Oh my goodness these cookies are just the sweetest things.
I am totally in love with the pretty pastel colors and the flying reindeer shape.
I'm calling the colors white, dusky pink and teal.....'cause that's the titles on the food color bottles. But I think you can also call the 'teal', mint green or perhaps seafoam.
I'm not really sure, sometimes I get a bit confused with all those fancy names :)
What I do know is that they look even more adorable in real life and that the teal color with white and a pop of red looks amazing.
Anyhoo......before you all ask......the cookie cutter.
Lots of you may already have it which is great news. I picked it up in a bucket of 100 cutters from Aldi (discount supermarket) last year, for around 10 or 20 dollars for the whole lot.
In the US I have seen them sold as Faberware sets or maybe Roshco 100 piece plastic sets, Amazon has them listed kinda expensive (see below) although I noticed a used one for a good price. Or maybe try Ebay.
Like I said you might already have it or be lucky enough to find a set, but if not you could pick up a similar one by picking up a flying reindeer like the one from the below link.
Now I know the flying reindeers do not have the lovely looking fragile antlers and legs, but that might be a good thing for some. I use a pretty good cookie recipe (the one from my cook book Sweets on a Stick) and the dough was pretty chilled, but I still rolled each cookie out on a square of parchment paper to make it easier to pick up and pop onto the oven tray. Plus I needed to gently ease/push out the antlers and legs. Not unachievable, or even that hard, but kinda time consuming and not so kid friendly.
But they do look soooo sweet so for me totally worth it :)
I'm kinda into the whole color scheme at the moment so I seemed to have a stack of stuff sitting around ready for some photo's.
Photo stuff Vendor/Stockists:
Ribbon sets - Tilda (I bought mine @ Sewco Mt Gravatt)
Mint Green Sandy Cup - Greengate (I bought mine @ Originated Shop)
Silver Christmas baubles - Spotlight
Paisley card stock - Tilda (I bought mine @ Sewco Mr Gravatt)
Before I start the tutorial - just a quick reminder that if you don't want to miss out on any posts you can subscribe for free up in the top right corner of this blog by entering your email address. I have lots of Christmas cookies and treats coming up so you won't want to miss a single sweet thing (and facebook is mostly unreliable for updates these days).
Sweetest Thing Reindeer Cookies
If you don't like fondant covered cookies you can follow the general directions using royal icing instead, well y'know piping instead of rolling out and cutting. Y'all get the idea :)
Reindeer cookie cutter
cookie dough (I used the recipe from Sweets on a Stick stockist details below)
White ready roll fondant (I used Bakels)
food color (I used Americolor Teal, Americolor Ivory, Sugarflair dusky pink and red)
Royal Icing (I mixed up a little premix with water)
Edible glitter in pink and silver
Small rolling pin
cornflour / cornstarch
brush and water
Roll out the cookie dough onto parchment paper and cut out reindeer shapes. If you cutter has fragile thin pieces make sure the dough is quite chilled and ease each section out with the base of a knife, or some other flatish thin tool.
Chill in freezer for around 15 minutes and then bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until just golden, remove from oven and allow to cool on baking tray enough so they are firm and easy to move without breaking. Place on wire rack to cool completely.
Take a tablespoon of the fondant and color red. Divide the remaining fondant into 3 evenish amounts. Leave one section white, color one section pink and then the remaining teal using 2 parts teal to 1 part ivory to make a color similar to the one in the pictures. (to color fondant knead it well and then gradually work in drops of food color until the desired color is achieved.)
Dust the work bench, knead the white fondant until pliable and roll out until a couple of mm thin (1/16th ") making sure to pick it up and turn often so it does not stick to the bench. Cut out a reindeer shape with the cookie cutter (ensure the cutter has been washed and is completely dry).
Brush a small amount of water onto the cookie and then gently press the fondant onto the cookie using the rolling pin to gently press it into place.
Repeat for remaining cookies until a third of the cookies is covered with white fondant.
To make the spots on the back of the reindeer, pipe small dots of white royal icing with a #2 tip.For the teal spots (on some of the white deers) I just used small balls of teal fondant pressed into place (use a tiny amount of water to stick if necessary).
To make the glittery reindeer noses lay the fondant covered cookies on clean parchment paper, pipe a small dot of royal icing onto the noses and then before the royal icing dries sprinkle a small amount of edible glitter directly onto the wet royal icing.
The red reindeer noses are just small balls of red fondant pressed into place (use a tiny amount of water to stick if necessary)
Wrapping paper Greengate - frameTarget
Linda Vandermeer is a mum, blogger and author of Sweets on a Stick: More than 150 Kid Friendly recipes for cakes, candies, cookies and pies on the go. You can pick it up at all good online book shops including these shops:
I joined in the fun and added my link to:
Published in the USA in 2011 the book is still available at Amazon and many online bookstores.
