Icing the Cookies

Got up anxious to finish the cookies. They were calling my name; begging to be eaten! Ok, maybe not. But that’s my story & I’m sticking to it! I highly recommend these cookies. My family says they’re addictive & go through them fast.

Instead of just frosting them & getting the job over, I decided to experiment with 3 different techniques I had seen explained on the internet.

The finished tombstones. Notice the rough edges.

The first ones I worked on were the tombstones. They didn’t take long. I used the offset spatula to frost them. It’s a fast method, but it leaves the edges a bit ragged looking. I’m sure that’s suitable for some times. Gives the cookies a nice home made look.

I worked on the ghosts next. These I needed my icing to be thinner so I add @ 2 teaspoonfuls of water & mixed thoroughly. Outlined the cookies using a #3 tip & gave the outline a few minutes to dry. These I decided to “paint” with icing. This was more time consuming. It did give a more polished look to them though as the edges were nicely defined. I was only partially happy with this method, but I intend to try it again another day. The

The ghosts were outlined & then painted with icing. I used snippets of black licorice for the eyes.

reason I think I was unhappy with it was that my brush was too small. A larger brush would have allowed me to finish the cookies in less time & made it easier to drag the icing where I needed & wanted it.

The rest of the cookies were outlined using a #3 tip. After outlining them, I changed the #3 tip for a #7 tip & filled in the area zigzagging back & forth. If an area didn’t fill in quite right, I used the tip of my brush to push the icing in the direction needed to fill in the cookie. This method worked well & was fairly fast. I would have no problem using this method on a regular basis.

I had picked up several candies to decorate with & varied what I used according to my whim. I had black M&Ms, black licorice whips, red hot cinnamons, red sugar, mixed sprinkles in fall colors & Halloween shaped sprinkles to choose from. It was a pleasant way to spend the morning & we’ll enjoy eating the “tests”.

Pumpkin cookes decorated in various ways. A food decorating marker was used to make the stems.

An assortment of the finished nutmeg cookies.

Tags: Aunt Martha Nutmeg Bells, cookies, decorating cookies, icing cookies, nutmeg cookies