Tips for Decorating Christmas Cookies with Young Kids

Nothing says holidays like decorating cookies, Christmas especially.  We decorate cookies for most holidays, usually with extended family, but this year it was just me and my older 2 kids and a friend and we had just as much fun.  That is one of the joys of cookie decorating, it is great for any size group.  Here are some tips I have learned over the years of decorating cookies with my students while I was teaching first grade and decorating cookies with my own family. 

1.  Know your limits!  Baking sugar cookies can be fairly difficult.  Don't try to start from scratch all in one day.  Make your cookies the day before you plan on decorating them.  If you are going to bake your own it is absolutely necessary that you chill the dough, it is best if it can chill overnight.  I am convinced this is the secret to getting the cookies to work and keeping yourself from tearing out your hair in frustration.  Realize, you can order unfrosted sugar cookies in almost any shape from nearly every grocery store bakery, all it takes is a simple phone call.  If you live in Utah, Macy's has them for super cheap.  That is all I have done for years.  This summer was the first time I was able to actually get a sugar cookie recipe to work.  My kids don't know the difference all they care about are the sprinkles.

2.  Make your life easy, buy the canned frosting.  I know the homemade usually tastes better, but honestly, by the time your toddler is done dumping sprinkles all over the thing and has licked his or her knife several times, taste is not really going to be a factor.  Simplify!  Buy several tubs of the Betty Crocker stuff and call it good.

3.  When you buy your frosting, always buy the "whipped" frosting for decorating with kids.  It is soooo... much easier to spread.  My personal favorite is the whipped cream cheese frosting.  Then when you get it home, divide it up into multiple bowls and use food coloring to dye it different colors. 

4.  When setting up an area to decorate, realize it will be messy, if you are worried put a dropcloth or old tablecloth under your table.  Sprinkles go everywhere and at least one kid will dump an entire bottle on their cookie.  

5.  Don't buy the peppermint sprinkles, they look cute but are nasty, same with the really cute mini candy pieces they make in holidays shapes.  Stick to tastier things, regular sprinkles and colored sugar, mini chocolate chips (my personal favorite), and m&m's.

6.  When you start, give each child a paper plate with a cookie on it.  Give them their own plastic knife, or if they are really little, use a popsicle stick and then put spoonfuls of frosting on their plate.  This helps prevent licked knives from going into the main bowl of frosting multiple times.

7.  Lower your expectations.  Most little kids will love decorating one, maybe two cookies, then they will either want to eat it or eat the m&m's and be done.  Be okay with that.  Get your camera out right when your child starts decorating and get a couple of good pictures and take a picture of the finished product.  Your child has had a great time and you have the pictures to prove it.  This is the reason I suggest taking the easy way when it comes to the cookies and frosting.  If you haven't spent hours and hours slaving over making the cookies and making the perfect frosting, then you are not going to be mad that only a few cookies got decorated.  If you like baking from scratch and have a recipe you like, then go for it, but realize kids are not really going to appreciate that part and be okay with that, recognize the from scratch part is for you, not for the kids.

Fourth of July Sugar Cookies

Sorry that the photo is not great.  I am having some issues with a broken camera lens.  Sugar cookies have long been the bane of my cooking existence.  I NEVER make them!  Unfortunately, with young kids, they are a necessary evil.  Cookie decorating is the joy of nearly every holiday.  I have tried and tried to get them right and they just never work out.  They are always falling apart as I try to cut them out and move them to the cookie tray.  I never have the patience to chill the dough.  They seem to require such a time commitment and they have always seemed so tempermental to me.  So at my house, when we decorate cookies, I order them already baked from my local grocery store bakery, a solution that works out fine with me for the most part.  However, there is this annoying part of me that is always bugged by the fact that I can't get something that is supposed to be such a cooking basic right.  Anyway, since the 4th of July is not typically one of those "cookie decorating holidays", so the pressure for perfect cookies would be minimal, and because I have several awesome star cookie cutters.  I decided that I was actually going to attempt some sugar cookie making.  I figured that if I volunteered to bring them the the barbeque at my parents house for the fireworks, if they bombed, I could just make something else and take it for desert.  I did in fact make some carmel popcorn to take along with these cookies because I was so unsure of my cookie making skills.  I think I may finally have figured a few things out.  I knew I had to actually chill the dough, which must be the true secret.  I have also discovered that I tend to roll the dough too thin and to cook the cookies too long.  Next time I will be a little more careful on both those points, however, note that I am suggesting there will be a next time.  I started with the most basic.  I got my recipe for the cookies from the Martha Stewart website.  It was called "Ideal Sugar Cookies".  The recipe was great,  I did use milk instead of the brandy it gave as an option, but other than that, I followed the recipe exactly.  Next time I would double the recipe, because it wasn't a ton of dough and if I am going to go to all the work of making sugar cookies, I am going to make plenty.  Here's a link to the recipe.  After the cookies had cooled completed I used a sugar cookie glaze recipe from allrecipes.com that was awesome.  Here is the link and below is what I actually did (I read some of the reviews and made a couple of changes). 

Sugar Cookie Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tblsp light corn syrup

2 tblsp milk

1tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients together.  Then dip cookies in glaze.  (can add food coloring for varied colors)

After dipping my cookies in the white glaze, I dipped them in red, white and blue sprinkles.  They were a hit and maybe now my kids will grow up thinking that sugar cookies don't have to come in a plastic container!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know it is sad to say, but really, these cookies practically count as vegetable at our house!  I know it is pathetic, but I admit it, my kids are picky, especially my son.  I'll take my vegetables where I can get them!  I know everyone has heard of this easier than easy recipe, but sometimes I forget about it.  I didn't make these cookies forever and then I remembered them and lately we have been making them regularly because my kids seriously shovel them in.  I know, all you perfectly healthy folks who don't do sugar or chocolate will disagree, but in my book, these are as healthy a treat as you can get.   All it takes to make them is 2 boxes of spice cake mix, one of the big cans of pumpkin, and some chocolate chips.  A friend gave me the tip to use the mini-chocolate chips because you can get away with using less.  I dump the cake mixes and pumpkin in a big bowl and use a spatula to mix it all.  It takes a bit of serious mixing, but once it is all incorporated, add your chocolate chips.  Use your cookie size ice cream scoop and drop the dough onto your cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.  You end up with about 60 cookies and happy kids!