Yes… Yes I did.

I made fall cookies to decorate with the kids. Don’t ask what possessed me.

Oh, okay. Since you asked….. I was walking through the store one day and was in the mood to spend money. I saw a kit with fall sprinkles and cookies cutters and thought…. wow, the girls would love that. So I stayed up making cookies one night so we could decorate them the next day. It turned out we had five extra kids in the house that morning.

I explained before we started we only had so much icing and sprinkles and to do the activity we had to be patient, take turns, and ask nicely when we needed something. You should’ve heard how quiet it was…. they were all concentrating on icing their cookies. And asking each other for the different colors of icing with such good manners.

They were at it for about 45 minutes. Icing …. and eating.

And then they were gone.

Sidenote:
Some of you asked after this post how I was able to get the royal icing into the plastic bottles. Here is my trick.

I put the icing into a pourable measuring cup and then pour very slowly to make the stream nice and skinny. I use the finger on my opposite hand to help keep the stream thin… and I am very careful not to hit the sides of the bottle.

If you hit the sides of the bottle, it’s all over but the crying. The icing sticks to itself and clogs up the opening. This is trouble with a capital T. At this point, I grab a new bottle, or pour e x t r e m e l y slowly so I don’t make a huge mess. But it’s difficult and annoying. It’s better to avoid the sides to begin with.

The recipe for royal icing calls for a pound of sugar. I hesitated to use that much thinking we would have way too much icing. With seven kids (and four dozen cookies) it was the perfect amount to have on hand. I didn’t end up with that much left over and the kids had enough to have fun with.

Royal Icing:
1 lb. confectioner sugar
5 tbsp. meringue powder
1/2 cup water
Blend together in mixer then add food coloring.
(use immediately)