Flower number 2 :: santa babies: A Cookie Memoir

One of my favorite things to do is decorate sugar cookies.

It all started years ago, by watching my mom decorate cakes at home. "It's royal icing," she explained, "it's like glue." I watched how she put the icing in the bag using a spatula without getting it all over her hands and arms. How she piped on clear goo like drops of dew, was mesmerizing.

Early on, I learned that sugar cookie dough has to be refrigerated, and that it tastes so good, like almond extract. I also learned that cookie decorating is a lot like coloring in a coloring book-- but better. You draw the lines. You flood the color.

One year at Christmastime, I used angel cookie cutters to make a dozen little Elvises, clad in what else, but rhinestone jumpsuits. I found just enough time this year to stick to something a little more traditional: Santa. However, they came out a bit "baby" looking.

So, there you go:

Santa Babies

To bake cookies, follow this recipe by Betty Crocker.

To decorate cookies, you'll need to make some Royal Icing, following this recipe at Wilton.

For the Santa Babies (and friends, pictured) I used an icing bag (no fancy tip), with a tiny hole punched out. I used this to do my outlining.

Next, I added about a teaspoon of water to a small portion of that icing, to flood the white parts of the cookies. To do this, you could fill another bag with a tiny hole, but I just used a spoon to drip-drop the icing in, and watch it smooth itself out. I repeated this step in additional bowls, first with red, second with green, and finally, with black. I carefully flooded in the tiny parts of the cookies again, and again, using just a spoon.

Royal Icing can be tricky the first time around, so I've given you some notes below:

Some Notes on Royal Icing:

• Buy meringue powder
• It can harden up pretty quickly like cement, so drape a wet paper towel over your mixing bowl.
• The amount of food coloring you add can actually make the consistency really watery if you don't use gel type coloring. --maybe too watery.
• These cookies took a while to dry, once I flooded the icing. I needed to allow them to dry out overnight before I packaged them. (While in a humid apartment)
• If you're packaging them, simply cut up some waxed paper or parchment paper and place between the cookies.