Time to announce the winner of Martha Stewart’s Wedding Cakes and the Cupcake Charm necklace!

Thank you all for entering; it was fun to see your responses and many of you left really sweet, informative and encouraging comments!  Thank you!!

Hélène, Grace, Lisa and Courtney P.; you asked about the winter coat.  Click here for the coat’s details.

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Drumroll please.  

All the entries from the post and twitter were entered into the draw at www.random.org, at 7:23  pm Eastern Standard Time (17:23 UTC time) and the winner was comment #113; Nicole!

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Congrats to you! I’ll be contacting you to find out which color Cupcake Charm you’d like and will send you the prizes through Amazon.

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If you didn’t win, another sweet giveaway is on it’s way soon!

Thanks again for all your comments!

xo,

Marian

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Every year our secondary school hosts an evening event called the Christmas Cabaret, where dance, drama and music classes, as well as auditioned acts, perform in front of an audience of parents, teachers, students etc. My hospitality classes prepare food for the event.

This past Christmas and last Christmas (see here for last year’s event), we hosted a Christmas Dessert-themed Cabaret. The menu consisted of gingerbread cookie favours for each place setting, chocolate and vanilla cupcakes arranged on cupcake tiers, and the main dessert was a decandent chocolate brownie topped with whipped cream, chocolate cigarellos and a strawberry garnish.  Also on that plate; a vanilla sauce and strawberry coulis sauce.

Before I jump to the night of, here are some of the preparations leading up to Cabaret.

Students began by experimenting with dessert choices and arrangements:

180 gum paste snowflake toppers were made for 180 cupcakes:

180 made-from-scratch brownies (forgot to take pics!), and 180 made-from-scratch gingerbread snowflake cookies were made by the students:

Table settings and floral arrangements were planned and created.  We went with a blue and silver theme.  The greens were gathered, pinecones glued to long skewers and painted & glittered, and ‘flower’ arrangements assembled (more on tablesettings etc. later):

Students decorated 180 snowflake cookies with royal icing and dusted them with white sanding sugar.  I forgot to get a picture of all of the cookies decorated and ready to be bagged!

These below are actually not even the ones we used for Cabaret, they were for another event the week after.  This is what 180 cookies looks like ready to go though:

The menu for the evening:

Dishes were rented, napkins folded, programs printed, centerpieces put together and tables set:

A gingerbread snowflake cookie was placed at each place setting.  Here’s a close-up of one:

Pretty chic venue huh?!  Lol.    The school’s large cafeteria is where the stage is located.  Here’s what half of the room looked like from the stage:

And some of the other half of the cafeteria where our cupcake table was:

Thanks to Ms. Balugas and some students for decorating the cupcake area!

The students made and arranged the wintery cupcakes on two tiers; vanilla and chocolate:

Each cupcake was topped with a gum paste snowflake which had been dusted with some pearl shimmer.

On to the assembly line!  Here I am beginning the plating for the demonstration dessert.

Students watched and made 179 more!

Not too many shots of this time period, but here’s an idea of what the desserts looked like when they were ready to go:

Oops, this one above had some mistakes.  We got to enjoy it and a few others at the end.    The chocolate cigarellos kind of remind me of antennae now.  (*Giggle*).  They tasted yummy though!  I’d LOVE to hear from you in the comment section below if you have some dessert ideas for us for next year!!

Last but not least, serving the desserts:

The students did such an awesome job in all areas of Christmas Cabaret involvement; planning, food preparation, decor, serving and cleaning-up.  I’m lucky to be teaching some amazing teens!

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I thought I’d have a little giveaway to add some sunshine to the February blahs!  The giveaway includes two of my wishlist/favorite things here…  I’m sure you’ll guess by the end of the post which ones they are.

A clue; sorry, it’s not a Oprah-esque giveaway! 

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This post isn’t really sugar related, but I do have other things I love besides my sweet hobby; a few of which I’ll share with you:

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1.  Anne Taintor Products

Her name is Anne Taintor and she runs a humorous business selling greeting cards, notepads, magnets, purses etc., which, to quote the words on her site, “…give voice to modern women’s secretly subversive thoughts.”

