I can’t make a cut out cookie. I gave up ages ago. I blame it on living in Florida, low elevation, humidity, an old oven… a million variables that I can’t change. But as I was eating a black and white cookie, I thought I might be able to actually cut out one that is already baked.

If you’ve ever made these cookies, they are not the type of dough you roll out, its a scoop onto the sheet type situation.

I followed a basic cookie recipe : Sally’s Baking Addiction Black and White Cookies and made a few changes along the way.

I first tried to use the cookie cutter with the cookies upside down but found that having the cookies right side up at the start worked out much better. I don’t think you can use a very detailed cookie cutter, but this one worked perfectly.

I also discovered that my boys were happy to eat the spare cookies that were cut out and they loved dipping them in the icing. So I was able to make smaller icing cups just for them and they were like personal Dunkaroos.

Once I had all of the cookies cut out, I made one color of icing. Following the icing recipe. I was not able to find clear vanilla extract, which was my inspiration for light pink. Depending on the holiday or special occasion – you can choose complimentary colors.

For the first color, I dipped the whole cookie into the icing. I knew I wanted to do it at an angle and found this was the easiest way. I made sure to cover the counter with wax paper because there was quite a bit of icing that dripped off. I in no way wanted to have to clean that off of my counter.

Because I was going from pink to red, I could use the left over pink and the same bowl. I simply added more food coloring when I knew I didn’t need pink anymore.

I waited for the pink on the cookies to dry completely. This is an important step to stay a little more neat and organized.

Grab some sprinkles or candies to add to the “other” side of the cookie. You will want to add these when your second color is still wet. This icing does harden pretty quickly.

Instead of dipping the second side, I used a spatula and was able to spread the red on… that was easier for this portion of the process, then immediately added sprinkles. My youngest son helped with this part and loved that they only stayed on the red part.

Are the cookies perfectly smooth? Nope. Is that OK? Yup. They were darn delicious.

Now that I have found this recipe… it is a perfect addition to any of our holiday gatherings. All I have to do is change the icing color. Everything tastes better if it’s shaped like a Mickey head right??? I’m already planing green and yellow for Easter… red and blue for Fourth of July… you get the picture.