Decorated Christmas Cookies 2008 - Classes at Shermay's Cooking School

How time flies! It's been a whole year since the warm spicy aroma of festive baking last permeated my kitchen, ahead of schedule too...This class is back!

I'll be teaching Decorated Christmas Cookies, a demo class, at Shermay's Cooking School on 4 October 2008 (Saturday) and 5 October 2008 (Sunday) - the October schedule has all the necessary details. There will only be 2 sessions of this class. For all inquiries, please call the school at +65 6479 8442 or email shermaycs@yahoo.com.sg

Exactly the same recipes and techniques will be covered as last year's class - the only difference being the selection of cookie shapes. Shermay, who has impeccable taste in such matters, has very thoughtfully managed to source a collection of highly covetable cookie cutters, and I wanted to feature these fabulous new shapes - once the core decorating techniques have been grasped, they can be practically applied to any cookie shape.

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:

Snowmen

Christmas Tree Ornaments

Snowflakes

Christmas Trees

The 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. Don't let them down with anything less than stylish 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.