merry christmas

My sister and I thought it'd be nice to bake cookies so we set aside a saturday evening and recruited another sister. I can craft like there's no tomorrow, but when it comes to baking, I'm hopeless. However, my sister is Susie-Homemaker, aka a pro at baking. So while she made these ornate pistaschio christmas tree cookies, I stuck with the Krusteaz (just add water) sugar cookies. With her help, I made little snowmen, men and candy canes, covered in sweet powdered sugar icing. This is what I ended up with!

these cookies broke coming out of the oven, but I decided to ice them anyway

I discovered the secret to icing them. 1. Make a batch of royal icing (the recipe is real common and can be found on the internet, be sure that the recipe includes meringe powder or egg whites so the icing will harden). When making the icing be sure to whip/mix it until the icing is stiff. 2. Separate your icing into bowls. I had three colors, so I had three bowls. 3. Add coloring. 4. Put a third of each color into individual piping bags (I used three ziplock bags, with a small cut in the corner). The left over will remain in the bowl. 5. Pipe ONLY the outline of your cookie 6. Using the remaining icing in the bowls, fill in the piped outline you just made with a brush (i used a cheap plastic craft brush) NOTE: For the icing to dry smooth, it must be watered down. So, in the icing you left in the bowl, add a teaspoon of water until it becomes the desired consistency (which shouldnt be stiff or runny but somewhere in between, THINK: wash-in/wash-out hair conditioner). If the icing is too thick, it'll dry clumpy; if the icing is too running it'll take a long time to dry, or won't dry at all. 7. Add detail with the piping bags!

And you're done!!!