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Peggy's Baking Corner -
Snowflake Cookies
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Timeline for
making the Snowflake Cookies:
Sugar
Cookies NOTE: If you can have your room on the cool side (I like 65° when baking), the fats and sugar whip up much better. Preheat oven to 350° F. In a large mixing bowl, cream sugar, butter, and shortening approximately 3 minutes or until light and fluffy on medium speed. NOTE: I used my Kitchen Aid for these recipes. If using a hand mixer you will need to cream approximately 5 minutes. Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract; mix an additional 1 minute Add flour and salt; mix on high speed until dough holds together. Add one or two tablespoons of water if necessary. Form dough into two disks (6-inch by 9-inch) and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours but better if overnight. When ready to roll the dough, remove one dough disk at a time from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll disk about 3/16 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place 1-inch apart on ungreased baking sheet. Gather and press all scraps together (you can re-roll and cut shapes but keep it cold). Refrigerate cut cookies (on baking sheet) at least 30 minutes. Don't cheat on this especially if you have cutouts in the dough. Remove from refrigerator and bake 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges just start to brown. For my oven (which was calibrated before this project) 8 minutes was just right. Remove from oven and allow cookies to sit on the cookie sheet for a few minutes to allow them to harden. Carefully move to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating with Royal Icing.
4 ounces butter * Can be purchased at most craft stores. Preheat oven to 350° F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and spray lightly with pan coating. Cream the butter with flat paddle attachment of electric mixer on high speed about 3 minutes or until soft. Beat in sugar; continue beating for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in molasses and then beat in egg, scraping down bowl once or twice. Sift together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in three batches, mixing just until each batch is blended. Shape into a large flat ball by hand, kneading a few times until smooth. Shape into two disks (6-inch by 9-inch). Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours or until firm enough to roll out. Overnight is best. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 3/16" thickness. Cut out shapes as desired using either a gingerbread person shape or any other of your choice. Transfer to cookie sheets using a broad-angled spatula, leaving at least 1 inch between cookies. Place similar sized cookies on the same sheet. To make hanging ornaments, punch holes in the tops of the shapes with a straw.
For Snowflake Cookies, bake for 9 1/2 to12
minutes depending on size, rotating pans front to back once during baking.
They should just begin to brown around the edges and feel firm to the touch.
Remove from oven and cool pans on wire racks for a few minutes; transfer
cookies to racks to cool completely. Let pans cool completely before
proceeding with next batch; you may reuse the parchment. Store in airtight
container at room temperature for up to two weeks or freeze for up to one
month. Decorate as you desire with Royal Icing. |
Peggy's Baking Corner Home Page Check out some of Peggy Weaver's many Cake Decorating Articles, Tutorials, and Q&A pages below.
Fondant Icing/Covering:
Bubbles in the
Fondant
Buttercream Icing/Covering: Buttercream Icing 101 (Recipe and Tutorial on making & using buttercream icing)
Wedding Cakes: Assembling Cakes/Wedding Cakes
Cake Fillings Other Cake Baking and Decoration Topics: (The idea page has photos only and no detailed decorating instructions.)
