Today is International Cookie Day. I can think of no better way to celebrate than with a cookie box. It’s hard to choose my favourite cookie. It’s like asking a parent to choose a favourite child. It all depends on the day and mood.
As in nature, no two of my snowflake cookies are exactly the same. I went with a pink and gold colour theme this year. Very glam. Even though we’re still mostly staying home, my cookies are dressed up and ready to party.
I make Chewy Gingerbread and Brown Sugar Snowflakes every year. This year I also added some reindeer to my collection. They are undeniably adorable and so much fun to decorate.
However you’re celebrating International Cookie day at your house, I hope it’s filled with lots of sweetness, butter and sugar.
There are times that call for a simple, one-bowl, 10 minute drop cookie, and then, there are times that call for something a bit fancier, when you want to pull out all the stops. like, when you’re going to meet the parents of your son’s fiancé and want to bring something that says thanks for the hospitality. We travelled to Owen Sound, Ontario for Canadian Thanksgiving this past weekend, to meet the folks.
On the way to Owen Sound , my husband and I discussed the logistics of the initial meeting. Would we just shake their hand, or hug? What if we go in for the hug, both arms open wide and they stick put their hand for a shake. Awkward! We took a chance and went for the hug and so did they. We arrived as strangers and left as friends.
Saturday night was Thanksgiving dinner. Mom and daughter cooked us an unbelievable feast, complete with turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, roasted squash, mashed potatoes, beets and cabbage salad! For dessert there was an early birthday cake for me (Mark Bittman’s coconut cake), baked by my son and THREE PIES (apple, pumpkin and pecan). Sunday we were treated to lunch at the charming Cobble Beach Inn. Both of her parents were charming and really made us feel welcome. Our son is a very lucky man.
These cookies were inspired by Emma’s Pecan Maple Shortbread Cookies. If you’re not familiar with Emma, you need to check out her blog and Instagram accound (@emmaduckworthbakes). She’s a brilliantly talented baker with clever ideas and her photos are off-the-charts gorgeous.
Emma dipped her cookies in a maple glaze and scattered maple glazed bacon bits over her cookies. I opted for a milk chocolate dip and a generous coating of maple glazed chopped pecans. These cookies are buttery, sweet, a tiny bit salty, crunchy and packed with maple flavour. If you can get your hands on maple sugar use it instead of regular granulated sugar.
After makling the dough, roll it out right away, while it is still soft, between 2 sheets of partchment paper. It’s so much easier than trying to roll out firm chilled dough. After rolling, chill the dough before cutting out your maple leaves. While the dough is chilling make the candied maple pecans. Mix together the pecans. maple surup and a pinch of salt.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist and I wanted an impeccable straight, clean line of chocolate and pecans. Just dipping the cookie into the melted chocolate wasn’t going to give me the edge I wanted, so check out my method for achieving perfectly decorated cookies.
A few years ago, I posted a gluten free version of these cookies. I wanted to share a gluten version for those not avoiding wheat. This gingerbread recipe comes from the genius folks over at Cook’s Illustrated. Thick and chewy and loaded with ginger and cinnamon, they are perfect. If you like them crispy, just bake them a bit longer.
Even though gingerbread is usually associated with fall and winter, I bake it all year long. I love to sandwich dulce de leche icecream between 2 cookies in the summer!
Decorating these cookies makes me feel like a real artist and the method is simple and fairly idiot proof. Check out the how-to video.
I first learned about cookie painting when I saw the cover of the Bon Appetit December 2013 issue. When I looked inside and saw what was possible, my brain exploded with the possibilities. Who knew you could paint right onto the cookie, with an actual paintbrush? Kind of rocked my world.
I have never been exactly skilled with a paintbrush, but I figured even I could manage stripes. I began with the most delicious sugar cookie recipe I know, which uses brown sugar instead of granulated white sugar. Bake cookies and let cool completely.Mix up a bach of royal icing. Pipe an outline onto the baked hearts. Mine was a bit too thick. I’m sure you can do better than me.Thin some of the royal icing with a few drops of water to make a thinner consistency and fill in the hearts. Let them dry completely, preferably overnight. Consider this your blank canvas.To paint the cookies, you will need some clean paintbrushes in assorted sizes, gel food colouring (I like the Americolour brand) and some vodka. (Not for drinking, just to wet your brush with and mix with the gel food colouring to thin it out). Any clear extract (lemon or a clear vanilla) would also work. The reason for using alcohol is that it evaporates very quickly, meaning that the paint will dry quicker.
The Bon Appetit cookies were painted with luster dust, mixed with a bit of alcohol or extract. It comes in tons of colours. If you want to use luster dust to achieve that shimmery effect, here is a great tutorial on how to do it. I decided to do mine with just regular gel food colouring instead of the luster dust. Squeeze a blob of each colour you want to use onto an artist’s paint palette or a dinner plate. (I used a ceramic egg holder) Have a small glass of vodka ready for dipping your brush into. Dip the brush into the vodka or extract and then into the food colour gel. Have some paper towels ready to test the colour and adjust the amount of paint you have on your brush. Make sure you wash and dry the brush really well, before you change colours.I decided to up the adorable factor and write a message on my cookies. I used a thin tip paintbrush. Such a sweet way to declare your love this year.
