When it comes to decorating the Christmas cookies we all loves so much each year, it’s nice to come up with something a little different. There are dozens of ways you can make your cookies look lovely this holiday season but I would like to offer some suggestions that you might not have tried before.
Lace Doily Cookies
Once you have your cookies baked and cooled, sugar cookies or chocolate, either will work, you will want to lay a paper doily over the cookie. Next take a sifter with powdered sugar and dust the entire doily. Carefully remove the doily from the cookie with the excess sugar. What you are left with is a cookie dusted with a lace pattern. You can also substitute coco for lighter colored cookies. You can also use the colored sugars but they are a bit harder to dust through the sifter.
Painted Cookies
You can take whatever shape cookie you may have before you bake it and paint it with any color you choose. Just mix several drops of food coloring into an egg yolk and brush on the desired color(s) with a clean paint brush. Then bake the cookies. As the cookie bakes the paint will dry and become like a glaze. These are very pretty and versatile; you can use several different colors on the same cookie. So if you are painting a tree you can add different decorative colors to the green tree.
Holly Leaf Cookies
Take regular green gum drops and roll them out flat with a rolling pin. Then take a knife and cut away pieces to form a holly leaf shape. Now attach the leaf to the cookie using a small amount of white icing. You will want to put at least two leaves per cookie to get a good effect. Now take round cinnamon red hot candies and attach two or three next to the leaves using icing to hold them in place. You can do this on round cookies or snowmen for a neck decoration; you can even do several on a tree cookie.
Candy Cane Cookies
Take sugar cookie dough and shape it in to candy cane shapes. Bake and cool them completely. Next you will want to frost them white all over, try to cover the sides as well. Now take regular red licorice and cut strips on the diagonal long enough to cross over the cookie and down the sides. Cut several for each cookie. Space them evenly apart all the way up the cookie; adjust the length of the licorice when necessary. Having it go down the sides will give it the wrapped around effect.
These are just a few ideas to put a little different spin on the classic cookie decorating this holiday season.