I just knew that when I found this charming Anne Taintor I Don’t Recall Asking notepad, it would be a perfect gift for my female colleagues studying Culinary Arts in Kingston this past summer.  We definitely did enjoy some interesting, insolent humour together.  (That’s Liz and Delia below):

They did get a kick out of their parting gift from me.  (Notepad above). You can find Anne Taintor’s hilarious items on her site here or if you’re an Amazon fan, at my affiliate link here.

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2.    Kindle

This one’s on the wish list.  Ever since I used a Kindle (a wireless reading device), at a friend’s place over the Christmas holidays, I’ve been thinking of getting one.  If you have one I’d love to hear what you think of it in the comment section.

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3.    iPhone

The iPhone… Also don’t have one of these yet, but I’ve certainly looked at them longingly a few times.  I’ve pledged not to get one until my old phone dies, but I’m really looking forward to that day.

You should see my phone.  My students think it’s so old and retro that it’s ’sick’.  Here’s a pic:

Pretty battered huh?

I’m glad this pic is in my favorite things after all.  This phone has lasted me a long time, and (my DH will laugh at this), it has great reception.  Let me tell you, there’s been many a time that all the BlackBerries in the room didn’t get a signal and I did.  It is analog-digital after all.

Ahem… on to another favorite thing.  This one is a gadget as well – seems like I like a lot of them.

This one has helped me take better pictures this year.

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4.    Canon Rebel Xsi Camera

The Canon Digital Rebel XSi is what I use.  I’m still learning lots on how to use it, but even on the automatic settings it does a great job!

I really do dislike getting my picture taken - it rarely works out.  So, only because I wanted to post a pic of the camera and needed a mirror to take a its snapshot, I’ve put a photo of me in here with it. (Okay, and because I actually paid some attention to my hair this day I was out with my friend.  I was waiting in change room for her to try on some clothes and I had recently acquired the camera).

Anyways, on to the next item.

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5.  MACRO LENS

With this Canon Macro Lens you can easily get great close-up shots; I used it to take this next photo:

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6.    Cupcake Charm

Of course something sweet related had to sneak in here.  I gave this cupcake charm to my friend Kim earlier this year… she’s a sweet-nut as well.  I don’t have one yet but might just head over to Amazon to order one.  They’re $17.99   (Guess you know now Kim.  Actuuuually, really they were SO expensive when I went to buy one.  They’re on sale now).

Ahem.

The next fave is, alright, another sweet related item.

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7.   KopyKake Projector

Not a very pretty looking thing, is it?

It’s big, it’s awkward-looking, (although it doesn’t look quite as bad with the table clamp option), but I know I couldn’t have created many of the cookies I did this year without this Kopykake Projector .  If you’re new to visiting Sweetopia, you can find some examples of cookies I made using the projector by clicking these links:

Tea Party Cookies

Princess Cookies

Halloween Cookies

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8.  My Winter Coat

What is there to say?  I love it!  I have to wear it every day in the climate I live in and never get tired of it.  (I don’t think I look like her in it though!)

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9.  EMU Australia Winter Boot

These boots keep me so snuggly warm!  Enough said!

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10.  Martha Stewart’s Wedding Cakes Book

I’d like to practice more of my cake skills in 2010 and am going to use this inspiring cake book by Martha Stewart and Wendy Kromer.  Here’s a small sampling of what you’ll find inside:

Excuse the crooked images; I took actual pictures of my book.

Wendy Kromer, the creator behind many of Martha’s cakes, is coming to the Bonnie Gordon School in April.  I’m so excited to be signed up for one of her classes and will keep you posted on that!

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Now that I’ve shared my current 10 favorite items, it’s time to have a giveaway for TWO of them!

Wish I could be like Oprah, but even though they aren’t a KopyKake Projector or a Kindle, they are FREE!  (If you win!)

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Martha Stewart Wedding Cakes and Cupcake Charm Giveaway!

If you’d like the chance to win a copy of Martha Stewart’s Wedding Cakes & a Cupcake Charm Necklace, leave a comment below, maybe sharing one of your favorite things or whatever you’d like to write!

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• Another way to enter is to retweet this post on twitter.  You can tweet as many times as you choose; they will be added to the draw!
• The contest is international
• The draw will be held on Sunday, February 7th, at 7 pm EST
• I’ll be using www.random.org to draw the winning comment.

