Mary's Sugar Cookies - Decorated

This batch of cookies are my Christmas present for my friend Emma. She is currently working on a presidential campaign, so I included a cookie decorated as a candidate (top-center of the first picture) and some red-white-&-blue decorated candy cane cookies. I used the "Mary's Sugar Cookie" recipe, with "Easy Creamy Icing" and "Marie's Chocolate Icing." All of those are listed at the bottom.
There is the Santa cookie (bottom center), which I am particularly proud of. I was decorating using the "plastic bag" method of icing. You just cut the corner of a baggie, scoop in some (already dyed) icing, and push through. The little Santa came out better than most of the others, I think, mostly because of the nice consistency of the red icing and the fact that I was willing to be patient with it. The dark pants on the others are chocolate icing, which I couldn't use the plastic bag method with, because it had to stay hot while I was using it.

The candy cane cookies and wreath cookies were fairly easy to decorate, although making stars without proper icing tips was somewhat hard. The problem with these was the cookies themselves, not the decorating. These candy cane cookies are okay looking, but they could get slightly over-expanded, so the shape would get lost, especially after putting on the white base coat. The dip would disappear. The wreath cookies were made with two cookie cutters, one inside the other on the dough, then taking out the center part. With no center, the wreaths baked a little more thoroughly than the other cookies. They were browning while others were barely firm. I just swirled the icing and added red "holly" dots. The red icing wasn't firm enough to add three little beads of icing to make it look like holly. Instead, I just made larger dots.

One of the icing problems that you can see clearly on the wreaths is maintaining icing consistency. The bottom right wreath's icing has spread much more than the center left's. Part of this has to do with when I recut the hole in the baggie, making a larger hole. It also has to do with heat. The green icing was all from the same batch, but the heat of my hand made it spread more. So, when I needed it to behave more, I refrigerated it and worked with another color elsewhere. It worked okay, but not great. Suggestions? I should have added colored sugar when the green icing was wet, but I forgot. Oops!

There are six Christmas trees total. Each have chocolate icing at the bottom, for the trunk. It is much thicker than the "easy creamy" icing used for everything else. I didn't know how to make it thinner and still trust it to dry and solidify properly. I suppose I could have bought chocolate bark, but that seemed a bit much. You may not be able to see the yellow at the top. Another example of slightly too runny icing making it look sloppier. I like the dots at ornaments, because ornaments can be any shape. I used some left-over white icing for a garland. I think it came out well, especially with the colored sugar.

These stars are done in a circle, sort of. The outside "spokes" of one correspond to the inside "solid" part of the next. I tried doing spokes first and doing solids first. Doing solids first worked better. The reason there is a weird circle on the yellow and white centers is because they were both spoke-first. The dark colors of the spokes could be seen through the center, so I had to add extra to cover it up. Lesson learned!

These are the "others," including an ornament looking red and green and sparkly with colored sugar. There is the crazy looking one on the left, which is over-iced. The star is chocolate icing with green put on top of it.

Things I loved in the project:

• Icing with the baggies
• Using black food coloring
• My Santa cookie

Things I want to work on:

• Icing with baggies
• Chocolate icing
• Making icing of consistent thickness (not runny!)

RECIPES USED

MARY'S SUGAR COOKIES
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar 1 cup butter 1 egg 1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp almond flavoring 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cream of tartar

Mix sugar and butter. Add egg and flavorings. Mix thoroughly.
Mix in dry ingredients.
Refrigerate 3 hours.
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Heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease baking sheets.
Divide dough and roll to 3/16 in thickness on a floured board.
Cut with cookie cutters, reusing dough as necessary. Use a metal spatula to transfer the cut dough, especially if the shapes are hard to keep with raw dough.
Bake 6-8 minutes, until firm but still golden. Let cool on cookie sheet for at least five minutes, then transfer to wire rack or plate. Let cool completely before icing.
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Made 3 1/2 dozen for me. The cookies tasted great. If you aren't going to ice them, you should sprinkle sugar on them before you bake them.

MARIE'S CHOCOLATE ICING
1 tbsp. butter 1 square (oz.) unsweetened chocolate 1 1/2 tbsps. warm water
1 cup confectioner's sugar.

In a double boiler, melt butter and chocolate.
Blend in warm water. (I used a spoon for this recipe, rather than a mixer.)
Beat in confectioner's sugar until icing is smooth and at desired consistency.
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I kept it mildly hot while I used it. This makes a lot of icing. I would have halved it for this project, in retrospect.

EASY CREAMY ICING
1 cup confectioner's sugar 1/4 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. vanilla 1 1/2 tbsp cream

Blend it all together, adding cream only as necessary for easy spreading.
Divide up to tint.
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I made this recipe four times to make enough icing. There was some left over for some of the colors, but four batches was about enough. I should have added less cream to at least two batches, so mix everything but the cream and then add it as needed.
The "plastic bag" method of icing is described at the top of the post. I'm too cheap to buy proper frosting bags with tips.

All recipes from the 1972 Betty Crocker's Cooky Book.