Short Dough - Big Snowflakes and Glittery Stars

 

I made a rather large batch of short dough the other day and here's what I did with one small portionof it yesterday and today...

Printable Recipe

First, I rolled out a piece and cut out 6-pointed star shapes and then, since I was originally intending that they become snowflakes, I kind of squeezed the points so they'd be skinnier.  I laid them out on a baking sheet and chilled them for about half an hour.

Then, right before baking, I brushed the tops with egg white and sprinkled them with sparkling sugar.

 

I baked them at 350 for about ten minutes.

I also took out my big copper snowflake cutters.

 

I cut out two of each shape, and then used the little tiny cutters to make little holes here and there within each cookie.  I baked them at 350 for about 10 minutes as well.

While the cookies cooled, I mixed up a batch of royal icing (using meringue powder) and colored it with royal blue food coloring.  I colored it in two stages - first to get a base blue color, and then the next stage was to create a swirly look to it.  I kept the icing rather loose and piped it onto all my large snowflakes.

 

 

 

See the swirls?

I left the cookies to dry overnight.  Had to keep chasing the kids away from them.  You can't rush cookie art!

This morning I filled another piping bag with white icing and, using a smaller tip (a #3, I think) and firmer icing, I piped my snowflakes onto their swirly blue "sky" backgrounds.

 

I also planned to sprinkle the white piped icing with very fine white sparkling sugar, which meant I had to pipe quickly and sprinkle sugar while the icing was still wet, otherwise it wouldn't stick. 

So, one at a time, I piped icing and sprinkled sugar and made my snowflakes....

   

 

 

You get the idea.  It's tremendous fun, at least for me.  And they don't have to be perfect because, as we all know, no two snowflakes are alike.  So there's no reason why the cookies should be perfect copies of each other.

 

And finally, the kids were each permitted to have a big snowflake cookie.

They go really nicely with a mug of hot chocolate, too.

Comments

[chocolatechic]

I so wish I had cute cookie cutters, but alas...I do not.

[Di]

I love the swirls. I'm not sure if I have the patience for cookie decorating right now, though. Brianna and Gillian have more than used up what little I had...

[Jolea]

Those are beautiful!!!

[janice]

They are absolutely lovely. mhyg

[jomamma]

Very nicely done... your posts bring back memories of making cookies with my kids and even memories of making cookies with my mom when I was as kid.

[Luna]

Is Royal Icing tasty? I have never made it, so I don't know if I've ever eaten it either. I always use buttercream frosting. Of course they're not as pretty but they do get shoveled in the mouth pretty quickly to notice!

[jayne]

On its own, Royal Icing is only tasty if you're under 8 years old - to me it just tastes like SUGAR. But you can always flavor it with vanilla extract, almond, peppermint - whatever sounds good to you. It's still supremely sweet, but at least it tastes like something other than pure sugar.

[Hillary]

These are gorgeous! I think you should submit these to our holiday cookie recipe contest!

[Maya]

Looks beautiful!

[Rachel A]

Where did you get the small cookie cutters for the inside details? These are amazing, and I'd love to make some for Christmas! But I don't think I can freehand those little spaces that make these cookies really look like snowflakes...

[jayne]

Hi Rachel A, the tiny cutters actually came with the set of the biggest three snowflake shaped cutters. I think you can find the set at King Arthur or Williams Sonoma...there are also a couple sets on Amazon. I also (somewhere) have a little tin of tiny cutters that I got at Williams Sonoma, but they're not listed on the website...oh, wait, they're on Amazon too - listed as an Aspic Cutter Set. But keep in mind - no two snowflakes are alike, so you could freehand it and be just fine, I bet.

[Rachel A]

Thanks! I might just give freehanding a shot...