snowflake cutout apple pie for christmas

In addition to the cookie christmas tree and reindeer cookies that I made this past Christmas, I also made this apple pie for dessert! It's been a recent tradition of mine to make apple pie for Christmas, including this Christmas wreath apple pie, or this Christmas Tree apple pie (there's even a Hello Kitty apple pie in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), so this year I decided to do snowflake cutouts for my pie!

I started with a batch of my favorite pie crust (recipe in my book!), divided it in half, and rolled out my bottom crust to fit into the bottom of my 9-inch pie dish. Then I poured in my apple filling (apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and a pinch of salt), and then used a snowflake cookie cutter to make a snowflake decorated top crust!

After a quick egg wash and a sprinkling with sanding sugar, I popped it into a 415F oven for 15 minutes, and then lowered it to 350F for 45-50 minutes, until the crust had become golden brown.

I'm already thinking of more shapes to make for future Christmases to come! 

Enjoy!

rudolph the reindeer cookies

For my daughter's class Christmas party last month, I decided to make these cute reindeer cookies, based on a design I had seen at Bubble and Sweet. I loved the color of the turquoise and white reindeer with the red nose accent, but I decided to do the reverse and have a snowy white reindeer with turquoise spots and red nose instead. Luckily, I had recently been given a beautiful reindeer cookie cutter from Cookie Cutter Kingdom, so I was all set! (Thanks Cookie Cutter Kingdom!)

I started with my favorite sugar cookie dough (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book), which I rolled out to 1/8 inch thick, cut out shapes, and then baked at 350F for 10-12 minutes until the edges of the cookies had turned golden.

Then I whipped up a batch of my favorite royal icing (recipe also in my book!), used white stiff icing to outline my reindeer cookies, and then used white runny icing to fill them in. (The stiff icing outline acts as a border, so that the runny icing doesn't drip off the edges of your cookie!) For the turquoise spots on the reindeer's back, I mixed a bit of royal blue gel-based food coloring into stiff icing, and piped little dots onto the reindeers while the white icing was still wet. Then I let the cookie dry for several hours (or overnight).

Once the icing was dry, I piped little Rudolph noses with stiff red icing and a small round tip.

I just love the color combination of white, turquoise, and red!

Also, since we were hosting Christmas this year, I had an idea to have a little reindeer cookie on each place setting. So I left several cookies completely white with a red nose, and then painted the antlers gold inspired by these gilded reindeer cookies from Sweetapolita! To make the gold "paint", I used edible gold dust mixed with clear vanilla extract, similar to how I painted the gold star cookie that topped my Christmas tree cookie tower in my previous post. 

And here's how they looked on each place setting.

The little gilded reindeers went perfectly with my bay leaf garland, white candles, and gold flatware!

Hope you and your family had a very Merry Christmas!

cookie tree for christmas

I've always loved the look of macaron trees, they are just so pretty! But since my daughter is allergic to nuts, I tend to only make macarons for other people. And although I have made nut-free macarons before, I don't want her to get used to the idea of eating macarons in case she starts to think that regular macarons are okay for her to eat! So for Christmas this year, instead of making a macaron tree, I made one out of sugar cookies!

For the cookies, I used my favorite sugar cookie dough (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), and used a small round cookie cutter that was approximately the same size as macarons. Then I baked them at 350F for about 10 minutes, until the cookie edges were golden.

I also made sure to cut out several star-shaped cookies, that would go on the top of the tree.



For the royal icing (recipe also in my book!), I tinted it leaf green, and used stiff icing to outline each cookie.

Then I flooded each one with runny icing, and let it dry overnight.

I also iced the star cookies with white icing and same approach - stiff icing to outline the cookie, and runny icing to fill each cookie.

Once the icing was dry, I mixed edible gold dust with clear vanilla extract, and then used a food-safe brush to paint the stars gold.

When I was ready to assemble my cookie tree, I covered a styrofoam cone with waxed paper, and then used royal icing "glue" to carefully attach my cookies.

After several rows though, my cookies started to fall off (eeek!) from the weight of the other cookies, so I used a thick silk ribbon to keep the rows in place until the royal icing "glue" had time to dry.

The final touch was the gold star on the top of the tree. I used two of the gold star cookies, and sandwiched them around a bamboo skewer, using royal icing to "glue" them together.

A perfect centerpiece for the table!

