Hi, To you all With the Holiday's coming up around the corner, I thought this would be good to post. Delma
Go Cookie Crazy Christmas just isn't Christmas without sugar cookies: Tucked cozily into a warm kitchen, apron dusted with flour, fingers sticky with five colors of frosting, tummy aching from sampling one too many of the wares, & heart content from inhaling that buttery, comforting aroma of fresh cookies & spending time with the people you love. With our tips for cutting, decorating & packing for the mail, you'll delight everyone with batches of your most beautiful & tantalizing cookies yet. Rolling & Cutting. You will find cookie dough much easier to work with after it's been refrigerated for at least half an hour. Keep cookie cutters from sticking to the dough by misting them very lightly with cooking spray. If you're cutting out delicate or large shapes, save them from falling apart by rolling out the dough on parchment paper, lifting off the scraps, then sliding the paper directly onto a baking sheet. Frosting. One popular frosting for sugar cookies is a simple glaze of confectioners' sugar & either milk or fruit juice. By adjusting the ratio of liquid to sugar, you can make this glaze as thick or as thin as you'd like. Royal icing is another option: it dries to a hard, crunchy finish & also holds up well in the mail. Buttercream frosting is soft & thick; tasty, but not good if you plan to stack the cookies. Instead of frosting, you can also dip half or all of a cookie in chocolate & then in chopped nuts or crushed candy canes. Other Decorating Ideas. Instead of frosting, you can decorate the cookies before you bake them! Sprinkle on coarse colored sugar, nuts, colored sprinkles, silver dragees or other small candies,. Alternatively, make colorful designs on the unbaked cookies by painting them with a mixture of egg yolks beaten together with food coloring. The finished cookie will be bright and glossy. * Mailing. When making cut-out cookies for mailing, choose fairly sturdy shapes without too many small protrusions. Pack decorated, dry cookies in a flat, sturdy container with a tight-fitting lid. Lay down a selection of cookie shapes in a single layer, fitting them together as closely as possible. Now pile more cookies into the container, stacking same-shape cookies on top of each other. When the container is full, put wadded-up pieces of wax paper or unbuttered popcorn into any empty spaces, then seal the lid. Wrap the container in bubble wrap, then pack it into a box that is further padded with foam peanuts. The cookies should arrive fresh and beautiful and full of home-baked love. Dough Mix the ingredients together carefully and quickly. Do not over beat the dough, or you will have tough, even rubbery cookies. Always chill the dough before rolling it out. This prevents the dough from being too sticky to roll. Divide the dough into halves or thirds for faster chilling. To save time, chill in the freezer for 20 minutes. If the dough, after removing from the freezer/refrigerator, is too stiff to roll out, let it stand at room temperature until it softens a bit. For those of you who like to plan ahead, you may freeze the dough for up to 3 weeks. Roll 'em! Of course, this is the fun part. Grab those kids you invited, & get them working! Be sure to roll dough out to the suggested thickness in the recipe you are using. Don't be shy with the ruler. Using a ruler to measure the thickness ensures that all the dough is the same for consistent baking times. It's a good idea to roll it out on a lightly floured surface; however, you may also roll the dough between pieces of parchment paper. Cut dough with cookie cutters dipped in flour to avoid sticking. Make cutouts as close together as possible. Re-roll scraps left from the cutouts to cut more cookies. At times, re-rolling can result in tough cookie dough. However, re-rolling on a surface dusted with equal parts flour & confectioners' sugar will toughen it less. Using a metal spatula, transfer the dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Parchment saves you from having to wash the cookie sheet. Often a greased cookie sheet can cause the cookies to run out, & be too thin. For these reasons, we use parchment paper. Before placing your beautiful creations in the oven, consider decorating them with nuts, raisins, or chocolate candy. Bake cookies until lightly browned around the edges. Fresh from the Oven Once they are out of the oven, let them cool completely before you decorate or store them. Hopefully, you will have some cookies left, after all the covert operations by those little elves! Get creative with the icing; vanilla is not the only flavoring available. Gingerbread is really good with lemon or chocolate icing.Try almond or orange flavoring, or get wild & try amaretto or orange liqueur. Decorating cookies is the part to look forward to. Make sure you have put some time aside to really be able to get creative. We have come up with a few ideas of our own. Make cookies to hang on the tree for people to pick & eat. Before baking, poke a hole using a drinking straw. Afterwards, tie on some ribbon or wire,& voila, a beautiful and edible ornament! Use a pastry bag to pipe your loved one's name, or a short Christmas greeting. Use colored sugars, edible glitter, jimmies, or any kind of sugar decoration your heart desires. Sandwich two identical cookies with icing & decorate top with icing & colored sugar. Pop 'em in Your Mouth We know that most of you will eat half of them before you ever get around to giving them away, or even decorating them. Some of you may eat half of them before they ever become formed into shapes to be baked! Remember to save some for your friends & family. Make it extra-festive by placing them in a vintage tin, or a rustic basket. It should be fun, not work. Here's the good news: You can freeze most baked cookies up to 2 weeks. They taste delicious frozen or zap 'em in the microwave for 30 to 50 seconds. The End --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Access the Recipes And More list archives at: http://www.mail-archive.com/recipesandmore%40googlegroups.com/ Visit the group home page at: http://groups.google.com/group/RecipesAndMore -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
