Decorated sugar cookies. It is by no means a great leap forward in the world of food. I mean you see them for the winter holidays quite a bit. But, that can be limiting and I don’t like limits. Well let’s use them to have a better fall. There are plenty of events you can bring properly decorated sugar cookies to, from PTA meetings and class events to holidays with the family or a dinner party with friends. This is a great weapon in your food arsenal so lets get going.

First you should make up your own sugar cookie dough and roll it out into a ¼ to ½ inch sheet of dough. Then, for our purposes get out your leaf shaped cookie cutter. (If you, like me do not have one of these, use a small Christmas tree cookie cutter and with a set of cleanly washed hands smooth out the edges to make a tear dropped shape leaf with a stem.

Get out your icing. You can buy pre-colored icing but I like to color my own white icing with food coloring to get the rich fall colors that I want. It is good to have a red, an orange and a yellow at minimum. Once your cookies are do take them out and let them cool. You cannot skip this step, not matter how much you want to, or all the icing in the world will not stick, it will melt away. So just wait it out. It’s shorter in the long run anyway.

Once they are cool you will have two basic icing choices. If you have a spoon or a spatula or butter knife at your disposal then you can just put a small dollop of icing in the center and spread it out over the top. If you have a piping bag you can make a set of leaf veins on the leaves with icing. Go as detailed as your skills will allow. No stress if it happens that that is not like what you see on TV or on cooking shows. Those are professionals and unless you have gone to pastry school you have nothing to be ashamed of. After the icing is on you can add candies as your see fit. The glittery sugars that you see in your baking aisle are a good addition to the mix, just don’t go too heavy. You can always add more on, you will have to scrape and re-ice your cookie to get it off.