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• Gingerbread Cookies
• Paining Cookies
  
• Reindeer Cookies
• Elf Hats
  

2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup shortening1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup molasses

Sift together flour, ginger, nutmeg, salt and baking powder; set aside.

In large bowl, with wooden spoon, beat together shortening, sugar and egg until fluffy. Add molasses; beat well.

Stir in 1/2 the flour mixture, mixing until smooth.

Add rest of flour mixture, mixing with hands until dough is all one colour.

With hands, shape dough into a ball; wrap and refrigerate for two hours, or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375F. Sightly grease cookie sheets.

divide dough into two pieces and return one to refrigerator.

On a well-floured board, rol out dough about 1/8 " thickness.

Using desired cookie cutters, cut out and place on sheet, 2" apart.

Bake 8- 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Remove from pan to wire rack to cool.

Decorate as desired.

2 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

Few drops red and green food colouring

2/3 cup sugar

In a medium mixing bowl allow egg whites to stand at room temperature for 1/2 hour.

Grease cookie sheet; set aside.

Add vanilla, cream of tartar and food colouring to the egg whites. beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating about 5 minutes on high speed until stiff peaks form.

Spoon meringue into piping bag fitted with a 1/2" round tip. Pipe small 1' high mounds with a peak on top, about 2" apart on baking sheet. Bake in a 250F oven for an hour, until firm.

Let cool and remove from sheet. If desired, dip bottom in melted chocolate and finely chopped nuts.

Makes about 48 cookies.

1 cup butter or margarine. softened

1 1/2 cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

72 small unsalted pretzels

72 candy-coated milk chocolate pieces

36 small red gumdrops

In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer or medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, cocoa, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.

Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.

Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined.

Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour.

Divide into 6 equal portions. Wrap and chill for 3 hours or until dough is easy to handle.

On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a circle 6" in diameter. Using a knife, cut each circle into 6 wedges and place 2" apart on cookie sheet.

To make antlers, on each triangle lightly press a pretzel into upper corners. Cut  off about 1" of  bottom point, and cut into two small triangles. Place small triangles, tip side up, over antlers and press the bottom part into dough to make ears.

Press red gumball into bottom edge for nose, and chocolate pieces for eyes.

Bake in 375F oven for 7 -9 minutes or until edges are firm. do not overbake. Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute. transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 36 cookies.

Paint Cookies for the Holidays

Whether you are looking for a fun project with the kids or just want to impress the neighbors, try painting cookies.  It’s easy to do using food colors as paints.

Make chocolate or vanilla cookies with your favorite recipe or mix. Cut them out as you would for other cookies to decorate.   After cooling, frost your cookies with either royal icing or fondant.  Royal icing dries to a hard shell and creates a nice, glossy surface for painting.

It’s super easy to cover your cookies with rolled fondant.  Roll the fondant to about 1/8-inch thick and cut the fondant using the same cookie cutters that you used to make the cookies.  Lift the fondant off the counter, brush a little water on the back with your finger, and lay the fondant on the cookies of corresponding shape.  The fondant will cover the cookies to about 1/8-inch of the edges and the moist back will hold the fondant in place until drying.

Fondant creates a little different effect than does royal icing.  While royal icing is slick and shiny, fondant is more of a matte finish. 

Use food colors for paint.  Most store brand can be used as they are.  Professional gels need to be diluted with water.  We use a drop of food color to a drop of water but you can dilute most professional gels more than that. 

Use a brush and paint your cookies just as if you were using water colors.  For fine work, such as the eyes on a snowman or the star on a Christmas tree, use a toothpick to dab color on.  You can also use a food writer pen to paint on details.

New food coloring sheens can be used to give your cookies a beautiful, glossy finish.  You can paint the sheen on the cookie, let it dry, and then paint designs, if desired, over the sheen.  If you paint the sheen over the painted cookie, it tends to smear the colors but beautifully blended patterns can be created.  Sheens come in silver, gold, pearl, and some colors.

It’s fun to make pretty painted cookies and you can be as creative as you like.  If you are more of an artist than we are, you can create stunning works of art with cookies and a paint brush.

How to Make Royal Icing

Meringue powder is essential if you make sugar cookies or decorate cookies or cakes.  You need to be able to make hard shell frostings like royal icing.  Traditionally hard shell icings relied on egg whites to create a shiny luster and a hard surface on the icing.  But today, most of us are concerned about using raw egg whites in our kitchen with the bacteria they may harbor. 

Meringue powder is made with dry egg whites with flavors and stabilizers added instead of fresh egg whites so the concerns about safety are eliminated.  And it's easy to use.  Simply add the meringue powder along with the powdered sugar to your recipe to create a frosting that will set up with a firm shell.  The more you add, the harder the shell.  For a moderately firm frosting shell, add two tablespoons per cup of powdered sugar.  We often use 1 1/2 tablespoons of meringue powder for each cup of powdered sugar and this gives us a hard enough shell for painting cookies. 

more recipes: The Prepared Pantry

Better Homes and Gardens