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Fall Leaf Cookies

My favorite time of year gives us the most colorful leaves imaginable.  With a large number of deciduous trees surrounding our home, I'm fortunate to witness their beautiful transformation every single year.  It was only natural for me to try and capture those colors & shapes in the form of cookies for some of my family members on the west coast.  Using my trusted sugar & chocolate cookie recipes,  I then set out to mix some seasonal colors into a double batch of my perfect royal icing recipe.    


Now that the Fall season is here, try making a batch of fall leaves for your loved ones.  All you need is a set of leaf cookie cutters and my tried & true recipes (links provided above).  Unless I have a special commission from a client or a friend, I usually go with what I feel like creating at the time.  Over the years of making countless cookies, I have usually stuck with a 'less is more' approach to icing my creations.  These types of cookies are equally beautiful and eye catching as the more elaborately designed & iced cookies of professionals.    

Fall Leaf Cookies

Print out my Baking Essentials Checklist and make sure you have everything in the kitchen.  Allow yourself one afternoon of making cookie doughs, rolling the slabs out and cutting out the shapes.  Let them chill and then bake.  If you want to ice the cookies that same day go right ahead, but you can also ice them at a later date.  

Mixing the colors into batches of royal icing is always fun.  I trust my colors to Wilton or Ateco gel paste food colors, because they are consistent, vivid & always reliable.  I made a total of 10 colors this particular day because I was making other holiday cookies.  You'll see those soon!

Sitting on this duo of vintage, highly-collectible wirework trays, is a set of baked cookies ready to be iced.  I love these trays to no end.  

If you look closely, you'll see that the cookies have been marbled.  After my baking demonstration at Williams-Sonoma this past month, I had leftover cookie dough which I used to make these tasty treats.  



Fall Leaf Cookies can be as elaborate or as whimsical as you want them to be. Add a base coat of royal icing and flock it with sanding sugar, like I've done with some of my cookies, or create visual interest by adding layers of dots, lines or special holiday-themed/seasonal candies.  It's completely up to you!

If you arrange them on a large platter it will look as if you've been out in the woods collecting the most vibrant of leaves.  


Delightful, colorful and irresistibly delicious Fall Leaf Cookies are bound to delight kids of all ages.  If you plan on entertaining soon to welcome the season, I do encourage you to make a variety of these cookies or some that are similar.  

All of the cookies you see here have already been carefully packaged up into crisp cellophane bags tied with bright orange grosgrain ribbon.  I think they're going to like them.


Cheers!
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Comments

  1. JefDecember 8, 2014 at 12:54 AM

    David, Just found your blog. It is nice to know that I'm not the only one who misses Martha by Mail. I'm glad I bought some of the sets of cookie cutters and wish I got others.
    Do you have the orchid set? I hoping to make and decorate them when one of my great nieces gets engaged.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good Things by DavidDecember 8, 2014 at 6:57 AM

    Jef,

    I'm so glad you found the blog and yes, you're not the only one who misses Martha by Mail. FYI: we have a MBM Facebook group if you want to join! :)

    As for the Orchid Cookie Cutter Set, unfortunately I never purchased those. They're gorgeous! Do you want me to ask our collectors to see if anyone is willing to sell a set?

    You should join our group!

    ReplyDelete

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