How cute are these puppy cookies? But isn’t the real thing even cuter??

Yep, that’s right! We brought home a new puppy this weekend, and I made cookies to celebrate the occasion! (When you’re trying to learn to decorate, any event counts as a reason for cookies!). We picked out our puppy a few weeks ago, and this week he was finally old enough for us to go pick him up and bring him home. We named him Scamp and are in love already. He’s a maltipoo (a maltese/poodle mix) and so tiny and fluffy.

Not a great picture, but it shows you how tiny he is!

I could talk about our puppy for days (Mike can attest to that!), but this site is supposed to be about food…so back to the cookies! I made little white dogs with brown ears to look like Scamp, and I think they turned out pretty well. I had no idea how to mimic fluffy fur, so I just ignored that part and decorated as usual. I also made a few cookies in the shape of dog bones. Sorry Scamp, these bones are for humans, not dogs!

I used my normal sugar cookie and glaze icing recipe and the cookies turned out great. I’m all for simple designs that you can’t mess up too much, and those dog bones are about as simple as it gets! We enjoyed sharing these cookies with friends and family as they came to visit our new puppy. Although as I said before, they are not nearly as cute as the real thing!

You guys know that I’ve been on a sugar cookie and decorating kick recently.  I am far from an expert, but I have picked up a few tips and tricks along the way. This post focuses on the actual cookie baking portion rather than the decorating. I figure, no matter how pretty a cookie is, the only thing that really matters is that the cookie tastes good! I’ve included the recipe I use and a few tips that will help you make soft and delicious sugar cookies.

1. Don’t overmix your dough. Once you add the flour, mix just until combined. Overmixing causes tough cookies.

2. Refrigerate your dough for at least an hour or two prior to rolling and cutting. The other day I tried to roll out dough I’d refrigerated for less than an hour and it turned into a sticky mess.

3. Use a Roul’Pat. These pastry mats have made my cookie baking experience so much better. It’s a nonstick countertop mat that is perfect for rolling out cookies or kneading bread dough. The mat sticks to your countertop so it doesn’t slide around and it has a nonstick surface so you can use less flour rolling out your cookies. Plus it’s easy to clean!

4. Use Rolling Pin Rings. These rings allow you to roll out the dough evenly to the exact thickness you want. I used to end up with cookies where half of the cookie was thick and perfectly cooked and the other half was thin and crispy and burnt. I have been using these rolling pin rings for a few months and they make it so simple to roll out dough to an even thickness.

5. Don’t roll your cookies too thin. I use the largest rolling pin ring that came in my set and I’d guess the cookies are about 1/2 inch thick. This makes them soft and chewy and a nice stable surface for the icing.

Sugar Cookies and Glaze Icing

Ingredients:

Cookies:

• 1-½ cup unsatled butter, softened
• 2 cups Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• 2 whole Eggs Yolks
• 6 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder

Icing:

• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 drop lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp light corn syrup
• ~1Tbsp milk

Directions:

For the Cookies:

1. Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add in the eggs, yolks and vanilla and mix until combined.
2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Slowly add flour to the butter mixture and mix until combined. Do not overmix. Transfer the dough to saran wrap and wrap well. Refrigerate for at least one hour.
3. When you are ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll the dough out to 1/2 inch thickness, cut out cookies, and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are set and just starting to brown around the edges.

For the icing:

1. Combine powder sugar, corn syrup, and lemon juice in a bowl.
2. Add milk until you get the consistency you want. If you need a thicker frosting for outlining cookies, add less milk.
3. For flood icing to fill in your cookies, thin the consistency by adding milk a few drops at a time.

from I am Baker

*Note: there are Amazon affiliate links in this post

A few weeks ago a friend asked me to make cookies for her son’s first birthday party with an All Star Sports theme. When she asked, my first response was to make excuses. “Well…I’m still new to cookie decorating.” or “Have you seen my cookies? They’re really not that good yet.” or “I have no idea how to draw anything sports related on paper, let alone on a cookie!” But she said she didn’t care if they turned out terribly, she just wanted cookies. So I said yes. And I think they turned out pretty cute!

My husband, a former college baseball pitcher, loved the baseball ones. He kept saying over and over in an incredulous tone: “They really look like baseballs!” Apparently I wasn’t the only one unsure of my ability to create sports related cookies. The baseballs were actually the easiest to make. Just a white outline, white flood icing, and red for the stitches. I used a 1 tip and was surprised at how easy it was to make the icing actually look like stitches.

The basketballs were also easy, but I don’t think they turned out quite as well as the baseballs. They are just an orange outline and flooding, along with dark brown for the lines. The footballs were a last minute addition, because I wasn’t sure if I could free-hand draw a football. (Yes, my artistic ability is that bad…anyone who has played pictionary with me knows the truth of that statement). Thankfully a brown oval shaped blob with some white lines on top will look like a football when surrounded by other sports type cookies.
I made some colored stars to fit the “all-star” theme and all together, I think the cookies turned out very well! The guests seemed to really like them and said clever things like “These cookies are a home run!” As a side note, Mike now wants decorated baseball cookies for his birthday.

My best friend had her first baby a few weeks ago! As you read this I’m on my way to visit her and meet the new addition to her family. I was so sad to not be there to help her out right after she gave birth (I live about 12 hours away from her), so I did what any self-respecting food blogger would do – I made her cookies! I think they turned out pretty cute, but not as cute as her new little baby boy!

Isn’t he adorable??

I used the sugar cookie and glaze icing recipe from Amanda’s blog as always. It hasn’t failed me yet. This time I rolled the cookies thicker than usual – at least 1/2 inch thick, and that made them even better. I’m learning as I go and hopefully getting better each time. I’ve also figured out that friends and family are great people to practice on! Everyone appreciates cookies and the people I’m closest too are too nice to point out the imperfections in my decorating. 🙂

If you have a cookie decorating post, or a post where you showcase pretty cookies you’ve made, feel free to link it up in the comments. I love to get new ideas from you guys! If you’re not a blogger, but have cookies you want to share, upload a picture to my facebook page. I never come up with my own decorating ideas (what you see here is straight off the cookie cutter packaging!), so I’d love to see cookies all of you have made!

Decorated Cookies Previously:

Baby Shower Cookies (my first attempt)

Gingerbread Christmas Cookies

Hearts for Valentine’s Day

I couldn’t let Valentine’s Day pass without attempting some more cookie decorating. I almost gave up on the idea, especially when I realized how busy my weekend was going to be. But once I saw the chocolate cookies decorated for Valentine’s Day on Annies-Eats, I knew I needed to try some of my own.
 

I used the same cookie recipe as Annie, which comes from Martha Stewart. The cookies are chocolately and soft and perfect for decorating.  I used my favorite icing recipe (from Amanda at I Am Baker) and experimented with some new techniques to get the designs you see in the pictures. I still clearly need to work on piping a border on circular cookies – mine end up looking more like ovals, but I was happy with the way the hearts turned out. The process gets easier each time I do it, and it really is a lot of fun.

Mike loved the chocolatey cookies and hung around watching me decorate, waiting for me to give the ok that he could eat the decorating rejects. 🙂

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

¾ cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg
½ tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

Whisk together the four, cocoa poweder and salt in a small bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Blend in the egg and vanilla. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Form the dough into a disc, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, 1-2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 325 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. On a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough out to about ¼-inch thickness. Cut out desired shapes and place on the prepared baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until just set. Let cool on the baking sheet about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Decorate as desired.

adapted from Martha Stewart, as seen on Annies-Eats