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Good luck!

xo,

Marian

In less than two weeks the Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics will begin!

I keep seeing the adorable mascots, Miga, Quatchi, Sumi and Muk Muk wherever I go and was inspired to make cookies of them.

If you get a chance, check out the Olympic Mascot website (A whole website with games, activities and videos - it’s  GREAT for kids!). 

The cuteness factor and fantastic attention to detail got me to wondering about the artists behind these animated creations. 

Michael and Vicki of Meomi are in the incredibly talented imaginations who dreamed up these characters inspired by British Columbia folklore of the forest, the mountain and the land.  Their own site is also charming and whimsical.   Definitely fun to check out!

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Here are the cookies I ended up with:

According to the artists, Miga is a young sea bear who lives in the ocean with her family pod.

Quatchi is a sasquatch who comes from the mysterious forests of Canada.

The Quatchi and Sumi cookies are actually quite large.  To give you an idea of size, Quatchi is approximately 9 by 8 inches, or 23 cm by 20 cm.  I’ve included the quarter in the pic to give you a visual idea. 

Sumi is an animal spirit who comes from the mountains of British Columbia.

Muk Muk is a friendly Vancouver Island marmot who cheers for his friends during games and races.

**Of course I used my Kopykake to help me pipe the mascots.

You can make the cookies without the projector of course!  If you’d like to try either freehanding them or with the Kopykake, I’ve included instructions below:

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How to Make the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Mascot Decorated Cookies:

If you’d like to make these, you’ll need:

1.  Sugar Cookie Recipe

2.  Royal Icing Recipe

3.  Round Cookie Cutters or a sharp knife to cut dough shapes

4.  Decorating Bag/Piping Bag - (I use disposables which can be washed and re-used)

5.  Couplers

6.  Decorating Tips (#’s 1-4)

7.  Food Gel Coloring

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To see some more ideas of what you’ll need to set-up your cookie decorating area, see this post here. 

For in-depth cookie decorating tips see here, and for my top 10 decorating tips see here.

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Here is  the order in which I piped the details of each cookie:

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Miga

1. **Pipe black outlines and let dry for 24 hours (Black bleeds easily so I like to make sure the icing has set).

2. **Pipe white details and let dry for 12 hours.  (Black on top of white likes to bleed too, so I wanted to make sure the white was dry).

3. **Finishing touches.

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Quatchi

1. 88Pipe brown base first and let dry for 24 hours (Although not as bad as black, brown can also bleed easily).

2. **Pipe details shown above and let dry for 12 hours. 

3. **Finishing touches.

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Sumi

1. **Pipe brown base face and let dry for 24 hours. 

2. **Pipe dark wings, some facial details and edge of Sumi’s hat, and let dry for 12 hours.

3. **Pipe hat and green neck detail and let dry for 2 hours.

4. **Finishing touches.

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 Muk Muk

1. 88Pipe brown base first and let dry for 24 hours (Although not as bad as black, brown can also bleed easily).

2. ** Marble cream and dark brown icing, add white snout and blue stripe and let dry for 12 hours. 

3. **Finishing touches.

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If you’re interested in buying the stuffed animal Miga, Quatchi and Sumi toys, they’re available on the official Olympic site in Canadian dollars here.

And in US dollars on Amazon here:
Miga
Quatchi
Sumi

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Have fun decorating to you, and good luck to all the Olympians all over the world competing soon!

xo,

Marian

These ideas aren’t ones that necessarily help the actual decorating of cookies; they’re the practical tips that make the preparation and overall experience faster and easier.  Hope you find them helpful!

If you’re interested in tips on the decorating process itself, I’ve got an in-depth tutorial here and my top 10 decorating tips here.

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Practical Ideas for Decorating Cookies – Top 10 Easy Tips

1. *Cloth – Keep a damp cloth nearby to wipe royal icing off your piping tip.  The key for me is to use a microfibre or lint-free cloth, otherwise little teensy fibres from other types of cloth get into the icing or onto my decorated cookie.

I found these at the dollar store!

2. **Clear beading containers – I use these storage stacking containers to store my piping tips.  Originally used for beads, they’re great for all sorts of small objects.  The only drawback is that they can sometimes be finicky to close.

