This is my first attempt ever at icing cookies! And in fact one of the first times I've ever actually made cookies with cookie cutters as well. Honestly, I'm just too busy with my other creative endeavors to spend time exploring the world of baking gorgeous things. (Don't get me wrong, I do cook, tons, but other than challah, whole wheat pitas and simple cakes there isn't much time left for baking.) For my daughter's birthday a few days ago, though, I wanted to make something special.
While the cookies do look cute and colorful in this photo, my kids actually found them to be too sweet! Really! So while I am tempted to try royal icing for cookies another time, I think everyone would just be so much happier with good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies! Though I don't think they'd be around long enough to photograph them.
Of course if what you really want is some beautiful cookies for display, then go ahead and try this one, a basic cookie dough with icing recipe, here, though it isn't as easy as she makes it look—I think this is 0ne of those things that you can't fake— to look like an expert you may actually have to be one. Oh well! There are those things in life that we need try at least once to know that we won't be spending our precious time doing them, right?
Note: If you want to make poured icing, and don't have corn syrup (which I did not) you can substitute it with sugar syrup, made by melting 1/4 cup water with 1/2 cup sugar and cooking until it's a nice liquid that stays a liquid once cooled.
