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Jadite-Colored Christmas Sugar Cookies

It's difficult to imagine a Christmas without cookies.  For this year's sweet edibles, I turned to that mid-century colored glass known as jadeite/jadite/jade-ite for my color palette.  Working with three particular shades of green, I decorated several holiday shapes for our town's Christmas cookies.  Ornaments, mittens, candy canes, tiny houses, hemlocks, junipers, arborvitae, and spruce trees, were given the jadeite treatment in royal icing.  


When you're in charge of decorating dozens upon dozens (I can't photograph all of them) of cookies and you are working solo, you tend to stick to easy decorating techniques.  Most of the cookies that you see here were decorated with multiple colors of royal icing, and were then either sprinkled with nonpareils or were enhanced with holiday-themed candies.  That is it.  Nothing fancy.

For this project you will need royal icing tinted with Americolor Avocado, Wilton Kelly Green and Wilton Leaf Green.  Mix just enough to give you light shades.  Reserve white royal icing to add it where you see fit.    

Take a look.


For the arborvitae-shaped cookie:  flood and ice the cookie using a #3 piping tip in one single shade of green or ice each section in a different color, giving an ombré effect.  Let dry completely.  Pipe a bead of icing from end to end, in between each section of the evergreen, and immediately add holly leaf candies as shown.  Let dry completely.  Pipe dots of icing in between the holly leaves and gently affix red holly candies or silver drageés.  Let dry completely. 


Candy Cane Cookies:  easy as can be; outline and flood each candy cane in one single shade of royal icing using a #3 piping tip.  While the icing is wet, pipe lines of another shade of green royal icing as shown, using a #1 piping tip.  Gently place white pearl candies or 3mm silver drageés in between sections.  Done!


Hemlock Cookies:  outline and flood the bases of the cookies using an either #3 or #4 piping tip in whatever shade of royal icing you want.  Let dry completely.  Pipe a bead of icing along the edges of each evergreen, making swoops along the branches as shown, and while the icing is wet, gently dredge the bead of icing in white nonpareils.



As you can see, some candy canes were decorated slightly differently.  Do whatever you feel like.

Tiny Houses:  outline and flood the snowy rooftops in white royal icing, using a #2 piping tip, and while the icing is wet, haphazardly drop white nonpareils for a snowy effect.  Using a green royal icing and a #3 piping tip, outline and flood the house itself and make the door a different shade of royal icing.  Add holly leaf candies, gingerbread men candies as you see fit.

Spruce Cookies:  Outline and flood the base of each cookie in green royal icing, using a #3 piping tip and let dry completely.  Using white royal icing and a #2 piping tip, pip swags along the length of the cookie as shown and dredge the swags in nonpareils of your choice.  Let dry.


Christmas Ornaments: outline and flood the spheres in green royal icing, and immediately pipe the tops of each in a different color.  You can then add a white pearl candy if you wish.  While the icing is still wet on the large sphere, affix holly leaf candies and for the "hook" area, simply pipe a dot of royal icing and affix a silver drageé.

Mittens:  outline and flood the cuff of the mitten in one color and then immediately outline and flood the hand of the mitten in a different color, both using #2 piping tips.  Let dry completely.  You can then pipe a bead of icing using a #1 piping tip to give the cookie some depth.  Affix holly leaf candies and berries using royal icing.


I like to photograph side views of my cookies because they look so tempting when I style them on my platters and cake stands.  This pair of jadeite cake stands were made by L.E. Smith Glass and the pattern is called 'Dominion'.



My sincerest hope is that this post prompts you to decorate a few Christmas cookies of your own for your folks at home.  As much as I wanted to tint some royal icing in bright red to go with the colors of Christmas, I resisted.  I'm glad that I got out of my comfort zone and stuck to a particular color palette.  

Bake cookies, ice cookies, and enjoy one or two this holiday season.

Merry Christmas!!
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