Sugar Cookies

Have you seen those beautifully decorated sugar cookies? The ones with the beautifully smooth decorations in cute shapes? I won't tell you how many blogs I subscribe to that feature these at least weekly. Let's just say it's possible to read that much about a cookie.

I don't find myself particularly creative, but I really wanted to make pretty cookies like that. I don't have any friends with impending baby or wedding showers, where I could show up with adorable and insanely appropriate cookies. But I can make them anyway!!

I made the basic recipe for sugar cookies from Oracle Betty. They came out perfect! I don't think I've ever had a rolled cookie come out that perfectly. Actually ... I still haven't. The dough never really firmed up enough to roll out and cut, so I just rolled bits of dough into a ball and flattened them out. Maybe that's been my problem all along?


Who cares about the cookie, though. They're just frosting vehicles for this experiment.

I took some tips from this great tutorial on decorating cookies. In fact, I'd recommend you follow those instructions over the insert that comes with Wilton's meringue powder. The #1 lesson to learn is: don't be afraid of runny icing. It won't run that much, and is probably easier to work with.


Ah, displaying my lack of creativity. Or lack of artistic skill. Or both. I made these around Thanksgiving, so fall leaves seemed like the perfect pretty design. These look more like the Batman insignia than pretty leaves. Part of this is because I let the white icing dry, so the decoration would sit on top. The other part was that the meringue powder makes the icing stiffer.

With a little fiddling, this could make pretty and smoothly decorated cookies!