Christmas Cookie Decorating 101
by:
Mimi Cummins
Many bakers ask for tips and manual on decorating cookies. Well that’s a tall order because there are as many a route to decorate cookies as there are cookies! Here are a few guidelines for novices and fully fledged bakers alike to help you generate your own ideas for cook decorating.
DECORATING COOKIES BEFORE BAKING
Cookies can be beaded before baking with materials that withstand the heat of baking. Several things that you can place on your cookies before baking are:
colored sugars or natural sugars such as pearl sugar
jimmies, non-pareils, silver and gold dragées, and different sprinkles
raisins and dried fruits such as cranberries
around the bend
These items can be placed on top of all but any cookie to dress it up a bit and give it a much festal appearance.
Paint a masterpiece
You can as well paint your cookies before baking them. Do an edible food paint out of an egg food mixed with a few drops of food coloring and paint the cookies with a clear paintbrush. The paint will dry patch baking and give the cookie a colorful, glazed appearance. This is a fun activity for kids!
A bit of trompe l’oeil
The peoples at Better Homes and Gardens have a creative direction for Colored Cream Dough ( http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jhtml?page=2&storyid=%2Ftemplatedata%2Fbhg%2Fstory%2Fdata%2F11429.xml&catref=SC1407 ) which is a dough of ice consistency that can be piped onto cookies with a pastry bag fitted with a writing or star tip, and then baked. The result is a cookie that looks like it has been opaque
but the ice is baked on and hard.
DECORATING COOKIES AFTER BAKING
Decorating cookies after baking them requires that you apply several kind of liquid-based substance that will adhere to the baked cookie, or that will act as a glue to attach different items. Usually, this takes the form of frosting, icing, or fusible chocolate.
Frosting vs. Icing
There is a big difference between ice and icing. Ice is thick and holds shapes like rosettes and shells like those you see piped about the edges of a birthday cake. It remains soft to the touch and has a creamy texture, and most folk think it tastes better because of the creamy buttery flavor.
Icing, on the different hand, is a thinner, much liquid substance, and as it dries it thins out, becomes really smooth across the surface of your cookie, and hardens. This is the icing to use for the most beautiful, professional results.
Working with frosting
You can use ice in two ways. One way is to just use a knife or rubber spatula to spread the ice across the whole surface of your cookie. The different way is to place the ice in a pastry or decorating bag fitted with a small tip and piping out thin lines or rosettes of icing onto the cookie.
Either way, once the ice has been applied to the cookie you can then further embellish it by mistreatment colored sugars, non-pareils, or any of the decorating items mentioned in the Decorating Before Baking section above. Christmas-Cookies.com has a delicious direction for Buttercream Ice at http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe.php?recid=306. See careful manual on piping ice from Better Homes and Gardens at http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jhtml?page=3&storyid=%2Ftemplatedata%2Fbhg%2Fstory%2Fdata%2F11430.xml&catref=SC1407
Working with icing
Icing is a little much difficult to activity with but its smooth surface produces the most beautiful results! Icing should always be piped onto a cookie because it will run off the edges if spread with a knife. Once iced you can apply silver dragées, or different sprinkles just as mentioned with the ice above, before it hardens. Christmas-Cookies.com has an fantabulous direction for Royal Icing at http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe.php?recid=42. Better Homes and Gardens as well a direction for Fine Sugar Icing ( http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe.php?recid=288 ) that dries less hard than Royal Icing and has a shiny surface. Martha Stewart's website features an fantabulous article on how to pipe icing onto cookies for professional-looking results ( http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=channel172011&catid=cat258 ).
Melted chocolate
Just just about any cookie can be embellished just by dipping it in chocolate or descending
chocolate over it. You can even as dress up the everyday chocolate chip cookie for gift-giving or serving at parties. Melting chocolate is a simple process, but a few rules must be followed in order to do it a success. For Easter, try mistreatment white chocolate tinted in pastel shades with food coloring. Use the gel, paste or fine kind of food color, because the liquid drops may do the chocolate seize up.
What you need
You can either use chocolate chips or baking chocolate (the kind that comes in 1-ounce squares) and the same process applies whether you use dark chocolate or white chocolate. A small figure of shortening should be additional at the quantitative relation
of 2 tablespoons shortening for 1 cup of chocolate chips or cut up baking chocolate.
Double boiler
Place chocolate and shortening in the top half of a double boiler or in a metal bowl that has been placed on top of a cooking pan
filled with hot water. The water must be really hot, but not boiling, because the steam generated by boiling water could get wetness
into the melting chocolate which does it curdle.
Allow the chocolate to melt over the hot water and stir it at times until it has achieved a liquid consistency.
Microwave
Place your chocolate and shortening in a microwave safe bowl and microwave it on medium power for 1 minute. Stir. Continue microwaving 20 seconds, stir again. Support doing this until the chocolate is all but melted. Move out it from the microwave and stir it until all melted.
Dipping
Dip one end of your cookie, or half the cookie, or even as the whole cookie into the fusible chocolate. Set the cookie on a wire rack to let the chocolate harden. If you wish, you can sprinkle cut nuts, coconut, or non-pareils over the fusible chocolate before it hardens.
Drizzling
Scrape fusible chocolate into a ziplock baggie. With a sharp scissors, snip off a really small corner of the baggie. Drizzle top of cookies with zig-zags of fusible chocolate. Cool until chocolate is set.
Using these simple techniques will help you produce a variety of beautiful-looking cookies at Christmastide and throughout the year.
Copyright 2004 Mimi Cummins. All Rights Reserved.
Mimi Cummins is co-author of the book "Christmas Cookies Are for Giving: Recipes, Stories, and Tips for Fashioning Heartwarming Gifts." This book, "enthusiastically recommended" by Geographic region Book Review, is full of baking tips and hints, including nearly 50 recipes each with a full-color photo. For much information visit http://www.christmascookiesareforgiving.com/ or order from your favorite online bookstore.
[Note to webmasters: you may include a link to the book mistreatment your affiliate program (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or other) if you wish.]