You can find them online or at any craft store (usually in the beading aisle).

3. **Piping tips and couplers – Having lots of piping tips and couplers available makes the decorating experience much easier because you can prepare many bags of icing at once and change tips easily without having to stop and wash them.

I keep my couplers in a box also found at the dollar store.

4. **Elastic bands – Have them handy to tie off the ends of your piping bags so that icing doesn’t escape when you aren’t paying attention!

5. **Clear disposable piping/pastry bags (See a few pics above) – Although they might not be as strong as polyeurthane piping bags, disposable ones are my favorite.  They’re clear so you can easily pick out the color you need and they’re washable and re-usable.  If you’re wondering about using parchment triangles; some people do swear by them, I however, am useless at shaping them and feel dread whenever we have to use them in a cake class. 

The squeeze bottles are another option, especially great for kids.  I find piping bags easier to fill so use those instead.

6. 88Toothpicks or pins – Always keep a toothpick or pin nearby; they’re great for popping air bubbles in piped icing, unclogging tips and marbling your icing.  (If you’re not sure what marbling is there’s a definition in this glossary).

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7. **Glass of water – Keep a glass of water near your sink so that you can drop piping tips in there to soak a bit until you’re ready to clean them.

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8. **Place for piping bags – Arrange as many glasses as you have piping bags with a damp paper towel or cloth at the bottom of each.  Rest your piping bags in them between uses.  Wilton has a special stand for this purpose but I still prefer using the glasses.

9. **Spatulas only for royal icing -  Grease (fat), from buttercream for example, can affect the texture of royal icing, so the spatulas I use with it are designated only for royal icing.  I also keep piping tips used for buttercream separate as well.  No worries if you can’t do this (I’m playing it extra safe); just wash utensils well with vinegar and then soap and water.

10. **Tip cleaning brush – The purchase of this tiny brush, specifically designed to clean out your tips, is one you won’t regret.  Cleaning tips kind of drives me crazy for some reason, and this little brush makes the job so much easier!

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Hopefully these tips help you.  I’d love to hear more ideas!  If you’d like to share, you’re welcome to leave a comment below.

xo,

Marian

Life has been busy (I’ve missed blogging!), but I really can’t complain… I’m blessed in so many ways; even on the hard days I’m lucky to have my funny DH, good family, friends, health, a roof over my head and so much more… including finding a passion such as my ’sugar hobby’ and this blog.  The tragedy in Haiti has made me feel even more gratitude; it makes one reflect doesn’t it?

Besides donating straight to the Red Cross and praying for the people suffering in Haiti I needed to do something else to help out.

What to do?

I came accross some leftover flowers from this cake which led me to an obvious conclusion:

A bake sale!

I organized, some students baked, some drew posters, and the school bought treats.  It was heartwarming to see how enthusiastically students contributed and how willingly people donated.

Two days on lunches this week we sold cupcakes and chocoloate chip cookies.  The students made the cupcakes and icing in class, and I contributed some leftover flower and flood work icing bird toppers I had from a cake decorating class (more on that later), and my Christmas gingerbread house.

Students were happy to use our large stand mixer (Hobart mixer).  We don’t need to use it too often.

On our first day of the sale we sold out quickly, so we knew we needed the big guns for the next day.  For the chocolate cupcakes of course.

For vanilla we only needed the kitchen aide.

Didn’t manage to get pics of them icing the cupcakes because I was also watching and marking the practical exams (she’s making crèpes):

Here are some of the finished cupcakes though:

These are chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing and decorated with gumpaste flower toppers.

Don’t know if you can tell in the pic, but students sprinkled small melted sugar droplets on the icing for a ‘wintery’ effect.  (Easy to make – put isomalt or clear crushed candy in the oven on a baking sheet covered with parchment, and bake at 350 degrees until they melt).

The flowers I made before Christmas at the Bonnie Gordon School, in Peggy Porschen’s class.  They’re made out of gum paste (for a gum paste definition here’s a link to my glossary), and the flower cutters used were the Calyx cutter and the 5-Petal Flower cutter.  Thanks to Laura (from the Peggy Porschen cake class), who offered me the leaves she had left over from her cake.  We put them to good use!

