Hi friends,
I feel like I haven’t talked about this before, but one of the things I do with some of my friends is bake cookies. A lot of my friends want to know how they can make the pretty sugar cookies they see online. As the unofficial baker of my friend group, it’s not unheard of for a friend to say, “Hey—When are you going to teach me how to make pretty sugar cookies? Mine never turn out how I think they should.”
Now the perfectionist in me makes it hard for me to bake cookies with other people. I explain to them that the cookie project is not a 30-minute activity. I tell them making pretty sugar cookies sometimes takes days. Luckily, a few friends are up for the challenge.
My friend Bobbie Jill is one of those friends who has really taken off with decorating cookies, now taking orders for and selling cookies regularly. The first couple of times we got together to make cookies I didn’t know if she was going to make it. She wanted to make perfect cookies immediately. Of course, I know the feeling, but with any new hobby, your first take is not going to be the best!
Our first time together, we planned on making sugar cookies from scratch, but we ended up shopping so much that weekend, that we ended up at H-E-B, purchasing round plain sugar cookies and decorating those. The results were NOT pretty. The cookies did not have a smooth surface, so the frosting dipped into the holes of the cookies and showed every bump. Of course, they still tasted great.
So, step No. 1 for cookie decorating:
- Start with a flat, nonporous cookie. This pretty much means bake your own cookies.
The next time we got together, we decided we would each bake cookies separately (we live in different cities) and then decorate them together. That worked much better, though we still left decorating to the end after spending too much money and time at The Domain.
So, Step No. 2:
2. Give yourself enough time to decorate.
The next time we got together was even better. We went to Hobby Lobby and purchased my favorite bottles, which are accordion looking and are the easiest for me to push the royal icing through without hurting my hands too much.
Step No. 3:
3. Have the right tools.
Since that first time of baking cookies, both of us have learned so much and gotten so much better at baking cookies. This is a fun hobby I enjoy doing with friends. It’s a lot of work, but people love the results and I’m glad I can introduce my friends to this hobby—and glad some of them are taking it to the next level—selling their lovely treats to others.
