Decorated Christmas Cookies - Classes at Shermay's Cooking School

Call me a lucky girl; it's Christmas come early around these parts. In fact, it hasn't just come early, but I've had occasion to celebrate it quite a few times since May whilst testing recipes for new seasonal classes. So while it may appear premature to be talking about Christmas, it sure seems after the fact in this kitchen! At any rate, I think many avid (and well-organized) home bakers prefer to get a headstart on their festive baking (while not well-organized but just plain antsy, I certainly do, but won't bore you with the story of how one memorable year I actually started anointing fruitcake with dark rum the Christmas before Christmas), so I imagine advance notice can't be remiss.

I'll be teaching Decorated Christmas Cookies, a demo class, at Shermay's Cooking School on 2 November 2007 (Friday), 3 November 2007 (Saturday) and 4 November 2007 (Sunday) - the November schedule has all the necessary details. There are also some places left in the classes held on 19 October 2007 (Friday) and 21 October 2007 (Sunday) - please refer to the October schedule. For all inquiries, please call the school at +65 6479 8442 or email shermaycs@yahoo.com.sg To all the wonderful (and well-organized) individuals who had booked earlier on, I am deeply appreciative, and can only hope that you'll enjoy the experience as much as I have the planning process.

The type of cookies known as rolled cookies is the decorator's preferred choice of canvas. Unlike say drop cookies or bar cookies, however, they do take a bit of care to get right. Quite aside from sleights of hand to facilitate the procedure, there's the recipe itself - it needs to be a dough that's sturdy enough to withstand repeated handling, yet not bake up so dense and hard as to result in mediocre eating. The Luscious Lemon Cookies (butter cookies with a hint of zest and real lemony depth) and Classic Gingerbread (given just a touch of molasses and judiciously spiced) are both favourite recipes - while I find them a real joy to handle, what's more important is that taste is not compromised for looks.

Once you have your canvas, you'll need to choose your medium. To that end, there's Rolled Fondant (the ready made product is extremely convenient and useful for large batch baking, but homemade has a flavour that you may find worth the extra effort), and Meringue Powder Royal Icing. The latter is a cookie decorating essential, and distinguishing between stiff, soft peak and runny consistencies and knowing the different decorating functions they serve form the foundation of cookie decorating. An understanding of just a handful of Core Decorating Techniques - such as outlining, flooding, drop-in flooding, overpiping, flocking and gilding - opens up limitless design possibilities. The class will cover the practical application of these techniques as can be seen in the decoration of:

Christmas Stockings

Gingerbread People

Snowflakes

Christmas Tree Ornaments

(which, incidentally, make a lovely gift for friends who are passionate bakers when twinned with a handsomely crafted copper cutter)

Christmas Trees

(which, in the right size, can be embellished in an endless variety of styles)

3-D Christmas Tree

Much simpler (and faster) to construct than a gingerbread house, but certainly no less stunning as the perfect holiday table centrepiece.

You've home-baked them. You've hand-iced them. The self-respecting Martha Stewart fan (I'm one and not afraid to admit it) won't let them down with anything less than thoughtful packaging to create the ultimate heartfelt and one-of-a-kind holiday gifts. If you're so inclined, hopefully one or two of the various ideas that round out the class may prove useful.