Who Needs Cookie Cutters?

My grandma loves sugar (I could stop here) cookies. So, for her birthday, I asked my boys to help me decorate some to send to her. However, being as they're 5, they decided that they wanted to make squirrel cookies. Squirrel cookies?! I know better than to try to change a 5-year-old's mind.  I don't have a squirrel cookie cutter, but that's okay. Who needs cookie cutters? Did you know that you can make cookies in whatever shape you want... even if you don't have a cookie cutter?!

What You Need:
Vanilla Sugar Cookie Dough
Outline of desired shape (the simpler the better)
A sharp knife
Royal Icing
Icing Colors to complete your decorations
To find a good outline (because I can't draw a straight line freehand), I Google it, of course.

If you click on "Image" when you do your Google Search, one of the options on the left side of the screen is "Line Drawing." (You can see it right there in red at the bottom left of the page grab above.) Click on that and you get lots of great outlines. Now, remember, if you plan to sell the cookies, you can't use a copyright or trademark image.
And for some frustrating reason, I cannot find the adorable squirrel drawing I used for my cookies. Why didn't I bookmark it?! If I find it again, I will link it.

Print out your outline in whatever size you need. This was about 3" tall. Using a sharp knife, cut around the outline. Try to make the outline as smooth as possible.

Voila!

This works best when your dough is a little bit hard, like my Vanilla Sugar Cookies get after refrigerating the rolled-out dough. If it's soft, it tends to squish around the knife, rather than cut.

From there, you bake and decorate them as you would any sugar cookie.
Using Royal Icing, outline the cookie using a tip #1 or #2.Let it dry for 20 minutes or so.

Then you fill it in with the flood consistency icing.  (See my royal icing recipe/tutorial to understand how to make the flooding consistency.) Adding details as you go.

To make a fall scene, and not just some random squirrels, I also decorated some leaf and acorn cookies. Again, starting with the outline and letting it set for a while.

Fill it with the flooding icing.

To make the swirls (or tie dye, as my boys call it), start with dots in another color or two spaced around the cookie.

Use a toothpick to gently make circular motions around the cookie.

Allow the cookies about 5 hours to overnight to dry completely before storing or stacking them.

Click the Links Below to See:
Cookie Decorating Ideas & Recipes
Other Fall, Halloween or Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas

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