A properly baked and decorated plate of cut cookies both feeds party guests and embellishes the refreshment table. For a fall party or a Thanksgiving celebration, a platter of leaf-shaped cut cookies will complement table arrangements made with actual leaves and bring a little of the bright autumnal splendor adorning the trees outside into a host's home.
How to Pick Leaf-Shaped Cookie Cutters
Companies including Fox Run, R&M Industries, Harold's Kitchen, and Wilton manufacture cookie cutters shaped like leaves from trees such as walnut, maple, holly, red maple, ivy, sycamore, and oak. Some sets offer the same shape in several sizes, while others offer many different shapes of the same size. Fall leaf pie crust cutters can also be used to make smaller leaf shapes. Decide if the effect desired is that of many fall leaves of all sorts of sizes and shapes, or that of several matching leaves carefully collected and displayed, and select cutters accordingly.
How to Bake Crisp Cut Cookies
For decorated cut cookies to look their nicest, their edges should be as crisp as possible. Try the following shortbread recipe for crisp cut cookies that provide perfectly shaped surfaces for decorating:
Spice Shortbread Recipe
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp. allspice (NOTE: Eliminating allspice makes cookies even crisper.)
- 2 1/2 cups flour
Directions:
- Leave butter out in bowl for half-an-hour to come to room temperature.
- Add dry ingredients (sugar, allspice, flour) and mix dough together with your hands, first squeezing the ingredients together and then kneading gently until everything is evenly mixed.
- Form dough into a ball, cover dough, and refrigerate it for about an hour. (NOTE: Chilled dough will roll out more easily and hold its shape much better than warm dough.)
- If you are going to use egg yolk paint to glaze the cookies, follow the directions below and mix that up now.
- On a lightly floured surface, with lightly floured hands and a lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough out to 1/2 inch thick. (NOTE: Dough will be stiff when it comes out of the refrigerator, so knead it until it is pliable, but not wet.)
- Use leaf-shaped cutters to cut autumn leaf shapes.
- Place cut cookies on parchment paper-covered cookie sheets. If decorating with egg yolk paint, add that before baking (see below). If decorating with icing, bake the cookies for 10–14 minutes at 300º or until set.
- Let cookies cool for about 5 minutes, then use a spatula to transfer them to a wire rack.
- Once cookies have completely cooled, if you have not already painted them with egg yolk paint, decorate them with icing (see below).
How to Decorate Fall Leaf Cut Cookies with Egg Yolk Paint Glaze
CAUTION: This paint uses raw eggs, so paint cookies with egg yolk paint before baking them and wash hands and brushes thoroughly afterward.
Egg Yolk Paint Glaze Recipe
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/4 tsp. water
Directions
- Separate yolk from egg white.
- Mix yolk in small bowl with 1/4 tsp. water.
- Separate mixture into different bowls for different colors, add food coloring, and stir.
- If egg yolk paint thickens during use, add a few drops of water to thin it again.
Decorating Suggestion: Paint cookie one color, let that set a moment, and then (with a smaller brush) paint darker veins or other leaf textures on the cookie surface with a darker color.
How to Decorate Fall Leaf Cut Cookies with Icing
Use fondant or other thin piped icing to outline the leaf and its stem and veins.
A plate of decorated fall leaf cut cookies bring a note of autumnal cheer to any fall gathering. Supply them to guests or bring them to a party as a host gift.
Renee Carver - Renée Carver has an Elementary Education degree and over ten years of experience writing and editing children's educational products.
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