I've spent many an evening around the kitchen table waiting for the royal icing on several hundred sugar cookies to dry. It might be for a wedding, baby shower, or party, but one thing is for sure, you don't want to make more cookies than you have to and you want them all to be perfect. Here's a simple tip to make every cookie out of your oven a winner.
The difference between sugar cookies baked at home and those we see in magazines is usually the edges. This usually has to do with the temperature of your dough and butter in your recipe, but in hot conditions and at a fast pace they can be hard to keep in check.
If the edges of your cookies are a little saggy or flat, try using a microplaner to freshen them up. Just like you would file anything else, they can take away that lame edge and leave you with something crisp and clean and photo worthy for every event. Although it might seem like a silly details, so is using royal icing to apply all those little details to a cookie of this nature and once you've gone that far, this is just one more simple step to ensure you're truly showing off all your hard work.
• Read More: How To Fix Cookie Edges at Sweetopia
Related: How To Work With Royal Icing
(Image: Sweetopia)
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Great idea.
Really? This is how we're spending our time now?
This makes me want to go into the kitchen and bake up a batch of irregular, wonky-shaped cookies.
Thanks, I totally appreciate this tip. Would I do this every time? No. But many of us baker-types are perfectionists and this is a great trick to file away for when you want or need to get an absolutely picture perfect result.
I think it's a clever idea. It's not something I'd do on a regular basis, but when pesentation matters (as the title of the post says), I could see this simple trick coming in very handy.
I cannot imagine a situation where I say, "the edges on the cookies aren't smooth enough, let me get my micro-plane and fix them up"
I have three children. I have better things to be spending my time on.
hopefully they taste good enough so that nobody bothers to comment on their edges
I'm not sure I'd do this to attain perfection - but I would definitely use it to salvage burnt cookies.
I think the key words here are "when presentation matters". Obviously, this isn't something one would use every time they make cookies, but when the circumstances call for it, I think this is a great little trick to have handy.
I'm all for tips on fixing problems. I can picture having horrible cookies, and this might be the only way to save them.
@Jaimie Roo
good suggestion! i wouldn't have thought of that but it would totally work. *files away for later use*
Yep, filing this away for my next shower/tea/reception event.
Heh - filing.
Sorry about that.
I could have used this a few times when doing cookies for events. This tip is clearly meant for that, not for giving your kiddies picture perfect cookies.
What I've done is if the cookies have spread, I just use the same cutter and cut them again out of the oven. Quicker. Or, if they're all square or rectangles, I'll roll out a sheet of dough, bake, then cut with a knife.
I'm a food photographer and that's a really great tip! I've tried to shoot cookies before to shoot for my portfolio and they never come out as beautiful as they look in magazines!
Never did that but if you roll out your dough thicker and freeze a few minutes before baking you won't have as much spread, plus yes if you need neat edges with a cookies with nooks and crannies along the edge you can't fit a micoplane in there you just cut it again with the cookie cutter right after they come out of the oven.