Help for a non-baker, please.

[DDD]

I love to cook. I don't bake. The little difficult child granddaughter and I "bake cookies" each Christmas. I use slice and bake rolled out so she can use cookie cutters for trees, stars, etc. She thinks it is terrific. Thank heavens.

Now, two simple questions:
When adding sprinkles should you eggwhite wash the cookies for the granulated sugar to adhere? Sometimes the granulated colored sugar falls off even when baked into the cookie dough.
Secondly are you suppose to frost before or after baking. Yes, lol, I use canned icing and not homemade. I'd like the frosting to adhere better and be hard enough so when we make layers in the cookie tins that she takes home for friends etc. the icing doesn't stick to the waxed paper.

Yes, I've been doing this since easy child was a toddler (almost 50 years ago) but since I
don't like it I forget year to year what works and what doesn't. Sad, huh? DDD

 

[DaisyFace]

Hi DDD--

Frost AFTER baking and cooling.

For sprinkles, add sprinkles to cookies before baking and no egg whites necessary. (If you baste your cookies with egg, they will get too dark on top) If you want to add the sprinkles after baking - put a sugar glaze or frosting on the cookies first.

Hope this helps!

 

[donna723]

I've never used the egg white wash - the colored sugar always stuck just fine even though a little bit is always going to fall off. And you put the icing on AFTER the cookies are baked and cooled. If you're using canned icing, it will never dry hard enough to stack them up without sticking together because it has shortning in it. You might try a very simple icing made of powdered sugar and a bit of water. You can tint it any color you want and it will dry hard. You can make it thin like more of a glaze or thick enough that you can use a piping bag and decorating tips. You can find the little basic decorating kits almost anywhere - they are very reasonable and you can even find them in the Dollar Store.

Something very quick and easy that I'm going to try again this year - if you have a mini muffin pan you can make very impressive looking cookies with packaged cookie dough. You cut the roll of cookie dough into 1-1/4 inch slices, then cut each slice into four pieces, then press the pieces into the muffin cups. Then press an unwrapped Hersheys Kiss into each cookie and bake. There are so many kinds of cookie dough and so many varieties of the Hersheys Kisses, the possibilities are almost endless. Besides the solid chocolate ones, they come in white chocolate, peanut butter, caramel, even some with raspberry inside!

I might make a few with the red and green M&M's instead of the Hersheys Kisses too.

 

[Josie]

I use Royal icing on sugar cookies. You do have to make it, but it is pretty easy and hardens quickly. This is the recipe I use. I always have to use a lot more water than it calls for. http://www.christmas-cookies.com/recipes/recipe42.royal-icing.html

 

[DDD]

Thanks. Donna I asume that you mean the four cuts are triangle shaped?

by the way, did I ever tell you that I was "relieved of duty" as an assistant Brownie group leader back in the 60's?? YEP, I had the troop at my house for cookie baking. All the girls had a great time and so did I. I didn't know that it was suppose to be baking from scratch! easy child told me "that's alright Mommy I still love you.", lol. Here I am in 2010 and I
still don't bake cookies from scratch! DDD

 

[donna723]

DDD, the cuts don't have to be triangular shaped, just cut each 1-1/4 inch slice into four equal size pieces. Well, I guess the pieces start out as triangles but that's just so all the pieces will be a uniform size. Once you press the pieces down into the muffin pans, they will end up being round anyway! And when you press the Hersheys Kisses into it, you don't want to push them all the way down to the bottom - the chocolate will stick. Just press them slightly down in to the cookie dough, and after they bake, the Kisses will be imbedded down part way into the cookie.

 

[amazeofgrace]

m & m work on sugar cookies to and are easier for little fingers to work with

 

[donna723]

If you want to try the royal icing, you can buy a pre-mixed powder in Walmart where all you add is water. Royal icing dries very hard. If you've ever bought those hard pre-made letters and numbers to put on a birthday cake, those are made out of royal icing.

 

[Hound dog]

Jiffy has a powder mix for icing that is wonderful for cookies. Unfortunately around here it is now impossible to buy. Which really peeves me off.

I can make icing from scratch, thank gawd or I'd be in big trouble. easy child is doing the same this year.

One tip she found: when making sugar cookies it is better to use confectioners sugar to sprinkle on top than the reg kind. Of course this doesn't help when you're wanting to use that pretty red or green sugar.....but she's going to put the confectioners sugar on first then let the kids sprinkle on the pretty stuff. lol Not tried it before......so we'll have to see how it goes.