Make Snowmen Cookies!

One of my absolute favorite things about the holidays is making cookies with my daughter.  These are obviously from a while back.  I'm only just now getting the time and energy to post about them.  Ah well, better late than never!  It's very difficult for me to let go of my natural inclination towards wanting everything to be perfect.  So letting A-chan help with cookies is so hard.  And yet I love to spend time with her and teach her new things.  I need to relax and learn that the sky will not fall if the kitchen gets a little messy!

We started out with a basic sugar cookie base.  My favorite technique tip for rolling out the dough is to freeze the portion I'm going to be working for a couple of minutes.  That helps it keep from getting too soft and gooey.  If it still gets too soft after it's rolled out, I use my ultra secret technique.  I slide the parchment paper with the rolled out dough onto a small cookie sheet and pop it in the freezer again.  Only for a few minutes though - I just want it to chill slightly so I can cut and separate the cookies from the rolled dough.  I rolled and cut the circles.  A-chan rolled up small balls of the leftover dough and smooshed them into place on the circles.

After the cookies cooled we placed them on another sheet of parchment paper and commenced with the fun part - Sugar galore!  We smoothed on the white icing then quickly sprinkled the colored sugar and placed the miniature chocolate chip eyes before the icing hardened.  After that layer was completely set and hardened I used henna cones filled with icing to finish the decoration.  White icing was layed down in a squiggly pattern for the hat brim and then taken up to finish off the poofball with a swirl.  Chocolate infused icing made the dots for the mouths and orange icing became tiny noses.  We used a little less icing for the cookies that she was taking to school because I was honestly afraid of running out after making 64 cookies!

The cookies above are all packed up and ready to travel to the school party.  The ones down below were the ones that A-chan decorated completely on her own, including doing her own piping!  She added in some extra icing here and there because just like her mama, she is an icing girl.