One Reindeer Cutter, 2 Versions

I’m so happy to tell you that I’m now going to be helping the nice people over at Cookie Cutter Company design cookies for some of the many wonderful cookie cutters that they sell!  I am so flattered that they asked me, since I use SO MANY  of the cutters they sell on their website.  This is my first tutorial for them.  For this and other great tutorials, head on over to their website!  

Are the ‘to do’s’ on your holiday list still glaring at you?  Especially since Christmas Day will be here in less than one week, which, in real time means the blink of an eye! And you STILL haven’t had the time/patience/energy to do decorated cookies with or even without the kids?

Don’t worry.  I’m Gail, from “One Tough Cookie”, and I’m going to show you how to squeeze a little decorated cookie love into your holiday prep schedule without breaking a sweat.  And, because you’re so stressed and I’m feeling so generous, I’m showing you two ways to make your family and guests smile.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1.  2 flavors of cookie dough (vanilla and chocolate or chocolate and gingerbread..you want a color difference, too)
2. Moose cookie cutter
3. Stiff royal icing in a golden tone and medium brown.
4. Flood royal icing in medium brown, red, white and black.
5. 2 12 inch disposable piping bags
6. 2 couplers
7. 1 each no. 2 and no. 3 pastry tips
8. 2 ounce squeeze bottles
9. toothpicks
10. old gold luster dust
11. food safe paint brush
12. high alcohol lemon extract or vodka

Begin with 2 flavors of rolled out dough…I’m using vanilla and chocolate.

The adorable moose is going to be transformed into an antlered, cartoony reindeer.

Cut cookies of both flavors.

With the tip of a paring knife or craft knife, carefully cut the antlers off each cookie and switch them to the other flavor’s moose head. Press the antlers carefully into the moose head so that when they bake, they’ll fully adhere.

Bake according to your recipe’s instructions.

Aren’t they cute?  You can practically serve them up just like this, but don’t.  We can ‘cute-n’ them up even more.

Start with the antlers.  With your piping bag fitted with a no. 3 tip and loaded with golden colored stiff royal, pipe the antlers in a swirly, pretty pattern.  I wasn’t concerned with reindeer anatomical-correctness, I just went for something that was pleasing to my eye.

After the antlers, I went ahead and piped an outline around the reindeer’s head with the medium brown stiff icing in a piping bag fitted with a no. 2 tip.  Next, I did wet on wet eyes.  With my white flood royal,  I dropped two large-ish white dots for eyes, then immediately dropped in black.  You can make them cross-eyed, looking up, down or to the sides to give your reindeer some personality.

What’s a Christmas reindeer with out a red nose?

Once the golden antlers dried, I painted on the gold luster dust.   I love that this reindeer is goofy-looking.  He’s sweet and not so precious that people won’t want to eat him, which is the whole point of making cookies, right?

For the second style, I wanted to make something a little more decorated, but nothing that would take up too much time in the kitchen.

I quickly outlined the head of the reindeer with my medium brown royal that I put into the squeeze bottle.

I let the outline set up for a minute or two before flooding the cookie.

Again, using the wet on wet method, I quickly dropped eyes in the following order:

•  Black
• White
• Brown
• Black pupils
• White highlight

Make sure your flood is loose enough so that you can do all these drops without crusting over.  Practice first on parchment to make sure you like what the eyes you are making, too.

You may even want to take a toothpick and pull out the corners’ of the ‘eye’ for more ‘realism’.

While waiting a few minutes for the eyes to set up, I added the antlers.

See?

I added funny lips and a small red nose to turn this reindeer into ‘Rudolpha’.  I also piped a brown outline to define the ears and the tufts on the top of the head.

Don’t forget to paint on the luster dust!  Put a small amount of dust into a small dish and add enough extract to make a paint out of it.  Add more dust for more coverage.  Be careful with your brushstrokes.

Now, stand back and admire your work!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!!!