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Smart Cookies

From cute-as-a-button gingerbread adornments to luscious royal icing, putting artful finishing touches on your holiday cookies elevates them to a whole new level. It’s easier than you might think, thanks to these expert tips.


 

Classic Sugar Cookies and Best-Ever Gingerbread



Nothing puts you in the holiday spirit like spending the day with family or friends decorating freshly baked cookies. From beginners to amateur pastry chefs, everyone is capable of pulling off gorgeous creations to celebrate the season. To help up your game, we’ve put together a concise guide to decorating holiday cookies. Whether you prefer Classic Sugar Cookies or Best-Ever Gingerbread, we’ve got all the tips, tricks and techniques to create edible works of art. So, grab a piping bag, channel your inner Martha and get ready to blow everyone away at the cookie exchange.

TIP
When baking cut-out cookies, always keep to one shape per baking sheet. Since different shapes need different baking times, this ensures every cookie is perfectly cooked.


 


Pipe Dreams

Stiff Royal Icing can be used in a multitude of ways to create different looks. Since it’s inexpensive, quick to make and easy to use, it’s the perfect icing for any novice decorator. To get the feel of the pressure and flow, you can practise piping on a parchment-lined baking tray. Once you’re ready to move to cookies, start with thickly piped beads and stars, making sure not to overfill your bag and tire your hand. In no time, you’ll gain the confidence to add more intricate details into your repertoire.

CONE HEAD TIP
A paper cone fashioned from parchment paper or a disposable piping bag are both great alternatives to a pastry bag. You can adjust the thickness with a quick snip of the tip, and it makes cleanup a breeze.

Cookies

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Just a Smear

Rows of roughly piped icing beads that are swooshed with a food-safe paintbrush or popsicle stick give a textured effect on Christmas trees with all the holiday feels.


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Hot Tip

Using multiple tips adds different looks and textures. When piping with small tips, it’s easy to control how much space they fill by adjusting the pressure on the piping bag. See “Tools of the Trade” and more tips below!

 


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Finale Flourish

It’s important to add decorations such as candy, glitter or sprinkles the moment you’ve finished piping. The icing needs to be wet for them to adhere.

 


Flood Plain Cookies


Flood Plain

Flooding a cookie with thinned icing before decorating has become all the rage among highend pastry shops. It’s not as complicated as it looks. With a little practice and a lot of patience, you can create cookies that are almost too pretty to eat. It’s a time consuming process, so make an event of it and try to have fun. Since you need to use both stiff and thinned icing to flood cookies, work with just a small portion of icing at a time so you can adjust colour and consistency on an as-needed basis (see “Dye Job” on page 52 for more tips).

TIMING TIP
Flooded cookies need at least 1 hour, preferably longer, to dry before you pipe additional details overtop. When finished, let them dry overnight before storing in an airtight container.

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Border Line

Use a fine, round piping tip or parchment paper cone to detail an outline on your cookie. It creates a map to work with and builds a barrier to hold the runnier flooded icing.


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Ice-Ice. Baby

Thinned icing can either be roughly piped into each cookie or spooned over, if the shape allows. Next use a toothpick to drag the icing gently to fill in the outlined area. See Royal Icing for instructions to make a thinned icing for flooding.

 


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In the Details

For smoother, more uniform details on a flooded cookie, make sure there is a small gap between the tip and surface to let the lines fall into place.

 



 

All That Glitters

From the festive hues of seasonal candies to the glitter of snowflake quins, here are a few ways to give your holiday cookies a final flourish.

Snowflake Quins

Snowflake Quins


Metallic Dragees

Metallic Dragees

 


Sliced Funsorts

Sliced Funsorts

 


Seasonal Candies

Seasonal Candies

 


Extra, Extra, Extra!

No matter what holiday you celebrate or your skill level in the kitchen, here are more tips, tricks and advice to make better cookies this festive season.
     





Beyond Christmas

Decorative cookies can easily be tailored to fit whatever holiday you celebrate. For Hanukkah, use six-pointed star cutters or pipe white Stars of David on round cookies flooded with blue. For Diwali (next year), use bright colours and ornate piping. And for Kwanzaa, use the traditional colours of red, black and green.

Beyond Christmas

Baker's Arsenal

Find essential tools for baking better cookies.

Dowel Rolling Pin

Dowel Rolling Pin

This rolling pin gives better control, as you can put pressure on either side to level out uneven spots. It yields a smooth finish every time.


Small Offset Spatula

Small Offset Spatula

A pastry chef’s best friend, this spatula keeps the edges of raw, cut-out cookies crisp when transferring them onto baking sheets.


Aluminum Half-Sheet Pan

Aluminum Half-Sheet Pan

Thanks to their light colour and ability to evenly conduct heat, these pans minimize overbaked cookies. They also last a lifetime.


Pastry bag

Tools of the Trade

For decorating your cookies, a 10-inch (25-cm) piping bag provides more than enough room for manageable portions of icing. To create intricate details and outlines, choose a fine round tip (Wilton #1, #2 or #3). Star tips (Wilton #16 and #32) and a ruffle tip (Wilton #103) will add texture, and a small round tip (Wilton #10) makes beads that can stand tall or be swooshed.


Dyes

Dye Job

Gel food colourings are the way to go as they deliver vibrant colours without extra water, which can throw off the icing texture you’ve worked carefully to achieve. When flooding cookies, colour portions of stiff icing for outlines. When finished, thin out the same portion to flood the cookies. This makes for a perfect colour match every time!