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Whether you're making gingerbread or sugar cookies, why use boring cookie cutters? My niece and nephew gave me these fabulous Ninja Breadmen Cookie cutters from Fred for my birthday. Not only are these cookies delicious, they're full of action. Just make sure you eat them before they attack! 

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I would avoid eating raw salt cookie dough....YUCK!
I would have loved to make sugar cookies to use on the wreath, but since it was destined to hang on a door at the Royal Botanical Garden for four weeks, I thought it would be best to make something a little more durable.

The salt dough recipe we used was fairly simple.

Salt Dough Cookies

Materials:
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1-1/2 cups water

Instructions:
Combine the flour and salt.
Add the water gradually until the mixture has a consistency like putty.
Knead the dough for about five minutes. Be sure the ingredients are thoroughly blended.
Roll the dough on a floured surface and use cookie cutters to cut shapes.  Use a straw to poke a hole through a few of the cookies if you want to hang them up.
Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about an hour at 325 degrees. When I took the cookies out, I noticed they were still damp, so I turned the oven off and left them in overnight to dry.

My fellow writers (Christine Davis and Jane Muller) at DailyWebTV.com and I spent the day decorating the cookies with Royal icing. Much to our dismay, the icing didn’t stick. I’m not sure if it was because of the high concentration of salt in the dough, but the icing just slipped right off the cookies after having spent a few hours piping. So we used glue – white glue and hot glue to fix them. Mental note: Next time use paint to decorate the cookies.

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These cookies were decorated by piping Royal icing, but it didn't stick!
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Thread ribbon through holes to use cookies as ornaments.
 
 
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These are one of my favourite cookies to make in the fall. Orange and fluffy, they truly are delicious!

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 egg
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 cups semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Directions:

1.      Combine pumpkin, sugar, and eggs and beat until creamy. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

2.      Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.

3.      Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F for approximately 12 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

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Thanks to Martha Stewart and her cookie of the day enewsletter, I made these s’mores cookies on the weekend. No fire was necessary to create these gooey, chocolaty treats. The broil in the oven did the trick to brown the marshmallows to perfection. They were a huge hit at my summer BBQ party. I should have made more, but I guess I’ll just have to make another batch of these yummy cookies next weekend!

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One of my fondest memories as a child was having a tea party, so you can imagine my excitement when my daughter got a tea set for her birthday. What better reason to bake some yummy cookies than a tea party! Katrina and I made sugar cookies and used Wilton’s Teddy Bear Stackable Cookie Cutter Set. She loved pushing the cutters into the dough.

I did take advantage of her afternoon nap to bake and decorate the cookies. I used chocolate and vanilla royal icing, mini M&Ms for the eyes, and pink sugar for the noses to decorate. When she woke up, we invited a few of her stuffed animal friends to join us. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do on a rainy Saturday then bake cookies and have a tea party. Katrina loved it and I know we’ll be hosting many more tea parties.
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