Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

 

Lately, I’ve been in awe of some of the Christmas cookies I’ve seen friends and others making.

There have been Christmas trees, snowmen, snowflakes, the  old-fashioned red trucks with a Christmas tree in the back. You name it — someone has probably created it.

Granted, some of these people are professional or semi-professional bakers and cake decorators, but these cookies have been beautiful — and not to mention delicious!

These people have made it seem so easy that time and time again, I’ve thought to myself, “How hard could it be?”

I should note, I’ve made royal frosting one other time — unsuccessfully — but I decided to try it again anyway. For those of you who aren’t cookie creators or connoisseurs, royal icing is that type of icing that goes on pretty thin and then hardens.

I wanted to make something pretty easy, so I went with stars and Christmas trees.

I made a sugar cookie recipe I’ve had success with before, put the first batch in the oven and then set out to attempt to start making the frosting. 

Knowing the failure I had the last time I made the icing, this time I looked for a new recipe and found one that had meringue powder in it.

I watched a video online of what the right consistency should be once it’s finished and began mixing as directed.

It turned out OK according to the directions, so then it was time to start putting some color in.

I don’t think I’ve used the food coloring since we moved into our house over a year ago, but I couldn’t find the assortment pack of colors that I thought we still had. All I could find was red coloring.

Though I had plans to make these beautiful Christmas tree cookies with garland and ornaments, I decided to instead go ahead and make the cookies red. Instead of adding other decoration or detail with the icing, I would add sprinkles.

Fast-forward a little, and I started putting the icing on the cookies with a piping bag. At first, I thought things seemed perfect consistency-wise, until a couple minutes later, I looked down and saw the icing didn’t stay in the border and dripped down the sides in many places.

By that point, yes, I could have dumped the icing out of the bag and added a little more of one thing or another to get it a little bit thicker, but I opted not to. I iced the remaining cookies with a thinner layer and it seemed to do a little better.

The icing finally hardened a few hours later and looked as it was supposed to, and although the cookies weren’t perfect, they were pretty — and only had a few drips.

Then came the true test to find out how they tasted. After tasting one bite, I let out a sigh of relief. They were delicious.

For a minute I thought of how these cookies are kind of like us. As cheesy as it sounds, sometimes we drip — or make mistakes — and we may be a little rough around the edges, but what matters is what’s on the inside.

It was a good reminder not to judge simply by what we see on the outside.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.