Daring Bakers: Decorated Sugar Cookies

Decorated sugar cookies

This challenge had me stumped. When I first read what we Daring Bakers had to do, I was delighted. Here's the brief:

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of What the Fruitcake?! Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

But as I read the instructions further, I began to wonder. The theme was "September" and the decoration for the sugar cookies would be related to whatever September meant to us (for the full recipe, click here).

September means the start of school for some people, and the fall or spring season depending on which hemisphere you live in. Of course, if you live within the equatorial belt, it's just dry and wet, neither of which should be the feature of any cookie. Say the word "September" and the first thing that comes to my mind is Earth, Wind and Fire's song of that name! Base my cookies on September? Err... take a look at the lyrics and see if you could come up with something appropriate.

But I only needed to look at some of the finished cookies posted on the Daring Baker's forum to get a push (you can view them here). This really is my first attempt at decorating sugar cookies with royal icing so I told myself to keep it simple. I had got a set of alphabet cutters on my last visit to the baking supply shop, and I like words, so that seemed a good way to go.

Time for T(ea)

I just didn't reckon on how difficult it would be to get the dough out of the cutters! They aren't very big and even though I floured the cutters well, I still needed to push the alphabets out with a chopstick. And washing the cutters afterwards was a pain as well because the dough got into all the tiny holes! I didn't do a very good job at icing either.

But despite what seems like complaining, I actually got into this activity and rather enjoyed it. It's leisurely and you get to be as creative as you want. I can see how a person could get hooked. No doubt Mandy, who came up with the challenge, knew this would happen.

The date of this post, Sept 27, coincides with the Husband leaving for Oxford University to start his PhD. Since I won't be there with him, I've left him a message (right). The pastels don't make the cookies very manly, but he gets the drift... (Don't you, dear?)