Well, you can’t just hang a statement like that out there.  I made her pick a date and commit to coming over for cat cookie making.

Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I am not much of a cookie decorating kind of gal. I’m okay with the baking part, but I just don’t have whatever it is that you need to rock at cookie decorating (I’m pretty sure that whatever is a bunch of special equipment). However, I am also good at not letting being bad at something ruin my fun. So, I was not about to let an opportunity to play cat cookie bakers with my friend pass me by.

I made the cookie dough the day before. It never hurts to have well-rested overnight in the refrigerator cookie dough to work with.

I love Nigella Lawson’s Butter Cut-Out Cookies recipe from the How to be a Domestic Goddess cookbook. Whatever they wind up looking like, the cookies are just sweet-enough, just buttery-enough, just dry-enough, and a little salty. I like to substitute almond extract for the vanilla, but other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I waited for S to come over to start baking because I find that whole rolling out dough, cookie cutter, transfer to the baking sheet business to be very tedious.  I was so glad that I did because it was almost fun since I had another person there to talk to.

Once we managed to get all the cookies baked, we threw that round of dishes in the sink and rested up with some snacks while the cookies cooled.  Once we were sufficiently snacked and rested, it was time for adventures in tie-dye cookie icing.

We made up a big bowlful of icing (aka wet powdered sugar) and then divided it into bowls.  S was in charge of the food coloring and she did a great job.  We had tangerine sunset, teal, and raspberry sherbet, to play with.

According to the YouTube video she had watched, you start with a base of white icing, drizzle the colors on top, rake through it with a toothpick, then plop the cookie, twisting as you lift.

Our results were somewhat lackluster.

We experimented with all sorts of things. It was all a mess. Finally, we decided to go for the drizzle technique.  First everyone on the tray got a white icing base coat. Then S drizzled tangerine sunset in one direction to make stripes.  I followed up with raspberry sherbet in another direction.  We decided to leave well-enough alone and not use the teal.

The end result was sort of a pseudo-preppy, abstract madras. More importantly we were done. Most importantly we came away with a newfound appreciation for those $7 sugar cookies you see in the bakery and without any delusions of wanting to go into the cookie decorating business.

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