While the leaves have already finished falling where I live, I couldn’t resist making these gorgeous edible ones. It’s just too soon to start making winter cookies. I refuse to get sucked into that vortex this early in the season. I wanted to make the cookies gluten free since one of my sons follows a gluten- free diet and I was curious to try out Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Baking Flour. It is a blend of white rice flour, brown rice flour, potato starch, sorghum flour, tapioca flour, and xanthan gum. You just substitute it cup for cup in your regular recipes.
Roll out dough between two sheets of parchment paper and freeze for about 30 minutes before trying to cut out shapes.I got some beautiful copper cutters from coppergiftscom. They have thousands of different shapes. If you are a cookie lover it is easy to spend lots of time (and money!) over at their site. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I mixed up 4 colours of royal icing for my leaves. The formula to get these colours is in the recipe at the end of this post. I like to place the piping bags in a tall drinking glass. I place a crumpled up dampened paper towel in the bottom of each glass too keep the icing from drying out and getting all crusty, once you cut a hole in the piping bag. You can only decorate one cookie at a time as the icing must be wet to create the marbling effect. You will need toothpicks and a paper towel to wipe the toothpick off after dragging it through the wet icing. I created a video to show the technique.
The cookies will need to dry overnight before you can package them up. They will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 weeks. Perfect with a glass of milk or an afternoon latte!
When my kids were little, they used to imagine that while they were away at school all day, I lay in bed reading magazines and scarfing down bon bons. Haha! Nothing could be further from the truth. I wasn’t eating bon bons in the bedroom. I was eating cookies in the kitchen. Actually to be more accurate, I was eating my iced cookie mistakes.
Truthfully, I don’t really like eating iced cookies. I find them too sweet, but I just love creating them. They are just so freaking adorable to look at. I’m not a very good artist when it comes to the traditional medium of pencil or paint. But put a piping bag in my hand with a #2 tip and my inner Jackson Pollock is unleashed.
I made these safari animal cookies to take to a friend’s dinner party. We are planning a South African safari trip for the spring and she thought it would be fun to get the group together to kickstart our planning. I volunteered to bring a dessert.
I ordered the cookie cutters from coppergifts.com. With over 2000 cookie cutters to choose from, it really is the ultimate cookie decorators site. They ship quickly and offer inspirational decorating ideas for every cookie cutter they sell.
To create the lions manes and tail, I mixed yellow, orange and brown sprinkles. I took a free style approach with the zebras, and to be honest, I think they look more like horses.The giraffes were the most difficult to create. Once again, I used Suzanne’s step by step tutorial. The background colour of the giraffes was crafted by mixing Americolor’s warm brown and ivory into the royal icing. The colour of the spots was made by mixing icing with tulip red and warm brown. These cookies just make everyone smile!
I would not describe myself as an overly affectionate person. (OK, all those who know me can stop choking with laughter now) Neither my husband or I are big on PDA’s . We don’t really celebrate Valentines Day, certainly not in a traditional cards, flowers or a box of drugstore chocolates (shudder) kind of way. My husband knows better than to show up with a bouquet of roses for me. I hate roses, especially red ones. Their aroma conjures up images of death and decay in my mind. However, if a big bunch of tulips were to come my way, I would never refuse them!
That being said, there is something about heart shaped cookies for Valentines Day that is just so sweet and endearing, especially if they are home made. I could not resist making these this year. I love to decorate sugar cookies with royal icing. I am not a huge lover of the overly sweet taste of royal icing, but I am a frustrated artist and the canvas of a cookie fills my soul with such joy when I hold a piping bag and begin creating.I had a few extra hands on deck last week to help me make these. My mom, who is very creative, was visiting. As well, my old babysitter, Sarah, who is a whiz with a piping bag, was also visiting. She was so excited when I told her what we would be making. She runs a dance school and bakes beautiful decorated cookies for all her students for any and every occasion. When I had tendonitis in my elbow, from a repetitive strain injuty (piping too many gingerbread snowflake cookies), she filled in as my designated piper.
Marbling royal icing is probably one of the easiest ways to create some spectacular looking cookies. There is no right or wrong way. You just have to let your creative freak flag fly here. The marbling technique basically boils down to using contrasting colours of wet royal icing. You pipe lines or dots or whatever you fancy, and just use a toothpick to swirl the lines or connect the dots. It couldn’t be simpler.You can use any sturdy cookie recipe, like gingerbread or a sugar cookie. I used my favourite sugar cookie recipe, which calls for brown sugar, instead of the usual white sugar. It adds a real depth of flavour. Adter making the dough, I divide the soft dough into 4 pieces and roll out each piece of dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Then I chill the sheets of rolled out dough before cutting. It is much easier to do this rather than chill the dough first and then roll it out.
It is best to make the cookies and royal icing the day before (or even several days) you plan to decorate them. Set aside a few quiet hours to allow your creative decorating juices to flow.
I would not describe myself as an overly affectionate person. (OK, all those who know me can stop choking with laughter now) Neither my husband or I are big on 