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DOUGH: Use a mixture of Crisco and Butter. I know, I know, There will be lots of complaints here but this is one time I found that in using the combination, the cookie is tender, flavorful and held the cookie cutter design. Some of the cookies that I made have cutouts. When I used just butter the cutout closed up and the edges of the cookies just had ripples instead of points. REFRIGERATING DOUGH: Keep the dough cold. I separated the dough into two parts after I made it. I patted each half to 6-inch by 9-inch disks, wrapped them in plastic wrap, and refrigerated. This shape allowed me to start rolling quickly and helped with cutting out the snowflakes. After rolling out and cutting the cookies, even if you are fast, put those trays in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. It makes all the difference in the world. The cookies edges come out beautiful because the edges bake very quickly and hold the look before the butter and the Crisco melt and make a puddled mess. ROLLING DOUGH: To keep the cookie dough from sticking, I combined one (1) part powdered sugar to one (1) part flour. I had no problem with dough sticking to the counter and the cookie wasn't damaged by to much flour being added to the recipe, causing toughness. Roll out your Sugar Cookie dough 3/16-inch thick. The 1/8-inch cookie broke, 1/4-inch was tough. I'm lucky that I have a husband that has a work shop. He made for me a set of "Baking Gages". They are two strips of maple, 16 -inches long and 1-inch wide. The depth is 1/8-inch, 3/16-inch, and 1/4-inch. I tried all three and decided that the 3/16-inch is by far the best. You can get the gages at many baking stores or internet sites. I now feel these are a necessity for all my baking and all our daughters are getting them for Christmas. They made rolling out so easy. The best thing is that everything is uniform and all bake evenly. BAKING SHEETS: I tried four different baking sheets. The air-bake type, the cheap sheets that you get at the market and replace every year or so, a heavy steal sheet, and the stoneware type. My husband and the neighbor both voted on the cheap sheets. The air-bake was a very soft cookie. When I tried baking longer, the cookie just seemed dried out. The heavy steel sheet burned the bottom but was soggy in the middle. The stoneware sheet took five more minutes to bake and had to be completely cooled before baking the next batch. The cheap sheet, in eight minutes, gave me a strong bottomed but tender cookie that was a very lightly golden. Exactly what I was looking for. Also I didn't have to use a nonstick spray or parchment to keep the cookies from sticking. COOLING: After baking, let the cookies sit on the tray for a few minutes to cool otherwise you take a change of breaking off the snowflake points. Also use a thin metal spatula to remove cookies from the tray to a cooling rack. If necessary dust the spatula with a bit of the flour and powdered sugar mix to keep things from sticking.
COOKIE CUTTERS USED: Cutter #38334, 4 7/8-inch - $1.69.
Five-piece snowflake cutter set - $6.95, they
are from 5/8 inch to 4 5/8-inch. |
Email Peggy :If you have any additional questions or comments that have not been answers in the categories above, Peggy will try to answer them for you.Email Peggy: (just click on the underlined): Peggy Weaver. Please, first check the sections above before emailing, as Peggy gets many repeat questions.
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Warning: Any grease will break down icing. Remember if the icing is too dry, add water a few drops at a time. If icing is too moist, add more powdered sugar. It's as simple as that.
1 pound fondant or powdered
sugar In a large mixing bowl, stir together powdered sugar, cream of tartar, and Egg White Powder. Add water and vanilla extract; beat at low speed until sugar is dissolved, then at high speed about 10 minutes or until mixture is light and fluffy (icing must hold its shape before using). Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth to prevent drying. NOTE: I spooned 1/2 of this mixture into a 10-inch piping bag fitted with a #2 tip. I liked putting a "Chip Clip" on the top of the bag to keep it closed and twisting the bag to get the icing to flow. By twisting, I used a lot less hand pressure and didn't tire out so easily. Put the piping bag tip side down in a glass that has a damp paper towel in the bottom. This will keep the icing hardening up like cement while you attend to other life duties. To the second 1/2 of the icing, I added water, a teaspoon at a time and mixed well until the consistency of heavy whipping cream. Then I poured it into a squeezable bottle with a cap and stored the bottle upside down in a glass. I outlined the cookie with the pastry bag and let them sit for a few minutes, Then flood the icing from the squeeze bottle, with a back and forth motion over the whole area. If necessary use a knife to smooth all over the cookie and a toothpick comes in handy for getting rid of tiny bubbles and filling little holes. Set aside and let dry overnight. Next day, pipe your designs. I had eight drawings of patterns that I made up, so I taped them on my dish closet door right in front of my face for fast reference. The drawing were the basic idea and every cookie ended up with different points, curls, swirls and dots. Let dry overnight then package. Peggy's notes and comments on decorating these delightful cookies:
DECORATING: 1) A 10-inch plastic (not disposable) piping bag with a #2 tip for edges and details. 2) A squeeze bottle for flooding. 3) A few toothpicks to get the icing in the funny little corners.
4) A knife to help smooth out the flooded
area if necessary.
FROSTING OR ICING:
PACKAGING:
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Snowflake Cookies
Gingerbread
Cookies 
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