Why hello again! It has been awhile! I actually had this post sitting in my WordPress account for a couple weeks now and just have been so busy I am just getting around to posting this now!
I made this sugar cookie wreath for a cookie exchange I went to earlier this season and it was a big hit! So if you are in search of a festive holiday dessert for any Christmas parties or for the big day itself look no further!
I had seen a sugar cookie wreath either on pinterest or a magazine and knew I HAD to make one. And make one I did! I also made a bunch of extra leaves and wreaths so I could make another one for Christmas day:).
I found a wreath cookie cutter set at Kohls a couple months ago now and immediately ordered it so I would be good to go for my cookie exchange! (It looks like it is no longer available there, but it is available on here on ebay).
Then, to make the wreath I first made the sugar cookies using my go-to sugar cookie recipe (I also posted it below). After baking my sugar cookies I made red, green and light green royal icing for both flooding and piping (piping is the outline and flooding is the icing that you spread out in-between).
As you can see I started with the bow and piped the outline…
Then I use the flood icing to fill in the bow…
A few hours later once the icing has somewhat dried I used my red piping icing to create more detail on the bow…
In the meantime I piped and flooded the leaves…for these leaves I piped the outline with my light green piping icing then flooded the leaves with the dark green icing…
I also mixed it up and did the exact opposite…dark green piping and light green flooding…
Just like with the bow a few hours later I piped dots and stem lines onto the leaves…
With the double leaves and berries I piped and flooded each leaf and then got a little fancy and made tiny designs in one of the leaves…for the swirls after I flooded the light green into the leave I flooded 3 lines of dark green horizontally across the leaf and with a tooth pick dragged the toothpick down the center of the leave to create stem lines.
Then I piped and flooded red berries onto the double leaves…
And ta-da!
Happy baking! I hope you are having a peaceful (or maybe peaceful-ish) and merry holiday season!
xo
Lauren
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (15 1/8 oz )
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar (7 ¾ oz)
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- Making the dough!
- 1. Whisk together the flour and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
- 2. Using your mixer (with the paddle attachment), cream together the butter and sugar
- until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until well blended.
- 3. With the mixture on low, gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until
- the two are thoroughly blended.
- 4. Turn out the dough onto the work surface and divide it into two or three equal portions. Form each one into a rough disk. Now you are ready to roll, chill and cut out the cookie sheets.
- **Before I roll out the cookie sheets, I like to put the dough disks plastic wrap in the fridge overnight, as I like to break up my baking steps. You can make the dough up to 3 days in advance OR you can freeze the dough in flattened disks for up to two months. Although, make sure to thaw the frozen dough overnight in the fridge.**
- Rolling out the dough and baking the cookies!
- 5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees when ready to roll out the dough.
- 6. Then, place a cookie-sheet-sized of wax paper or parchment on your rolling surface, place
- the dough disk in the middle, then place another cookie-sheet size of wax paper on top.
- 7. Place ¼ inch cookie slats on the edges of the paper (I just went to Home Depot and got two paint stirrers and taped them together and used that as my cookie slats) and use a rolling pin to slightly flatten the dough across the paper.
- 8. Slide the rolled out piece of dough (paper and all) into a cookie sheet and refrigerate it until it’s firm (approximately 20 to 30 minutes). Repeat with other dough disks.
- 9. When the dough is firm, remove it from the fridge and put it on a flat work surface. Cut out the cookie dough shapes with your leaves and wreaths. Then, using a small offset spatula, carefully move cut out cookie to a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper.
- 10. Bake the singular leaves for 6 minutes, the double leaves with berries for 7 minutes and the bow for 9 minutes.
- 11. Then transfer cookie sheet to a baking rack. Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes.
- 12. Then transfer individual cookies to another baking rack to cool.
- I made 4 batches of dough so I could make two wreaths (one for the cookie exchange and one for Christmas). If you want to make just one wreath, I recommend making two batches of this recipe...this will make you 22 singular leaves for the wreath, 14 double leaves with berries and 2 bows.
- For piping-
- 2 cups or 8 5/8 oz of confectioners sugar
- 4 teaspoons of meringue powder
- 3 tablespoons warm water
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- For flooding-
- 2 cups ( 8 5/8 oz) confectioners sugar
- 4 teaspoons meringue powder
- 6 tablespoons warm water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1. To make the royal icing for piping, combine all ingredients in a bowl. Mix ingredients with a spatula. Divide up piping icing into different Tupperware containers based on how many colors you need (make sure to cover with lids so the icing doesn’t dry up). I made a red, light green and a dark green.
- 2. Place a drop or two of food coloring in each container and mix with a spatula. If you would like a darker shade, add another drop or two until you reach the desired shade. Cover container.
- 3. To make the royal icing for flooding, combine all ingredients in a bowl. Mix ingredients with a spatula. Again, divide up the icing in Tupperware containers based up on the number of colors you need. Use food coloring to achieve desired colors. For the flooding icing I also used red, light green and a darker green.
- 4. After you colored your icing, pour the flooding icing into squeeze bottles, and put
- piping icing into pastry bags with coupler and desired pastry tip. I use a 1 or 2 pastry tip to pipe the icing along the edge of my sugar cookie.
- 5. Pipe and flood your cookies.
- 6. A few hours later I piped dots and stem lines onto some of the leaves and bow.
- 6. Then I let the cookies dry for 48 hours before I stacked them into the wreath design.
- 7. Arrange your cookies into a wreath and enjoy your beautiful cookies!