Let it Snow!

I realized that I've been bad at updating my blog and never posted these Christmas cookies that I made a little over a month ago. What better than being snowed in to remind me about my snowflake cookies!

I had a set of snowflake cookie cutters that had been calling out to me for a while, so I decided to make use of them for the first Christmas party of the season. I made a sugar cookie recipe that I have used in the past, and it always turns out well. Cutting the intricate snowflakes was slow and careful, but I was happy with the results.

I also decided that my snowflakes needed royal icing to decorate them, so I attempted it for the first time. I used the Wilton recipe with meringue powder. Since I was going to be covering the cookies, I followed the instructions for thin royal icing, and let me just say that it was MESSY! I'm not exaggerating when I state that my kitchen looked like a smurf exploded. Next time, I will definitely add less water. The thinned icing also made piping more tricky - even though I was only using a #3 tip, the designs came out much wider than I intended, and it only got worse as the heat from my hand on the bag warmed the icing.

Overall, I was pleased but learned some things to do differently for next time. The cookies got lots of compliments, and there were hardly any left at the end of the evening - I consider that a success.