cookie craft!

i'd read about the wonderful book that is 'cookie craft' a while ago, and finally decided to break down and buy it, just in time for the holidays. i've been quite busy lately and stressed out over things not fun to mention on the food blog, and cookies are a great way to get unstressed, because its impossible to be sad when eating cookies. fancy sugar cookies with icing are something i've never really mastered but always wanted to, and this seemed like the perfect guide book. bonus points for amazon, where you can often buy books for reasonable prices.

this thing is quite exciting, and comes with a million tips and guides for doing things. i have learned that if you want professional-looking cookies, you must invest a lot of time and energy, and that it really helps to buy all the little tools they recommend. for example, i was reluctant to purchase a pastry bag and tips since i already have one (even if i stupidly packed it away into storage), and it is possibly the only kitchen item my dad doesn't own. while ziploc bags with the tips cut off worked just fine for my first try, the results would have been better if i had the real thing. and, i used cookie cutters that were on hand, but, next time, i think that larger sized ones would have helped matters. still, i was quite pleased with the whole endeavor.

even though there were no pastry bags, i did have access to something far more wonderful...a kitchen aid mixer with paddle attachment. one day, you will be mine. oh yes, you will be mine. sigh.

here we then skip ahead to rolled out dough, in between two sheets of parchment paper (sorry folks, i used their recipe for sugar cookies and i can't find it online): i doubled the recipe, and it told me to divide the dough into 2-3 balls of dough and roll out each separately, and that is what i did - five total.

these little circles were refridgerated until ready to use. what's really fun is that you just peel off the top sheet, cut shapes, and then remove the excess outline of dough so that all you have to do is slide the bottom parchment right onto the cookie sheet. genius!

here is a nice pile of completed, dried cookies, waiting for icing.

and here (assembled the following day), is my icing / decorating set-up. again, time + mess = no pictures of icing making and assembly, but let me say this kind of took forever - forever-ever. i learned that you need to make two types of icing - the 'piping' icing is harder and goes into the ziploc bags, and is used for piping outlines onto all the cookies. the icing in the squeeze bottles (aka leftover mustard bottles, and yes, they were washed really REALLY well), is more runny and called 'flood icing,' because you squeeze it within the outline and it 'floods' inside the shape. the magical toothpicks are then used to coax the icing into all corners of the cookie. note, too, that dying the icing is needed for various colors. for the record, dying icing can be pain, especially the red.

but...it is all worth it. for, behold, the almost-100 cookies that i have made (with a little help)! here is an aerial view of one of the drying racks:

and another!

and, just for show, a shot of the whole bunch. this may seem gratuitous - because it is - but i do not care. these took forever, and, because it was my first time, i am quite proud. if you are in the philadelphia area, i invite you to come on over and try some. and, with that, i bid you all happy christmas. after five posts, i am going home to finish my last batch of cookies - martha stewart's chewy chocolate gingerbread. unlike these babies, i have made them for eight years straight. think about it.