Some flowers have also been sprayed with lustre spray and sprinkled with disco dust The centers are edible sugar pearls and dragées.  For a wee tutorial on how to make gum paste leaves (the same proceedure as these flowers) see here.

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Back to the bake sale!  Can’t forget the chocolate chip cookies:

Students made them using the Nieman Marcus recipe.  I’ll share the recipe because they were good (I mean it’s chocolate chip – how could it not be?!), but I still like Barefoot Contessa’s recipe better.  I’ll bet the Nieman Marcus one is a smidgen healthier though because it has oats in it (LOL).

Here are a few Hospitality students selling the baked goods on lunch.

And on another lunch.  (I don’t know why those white spots on the picture are there – Still learning lots about photography).

We ended up selling out and raised almost $200.00 for the Red Cross.  Not a whoooole lot, but good for a bake sale!

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If you’d like to try the Nieman Marcus cookie, here’s the recipe:

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Neiman Marcus Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups butter
• 4 cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 5 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal and blend in blender to a fine powder)
• 24 oz. chocolate chips
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 8 oz. Hershey bar (grated) (optional)
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Directions

Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey bar and nuts. Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.

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For a printer friendly version, click here.

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Here’s another option – the straight chocolate chip recipe:

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Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder
• 1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

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For a printer-friendly version, click here.

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Happy baking!

xo,

Marian

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p.s.  We made a batch each of chocolate and red velvet cupcakes for our first sale, but weren’t 100% happy with the red velvets.  If anyone has or knows of really good recipe, would love to hear from you in the comment section!

Disco Dust- Also known as shimmer dust, glitter dust or sparkle dust.  It’s brilliant, it’s pretty and it’s messy!

I’ve had many questions regarding how to apply disco dust.  It’s no wonder why.  ;-)  I do use it a lot.  By no means am I an expert, but I’ll share with you how I go about putting disco dust on my cookies.  I hope you find my suggestions helpful.

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How to Apply Disco Dust on Cookies

1. Begin by cutting a small piece of parchment paper to work on.   Make a crease in it by folding the paper in half. Lay the paper flat again.

To give you an idea of the parchment size there’s a quarter in the photo, however how big you make it really just depends on the width of your cookies and your preference.

2. Put the cookie on the parchment paper and gently shake the disco dust from the container onto the desired area of the cookie.

The key is that the icing has to be wet; put the disco dust on right after you’ve piped the icing.

3.  Shake off or dust off the excess disco dust when the icing has somewhat set or until it has completely dried (safer).  If you’re working in a humid environment though, gently shake them off right away.  The moisture in the air can make them stick.

Do this by gently lifting your cookie, holding it over the parchment and container, and tilt it so that the excess disco dust falls back into the container and on the paper.

4.  Take a clean paintbrush only used for this purpose and dust off the excess.

I like using a flat, fairly short brush, which I have in 3 different sizes.  For small grooved areas use the smallest brush, for larger flat surfaces use the largest brush.

5.  Remove the cookie and lift the edges of the paper together.   

When the dust pools in the crease of the paper, pour the excess into another container.  My recycled disco dust is poured into a different marked container as it’s only used for decorative purposes.

Shaking the paper gently also helps the dust fall into the crease.

Some is lost, however, I found that it’s the best way to preserve most of the disco dust.

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That’s it!

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There is another way I’ve done it, but it’s no longer my preferred method.  I’ll share it with you anyways and you can try it if you like.

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Second Method – How to Apply Disco Dust

1.  Cut out a piece of parchment paper a bit larger than the cookie (at least two inches larger all around), and then cut a hole in the center, about the size of the area you want to cover with disco dust.  

No matter how you do it, those little flecks of glitter can be quite messy, so expect to have them stuck all over you for a while. 

* I should mention again that although it’s labelled as non-toxic, disco dust technically hasn’t been approved by the FDA as ‘edible’.  It’s used for decorative purposes.  Until recently I thought it would be like the gold flecks in Goldschlager, however those have actually been FDA approved. 

