Pie of the Tiger

12/28/2008

Christmas Cookies

Christmas Cookies is now hosted at Pie of the Tiger


I'm halfway through documenting my chocolate-covered cherry obsession this Christmas, but I'm going to pause to post some photos of the other thing I was determined to make this year: decorated sugar cookies. Not underachiever sugar cookies, like I've let myself down with before, but ones that I took the time to make look pretty enough that I have to keep sneaking peeks at them, like a narcissist employed at a mirror factory.



Early in the month, I had some friends over to make Christmas cookies with me, and I tested out the sugar cookie recipe in Sherry Yard's The Secrets of Baking. I loved the recipe--I've loved every recipe I've tried out of her books--other than having to learn the hard way that the dough really does need to be quite frozen through the whole process of cutting out the shapes. They kept their shape beautifully, held together after they cooled, and tasted wonderful, buttery with the perfect sugar cookie texture.



Inspired by my favorite store-bought sugar cookies--made by Little Rae's Bakery here in Seattle--I mixed up icing made from powdered sugar and lime juice (yum, though I had to make some with lemon juice for Mr. Bee because wives sometimes cave in like that) and pressed them into a bowl of sanding sugar. They captured the crunch of the sugar on Little Rae's cookies, which is what I love so much about them. The only thing I really needed to change was to make the cookies thicker, so I decided to use that recipe for my cookies later in the month.



When my mom and my sister-in-law came over to bake cookies, I made a triple batch of the cookie dough and rolled it out extra thick, only making about three half sheet pan-sized sheets with all of that dough. It worked just as well thick as it had thin, and I froze all of my trees and reindeer, angels and ornaments to be frosted later on in the season.



Along came the great snow day that went on...and on...and on, until the day had become a week and we still hadn't left the house. With Baker Bee home, it was both hard to get things done and very easy to while away the hours baking and taking pictures of the results. Still, by the morning of Christmas Eve, I hadn't frosted the cookies. I had, fortunately, taken them out of the freezer a day or two before, but that's as far as I'd gotten. I'd had grand visions of whipping up royal icing and piping the heck out of those cookies. You know, proving that I still knew my way around a star tip and so on. But time? Not on my side, at all.



I'd signed up for Food Buzz a couple days before, and there I ran into a tutorial on cookie decorating with glacé icing posted at Our Best Bites. Her cookies looked absolutely beautiful, jewel-like with their colors and sheen, and having the icing actually taste good sounded like a strong point in the favor of glacé over royal, since her recipe was very similar to what I'd done before, only heavier on the dairy than the flavoring, rather than the other way around, and containing corn syrup, which I'd forgotten was a good thing to include.

Still, I felt a little...well, like I was approaching the half-assedness I had set out to avoid in the first place. I was supposed to be spending hours and hours aggravating my poor sore wrist and shoulder with the piping. And the last time I'd tried to decorate cookies with this kind of icing in multiple colors...it hadn't gone well. I remember thinking that those were some ugly Thanksgiving Day turkeys to be putting out on a restaurant buffet.



But there was the time thing, and the snow-exhaustion/cabin fever to account for, and I mixed my powdered sugar and corn syrup and milk together, adding a splash each of lemon and orange extracts. I ended up adding some real lemon juice later, to give the icing more of the bite I enjoyed in the previous cookies I iced, and next time I think I'd try replacing some of the milk with lemon juice, but the cookies really did taste fantastic.



As for the looks? Well, I was worse than a narcissist in that proverbial mirror factory. I love the way this icing looks--how the colors swirl and meld together, how bright the colors stay, how it just shines. And even a week later the icing still isn't hard as a rock like royal icing. (I know this from just having consumed the final cookie left of the batch before starting this post. For inspiration, of course.) I think I like them better than the fanciest cookies I've ever piped. They're much more elegant.



My only complaint is that the shine does dull a bit after the first twenty-four hours, and the edges of the colors seemed to blur just a little, tiny bit over the past week. Of course, that just means they have to be made soon before they're served or given as gifts. And if I make them too early and they start to dull, then I'll just have to eat them myself and start from scratch.

10 comments:

Sara @ Our Best Bites said...

Wow- your cookies look **fantastic!** seriously gorgeous. I love the designs you did. I've been meaning to start a thread on my blog with other people's cookies and I think you just inspired me to actually do it. Thanks for sharing!

Jessica said...

Thank you! I really loved working with the icing, so much so that I want to make some more Christmas cookies now even though the day has passed! :-) I may actually do that anyway because all the snow here meant that I haven't been able to give a lot of people their goodies yet, and these cookies are long gone now. Otherwise, I'm definitely making some with the heart designs for Valentine's Day.

I think a post of other people's cookies would be great...I was very inspired by yours.

Kate @ Our Best Bites said...

Those look amazing! Great job!

Rico said...

They look fantastic and very very tasty..the photography is impeccable well done...by the way thanks for becoming my foodbuzz friend...keep cooking

Jessica said...

Kate - Thanks so much!

Rico - Thanks for accepting my friendship request, and for stopping by! Glad you're enjoying the food and photography. :-)

Unknown said...

I am ... speechless! Amazing! Can I say how much the decorated saddle on the horse made me tighten my fists repetitively like a 5 year-old?? (in a "i want it, i want it!" kind of way - picture it?)

Hayley said...

Those cookies are so pretty! I'm going to have to check out that tutorial on Foodbuzz...

Shelby said...

These are just beautiful.

Linda said...

What beautiful cookies! I just have a few questions. :))

How thick is the "extra thick" that you rolled your cookies?

Is the cookie texture crispy, chewy, soft?

Do the cookies "stick" together when stacked, as in the photo where they are covered?

Jessica said...

Linda - I can't remember exactly how thick they were. The latest batch I made were at least a quarter inch thick, though. The texture is crisp, but not hard. They hold together very well but crumble easily when you bite down on them. I'm not sure about stacking them, since I stacked mine before they'd had the recommended full day to dry. I mostly put the ones with sanding sugar on the bottom row so the others could be on top and not get marred. I'm planning to make some for Valentine's Day, so I'll let you know how they stack!