Our guest blogger is LOREN EBERT – wife, mother, and self-proclaimed cookie and cake decorating fanatic!
It’s that time of year when we start planning our holiday baking and Christmas cookies are always at the top of my to-do list! Whether I’m bringing a hostess gift for an annual Christmas party, a little something for a teacher’s gift or an impressive Cookie Swap offering, hand-decorated cookies always bring the WOWs! This year I changed things up a bit and decided to make some chocolate chip roll-out cookies instead of standard vanilla sugar cookies. These are always a hit with the kids too!
Big Batch Chocolate Chip Roll-Out Cookie Recipe
2 cups salted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 T. Lorann Madagascar Vanilla Extract
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups mini chocolate chips
Cream butter and sugars in bowl of large stand mixer. Add eggs one at a time until fully incorporated. Add vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. On low-speed, slowly add flour mixture to butter/sugar mixture, one large spoonful at a time. Once all the flour mixture is combined, add chips.
Remove dough from bowl and form a ball. Double wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for several hours. Roll out your dough on a floured surface*, cut with cookie cutters** and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until the bottom of the cookie is slightly browned.
*If dough is too cold to roll out easily, let it sit out at room temp until it softens.
** The chocolate chips in this recipe make it more difficult to use intricately detailed cookie cutters. Simple shapes like circles and squares work best.
Royal Icing
5 T. Lorann Meringue Powder
¾ cup warm water
5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
Whisk together meringue powder and water until foamy and no lumps. Add 5 cups sifted powdered sugar and mix on low until powdered sugar is fully incorporated. Switch mixer on med-high for 3-5 minutes or until icing thickens. Color your icing and fill piping bags fitted with decorating tips. For thin icing add a few drops of water at a time until icing is the consistency of pancake syrup and fill squeeze bottles.
To Decorate Snowman Faces:
- Outline the outer edge of the cookie with thick, white royal icing in a piping bag fitted with a #2 round piping tip. Let it dry for several minutes.
- Fill in the inside of your outline with thinned royal icing and spread with offset spatula. Let it dry and harden for several hours.
- Dip black 4mm sugar pearls in some white icing and using tweezers, place on cookie for eyes and mouth.
- Pipe an orange “carrot” nose.
- On the top portion of the circle, pipe an outline of hat with pink or blue icing. Let dry for several minutes.
- Fill in the outline with thinned pink or blue icing and spread with offset spatula. Let dry for several hours. Use star tip #14 to pipe fancy shell border on rim of hat.
- Use a #101 petal tip to pipe rose.
- Use a #352 leaf tip to pipe leaves.For more cookie and cake decorating tutorials, recipes and inspiration, join me on my blog: www.thebakingsheet.blogspot.com and/or Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Baking-Sheet/