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Hope that helps!  If you have any ideas you’d like to share I’d love to hear from you below in the comment section.

xo,                                                                                                                                                               
Marian

p.s.  If you’d like to see how the snowman cookies were made, here’s the step by step:

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How to Make Snowman Cookies

1.  Make dough.  For a sugar cookie recipe see here.
2.  Make and color icing.  For a royal icing recipe see here.

3.  Pipe the body of the snowman.  I used my Kopykake Projector to help me trace the image (which is from scrapbooking paper by the way).  Let that dry for minimum 5 hours.

4.  Pipe details on snowman such as face and buttons.  Let dry for a few hours.  (Since they’re only small bits of icing it doesn’t take long to dry).

5.  Pipe the scarf of the snowman.  Add disco dust and shake off excess when the icing below has dried. 

6.  Put in bag with ribbon as desired.

Finished!

What would you choose for dessert; a sugar cookie or a slice of chocolate cake?  If you’re anything like me and those two items were in your home, the sugar cookies would be hanging around long after the chocolate cake was polished off.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like sugar cookies, but love them… Not so much.  But trying to decorate chocolate cake to give as gifts - that wouldn’t work as well as sugar cookies do.  Which leads me to the reason why I’m writing this post today – I’ve come up with a sugar cookie recipe by playing around with some favorite recipes.  It’s definitely tasty, although it’s still not in the ‘chocolate cake’ category.  If you try it out I’d love to hear what you think in the comment section below.

Before I get to the recipe, let me share a little introduction to the ‘Polar Bear Parade’ cookies with you.

When I saw this ribbon months ago at Michael’s Craft Store I just knew I had to make a cookie version of it.  Pretty colors, a simple shape and such a cute little polar bear. 

These were finished before Christmas, but I wasn’t able to post them in time.  If you’d like to create these, you could make just the polar bear or substitute another object for the gift instead.  It’d be a nice winter-themed cookie I think.  The ribbon is probably on sale now too!

I used the KopyKake drawing projector to help me draw the image (believe me – I need it!), but you might be able to freehand as it’s a fairly simple shape.

Some of these are made of a new gingerbread recipe I found on-line, but I wasn’t entirely happy with the results (taste).

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been playing around with some of my ’go-to’ sugar cookie recipes – a few of the main ones being Peggy Porschen’sand the NFSC (No Fail Sugar Cookie) recipe (from cakecentral.com), to come up with my own combination.  The latter two are still favourites for me, but now I’ve got a third choice.  This is what I’ve come up with:

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

2  1/2 cups butter (at room temperature)

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

seeds from 1 vanilla bean (or 3 tsp vanilla)

5 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Instructions:

1.  Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed.  (Use the paddle attachment).  Mix until thoroughly incorporated – for about one minute.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more.

Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough.  If you’d like a light and fluffy cookie, that’s ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you’d like the cookie to hold its shape.

2.  Add eggs slowly and mix.  Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix again.

3.  Cut open your vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out.  Add to mixing bowl.  Alternatively, add liquid vanilla extract.  Stir briefly.

4.  Sift your dry ingredients together.  (Flour, baking powder and salt). 

5.  Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl.  Place a large tea towel or two small tea towels between the edge of the bowl and the electric mixer so that the flour won’t escape.  Mix on low speed for 3o seconds.  Remove the tea towels and observe the dough mixing; when it clumps around the paddle attachment it’s ready.  It’s also important at this stage not to over mix the dough (the glutens in the flour develop and the dough can become tough).

6.  Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper.  Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.

7.  Roll out the dough further if you need to, and cut out cookie shapes.  Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Re-roll scraps and repeat.

8.  Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 10 minutes to 1 hour to chill again.  They will then hold their shape better when baked. 

9.  Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.

10.  Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown.  The baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.

11.  Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!

A few notes about the recipe:

*Butter – The butter needs to be soft, or room temperature.  I leave mine out the night before I do my baking.  If you forget, you can grate the butter on the largest hole of your box grater, so that the sugar and butter will mix together better.

*Baking powder – I hardly use any baking powder in my recipe because the dough will spread and rise more during baking, thereby making the shape of the cookie less crisp.

Click here for a Printer-Friendly Version of the Sugar Cookie Recipe

I’ll do an in-depth tutorial with pictures on making the sugar cookie dough in a future post.

Hope you enjoy this recipe!

xo,

Marian