I hate frosting cookies. Completely detest it. Not like different, extra forgiving features of baking, for me, cookie adorning has a well-proven zero-percent likelihood of success. I’m an honest baker (verify it) however by no means, not as soon as, have I managed to drag off a cute woodland creature or Christmas tree or butterfly or no matter that bears even a slight resemblance to the unique. In different phrases, I Nailed It.
However the factor is, I’ve youngsters, and children love adorning cookies. They stay for it. Truthfully when you gave them the choice of a visit to Disneyland (presently not an precise possibility), every week’s price of unfettered Netflix viewing (very a lot an possibility), and adorning a dozen cookies, it could be a tough toss up — which is simply a bit ironic as a result of youngsters are literally horrible at adorning cookies. My son as soon as glued three miniature M&M’s to the higher left nook of a star cookie with a smear of blue frosting and you’ll have thought he was Rembrandt.
I kind of get it. A elaborate cookie is barely extra gratifying and impressive-looking than a non-fancy cookie. However the effort to success ratio has simply by no means been price it for me — sugar icing is nearly all the time too runny or too stiff and it sticks to every part, which is very crummy if you wish to pack and ship cookies to buddies or household, the entire cause you’re going by way of the difficulty of constructing fancy-looking cookies anyway. And so I’ve to this point doomed my kids to a lifetime of squidgy spherical drop cookies and lumpy chocolate chips.
Enter: cookie stamps.
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I had by no means in my life heard of those till a couple of years in the past, after I went on the lookout for a sandwich cookie recipe for an Eater challenge. I stumbled upon a King Arthur flour recipe for some maple shortbread cookies that, within the accompanying image anyway, regarded impossibly stylish, with lovely patterned, petal-like indentations that gave the shortbread a graphic pop however (and that is vital) with zero icing, frosting, or different annoying baubles.
Within the footnotes, the recipe talked about the “possibility” of utilizing Nordic cookie stamps to attain the identical look, which I instantly bought. For round $30 and some days wait, I turned the proud proprietor of a trio of stamps and set to work.
The very first thing I noticed concerning the superiority of cookie stamps is that there’s no have to roll out the dough. (The rolling and slicing and re-rolling and re-cutting is another excuse why cookie baking is kind of the worst.) With stamps, simply kind a couple of tablespoon’s price of dough into a bit ball and squish away. Just a few opinions had warned concerning the dough sticking to the stamps, however a fast dip of each the dough ball and the stamp in flour or powdered sugar helped with {that a} bit.
The cookies do nonetheless kind of stick, however that’s how I found what’s inarguably the perfect a part of cookie stamping: banging stuff! After you stamp the dough, give a couple of rhythmic however stable thwacks of the sting of the stamp on the kitchen counter and watch your cookie come out like magic. This time of 12 months, any excuse to work out a bit additional aggression is welcome. Doubly so if it entails a bunch of sugar and butter. (Simply ensure there’s no one making an attempt to nap close by.)
All in all, I discovered the cookie stamp expertise not solely means simpler and arguably fancier than frosting, but it surely was really enjoyable. Even the children (who saved asking when the rattling frosting was popping out) appreciated the enjoyment of slamming steel and quartz collectively a couple of dozen occasions. The ensuing cookies baked up completely, regarded very spectacular, and the little red-handled stamps themselves double as cute kitchen vacation decor. And now I get to be the one to ship obnoxiously excellent cookies to family and friends to overcompensate for the remainder of my life that’s a hellscape. Finest. $30. Ever.
