Assignment 20: HOW TO DECORATE CHRISTMAS COOKIES- Jordan Strange

'tis the season. Christmas is just around the corner and you have 50 extended family members coming over and you have nothing ready. BUT maybe you could at least have Christmas cookies ready.

1. First, you need to decide what types of cookies you're going to make. Usually, people just stick with the classic Sugar cookie. But, if you want more of a variety, you can make anything from snicker doodles to peanut butter to fun-fetti to original chocolate chip cookies. Whatever you want. The best and easiest cookies to decorate are sugar. So I recommend those 

2.  Make the cookies. If you want to make them from scratch, I recommend this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/10402/the-best-rolled-sugar-cookies/

If you don't have the time or the cooking abilities, I suggest the Pillsbury pre-packaged cookie dough roll. 

3. Roll out your cookie dough. Despite which route you take, you'll have to roll out your dough. This usually requires about a cup of flour to eliminate any stickiness and a CLEAN counter-top.  

4. After you have your dough rolled out (it should be 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch thick), you can make shapes! You can purchase a pack of cookie-cutters anywhere. Or if you're artistic, make the shapes yourself! All you need is a knife! You can do anything from Santa to Christmas trees to elves to snowballs (my personal favorite). Have fun! 

5. BAKE THE COOKIES!! Depending on which way you made your cookies, time may differ. 

Tip: Don't burn the cookies. Your family will then be sad and they will probably starve and leave. 

6. DECORATING!!!!! 

For this, you'll need lots of different colors of icing. You can buy tubs of white icing and dye smaller portions different colors. You can also buy small tubes of icing to be able to write on or outline your cookies. Also, SPRINKLES! You can buy different varieties of sprinkles for people to completely cover their cookies with. Sprinkles are always lots of fun. I highly recommend lots of these. 

7. After decorating, YOU EAT! How fun. 

Or, a fun alternative, you put lots of your nicely decorated cookies together on platters or in smaller bags and you deliver them to a nursing home or the Salvation Army, or a homeless shelter. Give your cookies away to people who really could use a little bit of Christmas cheer. It's really fun. And you end up with a happy heart. 

BUT EITHER WAY HAVE FUN.