Rudolph & Snowflakes

Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw him, you would say it glows... Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, we're walking in a winter wonderland... Even though Christmas has passed, I still have all these Christmas songs stuck in my head from having my Christmas music on repeat for most of this month.

Two of these songs, "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Winter Wonderland", inspired my sugar cookie designs this winter. This year, I made reindeer and snowflake sugar cookies. The reindeer are cute, with pretzel antlers and M&M noses, and the snowflakes are pretty, iced in blue and white. Two fanciful designs that fit nicely with the songs that inspired them.

Making Reindeer

sugar cookie dough
sugar cookie icing
egg cookie cutter
pearl milk tea straw (ears)
pretzels (antlers)
red and brown M&Ms (nose)
green or blue sprinkles (eyes)
brown food coloring

Pre-baking: Cut out your cookie dough with an egg shaped cookie cutter, placing the eggs upside down (with the wider part on top) on parchment lined baking sheets. To make the cutter for the ears, snip a bit of the end off a pearl milk tea straw. Firmly pinch the straw so it makes a shape that looks like an eye. Use this eye shape to cut out ears from your dough scraps, gently pushing the dough out of the straw with a chopstick. Take a pair of ears, position them where you want them, and tuck a bit of the pointed edge of each ear under the head, gently pressing down so the ears stay in place.

Next, to make the antlers, break your pretzels as show above. It might take some practice to break the pretzels, but keep at it; it gets easier after you get a few right. I ended up with lots of shattered pretzels before I got all my antlers. Once you have enough, take a pair, stick one end of each antler into the cookie dough at the middle edge of the top of the head. Now bake your cookies as indicated in the recipe. Then let them cool.

Post-Baking: Once your cookies are cool, they can be iced. Make your icing and tint it brown. Spoon some of your icing on a reindeer head and spread it out with a spoon so it covers the entire face and both ears. Next stick a red or brown M&M (with the "M" downwards of course) into the icing at the bottom of the face. Then in the center of the face, place two green or blue sprinkles for eyes.

Making Snowflakes

sugar cookie dough
sugar cookie icing
snowflake cookie cutter
blue food coloring

Use a snowflake cookie cutter to cut out your cookies. Bake them and let them cool. Once cool, make your icing. Set aside a third of the non-tinted icing (white). Tint the rest of the icing light blue. Spoon the blue icing onto the cookie and spread it out with your spoon, covering the surface of the snowflake. Place the white icing in a piping bag and use it to draw out white outlines on your blue cookies.