Sprinkling with Decorations

An easy way to decorate unbaked cutout cookies is to sprinkle the dough cutouts with colored sugars, edible glitters, or small multicolored decorative candies -- sometimes called nonpareils.

Don't pile the decorations on too thickly because only whatever touches the dough will bake in place. For a special design, you can place a stencil on the cut out dough before sprinkling with decorations.

A squeeze bottle will give
you precise aim.

One trick is to use a clean, dry plastic squeeze bottle filled with colored sugar. It gives you more control of the sugar flow and a more precise aim. Another trick is to use an infant-feeding spoon to help control the amount of decoration that's added.

A word of caution -- don't decorate either baked or unbaked cookies with small silver decorative candies or luster dust (a metallic powdered color) unless you're sure the cookies will NOT be eaten. These items are for decorating purposes only and should not be consumed.