Turning Sugar Cookies into Christmas Ornaments

In my post yesterday, I mentioned making Christmas Ornaments out of some of our sugar cookies. I got a lot of questions about it so I here is how I did it.

Bake your cookies, making sure to poke a hole for hanging later, and let them cool. While they are cooling mix together the flow icing.

Cookie Ornament Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon corn syrup
water

Mix the powdered sugar and corn syrup together. Start adding water a FEW drops at a time. If you are going to use liquid food color add it at the beginning. Since it's made out of water, it can thin your icing too much if you add it towards the end.

You want the icing to be thick, but not so thick that you have a hard time pushing it out of a pastry bag or a zip-top bag with the corner barely snipped off. Put some of you icing into a bag and leave some in the bowl for thinning out to flow into your outline later.

Out line all of your cookies with one color first. If you have a cookie (like a candy cane) that are going to have more than 1 color, pick one and outline those areas first. Let it dry, the outline the other color(s).

While the outlines are setting up, thin the icing you left in the bowls to the consistency of glaze. You want it to be thin enough to easily spread but not so thin that it's going to run everywhere. It's really going to be trial and error until you get the hang of it.

To flow the outlines full, you can pipe the icing into the outlines, or you can soon a small amount in with a spoon and spread it out with a spatula. Make sure to get into all the corners (a toothpick works well for the little spots. Kind of push it around). Let them air dry for a few hours (overnight is best) hang them on your tree and be proud of how good they look!

I wish I could give you some hard and fast rules on this one, but it really comes down to being really stingy with the liquid and thinning it out slowly. However! it is so easy that once you get started you'll see what I mean and it will be a simple craft that you'll have fun doing.

We're adding to the ways you can do a little more Homemade for the Holidays this year!