When in Rome

...Do as the Romans do. When shopping in Target, think about Christmas. Grrrr. Can I have my birthday before the decorations go up? Geeeez.

At any rate, for $10 I bought a Wilton book, "Cookie Exchange". It's helping me stay awake during tonight's Yankee game (evil grin).

I love making rolled cutout cookies, and my family and friends love my recipe (unsalted butter people, try it and you'll thank me. )

I don't go crazy decorating. A little colored sugar or cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on before baking seems to please the crowd. But I could do more...the book is also fun just to browse through.

Some of the cookie decorating ideas in this magazine/ book are just OUT OF CONTROL. I'm sorry, take every cookie and cover it with tiny piped stars? Paging the reality police!

It's one thing to color flow on cookies. (Outine with a slightly thicker icing, then "flow" in thinner color that will level out smooth and set firm). Suzy does this for special party cookies - like for a baby shower. Beautiful. But you have to be a VERY patient person.

The book shows several variations of color flow techniques. You can pipe into color flow that isn't dried yet, you can drag and swirl colors...

The book goes pretty far beyond that. One tree is color flow PLUS flow for the star (requiring a second color of border and flow icing) PLUS piped pullout branches PLUS sprinkled sugar crystals. Figure ten minutes per cookie, easily. At Christmas, when no one has tons of free time! The good news is that each one is SO SWEET nobody will ask for a second cookie. They'll crash from sugar shock first.

I could see maybe doing a dozen or so cookies with some of the semi-fancy methods, for something special like to put one at each place setting for your holiday dinner. But I worry that this is the kind of book that makes Mommies stay up until 2 am the night before the holiday party....

I will definitely try coloring some cutout cookie dough. So simple and yet I never do it. Also I think this year I will dip some cookies in chocolate melts (and then maybe nuts) and/or drizzle melted candy over them. Another thing I might try is clear or colored gel underneath the sugar sprinkles. (Usually piping gel goes on cakes, as far as Carly goes.)

But color flow, then pipe detail lines and then PAINT THOSE LINES with gold or pearl dust? Noooooo. Crazy. (Okay. Maybe just on one REALLY big single cookie. )

Carly(via Blackberry)