Martha's (Not As) Beautiful Cookies

Here they are, the cookies I thought I'd make for a little dinner party we had for my husband's team:
I thought hers were beautiful! But then, I was surprised and super crazy happy that I liked mine even better!

I made the sugar cookie dough. Refrigerated it over night. Rolled it out the next day. Cut perfect circles. Let my kids cut out awesome bad-guys and hearts with what was leftover.




I made the icing. (I will never buy meringue powder again.) And I sat down to decorate. Maybe I made the icing too thick? I was afraid to add water and ruin the whole thing. It was workable, so I just went with it. But, my cookies didn't look beautiful, they looked like spider webs! Not what I had in mind. For all this effort, I wasn't happy with spider webs. Grrr. Inspired by my children's free-motion decorating, I decided to try something on my own. And I was happy! Why didn't Martha do this in the first place? It's much prettier :)

I used squirty bottles (totally worth the small investment)


drew a line to border the outside of the cookie, then flooded the inside and used a toothpick to cover the space.

Swirl time.

Drag up, then drag down.



Drag side to side.

Viola. Worth the effort.