ears of course...Just in case you couldn't see them in the last shot!

So there you have it...Mel has completed us!

All of us! And sadly, we will soon disappear.

Into the tummies of little boys like Ryan and big boys like Rich.

Ready.  1, 2, 3, and...Bite!

Happy Holidays!

(By the way, if anyone knows where I can find alphabet pretzels in Toronto, it would be great to know for next time!)

Gingerbread Cookies

My girlfriend Joelle loves Gingerbread Cookies. So, upon her request, I attempted to be festive and bake some holiday cheer into this week’s posting! Thanks again to my favourite ladies, Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer author's of Cookie Craft for yet another delicious recipe!

Here are the ingredients that you will need to bake these cookies:

5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 cup molasses

Whisk together the flour, ginger, cinnamon,
cloves, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

 
 

Using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Add the egg and molasses and mix until well blended. With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture

to the butter mixture.

Follow the same method for rolling out dough as you would use for rolling sugar cookies.

Cut away with your favourite cookie cutters!

 

Bake in the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for 12-16

minutes and enjoy the wonderful aroma in the kitchen!

Let cool completely on cooling rack before decorating.

Before decorating, be sure to plan out your design!

However, I can't take credit for the ideas below. I searched online for images of gingerbread cookies and came across an amazing blog called Mad Baker.  Of all of the images that I looked up, it was her post from December 2007 that I loved most, Mad about Gingerbread Cookies.

Then, I created some original designs of my own!

Enjoy!

Molasses Cookies

If you like Starbucks Molasses cookies..this is the recipe for you! Rich's Aunt makes these for Christmas dinner every year and the first time I had them I was in heaven. However, hers follow the original "Gusty's" Molasses Cookie Recipe from the London Cooking School. I have modified and changed it a bit! These my friends...are delicious!

Mel’s Molasses Cookies
1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup Grandma's molasses
1 egg
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. clove
2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar. Add the remaining wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, sift all dry ingredients. Add to wet ingredients. Mix well. Form dough into a log and wrap in saran. Chill dough in the freezer for 15 minutes. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Form 1 " balls of dough. Roll in sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 7 minutes.

Cream butter and sugar.

Form dough in the shape of a log, and let sit in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Also, if you make a double recipe, this is a great way to store the prepared cookie dough in the freezer.

Next time you have guests over and want the house to smell nice and have dessert ready in 7 minutes...here is your solution!


I used a mini ice cream scooper to make all of the cookies the same size. Since I wanted them a little smaller for the cookies shown in the pictures below, I halved each ball of dough.




Roll the balls in sugar and place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Flatten with finger tips.

The crackly but soft and chewy results!

I wonder how long these will last?

Hmmm...who stole the cookie from the cookie jar???