Hope you had a Merry Christmas!!!

christmas layer jello

We are well into January already, and I still haven't shown you all the desserts I made for Christmas! This is the last one, I promise!

So for Christmas Eve dinner this year, the only dessert that my mom requested I make was layered jello! Out of all the desserts that I make, she chose the simplest one! But whether it's Valentine's Day jello, St. Patrick's Day jello, or Easter jello, layered jello is always the perfect dessert. (You can even make Hello Kitty layer jello!). It's not too sweet, perfect as a light dessert, and loved by both kids and adults.

The fun thing about layer jello is that you can choose any color combination, and any amount of layers that you like. I typically make it seven layers (4 colored layers and 3 white layers), so this time I chose alternating layers of two green, two red, and three white. You could even use cookie cutters to cut them out for a fun presentation!

This jello is definitely addicting because it's easy to eat, it's light, and it's delicious. And it's super pretty as well! You can find the recipe in my new book, just look for the recipe on Hello Kitty rainbow finger jello!

christmas wreath shingled apple pie

One of my favorite Christmas decorations is a beautiful Christmas wreath. Just the sight of wreaths hanging on all the doors in the neighborhood gives such a warm and welcoming feeling. In the past I've made Christmas wreath cupcakes, Christmas wreath mousse cake, and Christmas wreath cookies, so why not make a Christmas wreath apple pie?

Last year I made this Christmas tree apple pie, so this time I did the same thing except with little circle pie crust cutouts instead of Christmas tree shapes. It starts with a homemade all-butter pie crust, filled with sliced apples that are tossed with sugar, flour, cinnamon, ground cloves, and a pinch of salt. (You can actually find the entire pie recipe in my new book, The Hello Kitty Baking book - just look for the page on making Hello Kitty Apple Pie!)

With half of my pie crust dough, I rolled it out and fitted it into the bottom of my pie pan. Then I filled it with my spiced apple filling, before rolling out the second half of my pie crust and cutting out little scalloped circle shapes with a small cookie cutter. Then I neatly arranged a row of circle cutouts along the perimeter of my pie...

... followed by a second row of cutouts...

... and finally a third row to complete my wreath. Be sure to leave a little hole in the middle of the wreath to let the steam escape from the pie!

I baked the pie at 425F for 15 minutes, then lowered the heat to 350F for another 45-50 minutes (and by then the entire house smelled like delicious apple pie!)

The pie turned out perfect - the crust was tender yet flakey and crispy, and the apples were perfectly cooked with just the right amount of sugar and spice!

While the pie didn't resemble a Christmas wreath as much as I had hoped it would, I thought it was still super cute, and could actually be made for any occasion. I'll definitely be making this again, maybe next time I'll just called it "scalloped apple pie"! :)

3D cookie christmas tree

Wow! Christmas and New Years flew by in the blink of an eye! Hopefully it's not too late to share this cute little tree that I made for our celebration Christmas Eve!

A long time ago I had seen this Christmas tree cutter set in a magazine somewhere, and I thought it was the cutest thing! So when Christmas rolled around this year, I thought I would make my own cookie tree, using this star cutter set that I already owned.

Even though there were only 4 different sized star cutters in this set, I figured I could achieve the same effect by cutting out several of each size.

Note that I cut out less of the bigger stars, and more of the medium and smaller stars.

Once my cookies were baked and cooled, I whipped up a half batch of buttercream frosting (recipe in my new book!), and tinted it leaf green. Then I placed a small blob on the bottom of my largest cookie, to attach it to a 6-inch cake board.

Next I fitted a pastry bag with a Wilton #352 leaf tip, filled it with my green icing, and piped little leaves around the perimeter of the star before filling it in completely with leaves. (See my Christmas wreath cookies for the same technique!)

Then I placed my next cookie on top, and again piped leaves around the perimeter of the star, after which I filled in the cookie with leaves. Around this time I also started to sprinkle on little white nonpareils after finishing with each cookie, to give the effect of snow on the leaves.

I continued with all of the star cookies, from the largest cookies on the bottom, to the smallest cookies on the top.

I finished it off with a small yellow star sprinkle on the top of the tree (taken from this set of star sprinkles), and more white nonpareils all over.

And there you have it, a cute little 3D Christmas tree made out of cookies! It made for the perfect little centerpiece and dessert all in one!