It’s been awhile since I have last posted. I have been busy obtaining new skills to add to my repertoire. For this Christmas season, I took a pretty terrific Craftsy class (Celebrate with Cookies) and then utilized techniques learned to some pretty decent snowflake cookies. 

This is my final batch I made for a Feast of Seven Fishes supper my mother in law puts on on December 24th every year. My first attempt looked like this:

I thought these turned out great but, I wanted them to look more sophisticated. My second batch looked like this:

These I made to send to my sister for the holidays. Same sugar cookie recipe, but star shaped with snowflake piping and cookie pearls.

I like simple so I found this recipe from In Katrina’s Kitchen, it was the simplest one I found on the interwebs. It was easy, wasn’t too sweet and that goes well with the ridiculous sweetness which is named royal icing.

As you can see, I rolled these cookies out pretty thick. I prefer this as well as undercooking the cookie so that it maintains a nice level of moisture within the cookie. 

An interesting tip: once you roll out and cut out shapes in the cookie dough, place them on the cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for about 2 minutes. Then bake them. This helps them maintain their shape. Makes for a more professional looking cookie, in my opinion.

Can’t explain why I felt the need to branch out and learn this except, I have always loved to eat something that looks like it’s too pretty to actually eat. Hopefully, I will work on these skills for years to come. I really think anyone can do this, you just need the right information and the right tools. I’m my case, I just bought the good old fashioned Wiltons piping tips and pastry bags. But, the Craftsy class really gave me all the right information to get me started. It’s just amazing how you can learn almost anything online, if you look for it.

Everyone stay safe this holiday season!