Swirled Snowflake Cookies

" Snowflakes always create the most amazing winter wonderland, and they are extra special delicious when they come in the form of cookies. Aren't these gorgeous? They look like they're right out of a magazine, but you know what? This is something that you can make easily all by yourself in your very own kitchen. Look at how simple this is. Now, I've just taken a store-bought cookie dough, but if you want to, you can make your own cookie dough recipe, or go to bhg.com/recipes and get a great recipe there. Just take your favorite snowflake cookie cutters and cut out the cookies that you like. Now, there's a little bit of a trick when you wanna ice the cookie every time, and that is to create a nice border around your cookie. Now this is done with royal icing, a very thick royal icing, and that will hold everything into the center of your cookie. Now I've put a much thinner version of the royal icing into this plastic bag, and I just want you to take this and snip the tip. And you have your own little piping bag. Now take this and go right up to the edge of your cookie, and then with a paintbrush or you could use a toothpick, I want you to work the icing down until you fill in all the edges. Now this is called flooding, and you just wanna make sure that it's nice and thin. Just make sure that you allow the outer edge of the icing, the thicker royal icing, to set up hard before you flood your cookie. That's very important. Now, if you wanna decorate even more after you fill it all in, take maybe a white royal icing, or another color might be nice, snip the tip of this, and all I want you to do is come in here and make little dots in your cookie, just like this, and one in the center, and watch this great tip. With a toothpick, all I want you to do is drag it right through the white and down, and you can create the most beautiful designs, and of course, carry that on throughout the cookie and it will be gorgeous. Now, if you want a very sophisticated look, it's super simple to do. I want you to go back to that nice thick royal icing that you used before to create that wonderful edging. What you're gonna do is you're gonna place this into a piping bag, and you're just gonna come in here, and you're gonna pipe little dots onto your cookie. Now you wanna let this set up nice and hard, and you are gonna have the most beautiful snowflakes that you have ever seen. Nothing could be more quick or more simple than that idea, and everybody here at bhg.com wants to wish you a very happy and healthy holiday. Bye-bye."