Kids’ Korner

Fun with Holiday Cookies

The holidays bring on lots of neat foods, some of which we see at only that time of year.  Cookies, although present all year long, take on a very special look if they are decorated in special ways and given as presents.  Most every family has a favorite sugar cookie recipe that works great for holiday decorating or you can use slice-and-bake cookies, too.

One of two methods is usually chosen for decorating cookies: Decorate before baking or embellish the cookies after they are baked and cooled.  If you decorate before baking, you should select things that do not disappear during the cooking period.  Rolled cookies offer the widest range of decorating options because they are a flat “canvas-like” surface.  Nut halves, raisins, cinnamon red-hot candies, M&M’s or other flavored chips, colored sugars or sprinkles can be arranged on the surface of cookies cut in shapes. 

One way to decorate cookies is to “paint” them.  A good base for the “paint” is a thin layer of icing or simple glaze that will seal the surface of the cookie and make the surface smooth.  Almost any icing can be used, but it needs to be applied and allowed to set before continuing.  A clean craft paint brush can be used to paint with food coloring (available in the baking aisle of your grocery store) on the dry icing.  Colors can be used straight from the bottle or diluted for less intense color, and they can be intermixed if you wish to create a number of additional colors.  Food color markers are also available for drawing designs.  This technique can also be used on pie crusts.  Just use a light icing, let it dry and then paint a scene or message.  Some families make a tradition of pie decorating with delicious results. 

Use of a set of icing decorating tips and an icing syringe or bag can help you create very fancy, elegant cookies or apply messages and greetings that are edible.  Great things can start with a plate of colorful hand-decorated cookies.  Any party or gathering takes on a more festive feel when specialty items are included.  Fancy cookies might start a new neighborhood tradition such as a kids’ cookie decorating party.

If you are feeling especially adventurous, you can use cookie planks to build a cookie house, like the old- fashioned gingerbread houses.  You could re-create your own home, school or church by making a pattern and cutting the rolled dough to size.  What an interesting and perhaps challenging project that would be!

So get baking, decorating and having fun while you create great treats for your family, to give as gifts or use as home decoration.  No two will be alike and each will be a treasure.  And if you wrap the cookies with plastic wrap, you can even use them as holiday decorations on the tree!  Creating cookies with unique messages/names/decorations will make the holidays more special and certainly memorably delicious.

If you decide that after display your cookies have diminished their taste or appeal, put them out for the birds.  The sugar and fat in cookies gives birds energy to withstand cold winter temperatures.  Lay a few out in your bird feeder or empty bird bath and watch them disappear. 

Exhibition – Drawing Babar:  Early Drafts and Watercolors is at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, through January 4.  Supplementing the important collection of manuscripts and drawings are splendid copies of first editions of the earliest Babar books, notable for their large format and stunning graphic appeal.

Best Illustrated Books – The New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2008 have been announced.  Included are A River of Words–The Story of William Carlos Williams, ages 7 and  up; The Black Book of Colors, ages 5 and up; A is for Art, ages 5-9; Wabi Sabi, ages 3-6; We are the Ship-The Story of Negro League Baseball, ages 8 and up; Ghosts in the House!, ages 3-6; The Little Yellow Leaf, ages 3-8; Wave, all ages; Pale Male—Citizen Hawk of New York City, ages 6-12; and Skim, ages 14 and up.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 19 No. 2 — December 2008