• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Sweet Explorations

  • Cookies
  • Cakes
  • Pies
  • More Sweets
  • Freebies
  • Shopping Guides
  • Navigation Menu: Social Icons

    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Gift Tag Stencil Cookies

December 24, 2012 By Francois

Stencils are an easy way to add fine details to cookies. After all, even with the smallest pastry tips, there is only so much you can do with traditionally piping. Stencils are as simple to use as you might think: Place your design of choice on top of a cookie and paint over it. Here are step-by-step instructions to get the best results:

Gift Tag Stencil Cookies
 
Print
males 12 cookies
Ingredients
  • for the cookies:
  • 1½ stick of butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2½ cups flour
  • for royal icing:
Instructions
  1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light in color and fluffy in texture. Add the egg and vanilla extract. Mix until combined. Add all the flour and mix on low speed until the dough comes together.
  2. Roll out your dough between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350°F.
  3. Unwrap your dough and cut out your cookies. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges start to turn a light golden color.
  4. To make royal icing, mix all 3 ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer on low speed for a minute to combine. Then crank up to high speed and mix for 7 minutes.
3.1.08

 Let’s start by making our cookies.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light in color and fluffy in texture:

Add the egg and vanilla extract. Mix until combined:

Add all the flour and mix on low speed until the dough comes together:

Roll out your dough between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350°F:

Unwrap your dough and cut out your cookies. For this project I am using a gift tag cookie cutter:

To be able to hang these cookies, simply pierce each one with a skewer before baking:

Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges start to turn a light golden color.

Here are pictures of my inspiration for today’s cookies:

I love two-tone designs for the holidays. Simple and elegant. Here is how to make a cookie version using a fun technique: stencils!

Start by covering each cookie in a layer of royal icing. I like using different colors. Let the icing set completely:

To add designs, I am using Martha Stewart glass etching stencils. That’s the trick. Stencils are stencils. It doesn’t really matter what their original purpose was. Martha Stewart has a ton of stencils for different craft projects. Glass etching stencils have the advantages of having a sticky backside and being smaller in size than some of the other stencils:

Peel off the stencil you want to use and place it on  your cookie:

Using a small painting brush, apply royal icing over the stencil:

Peel off the stencil, clean it and repeat:

Mix colors and patterns for the best effect:

Merry Christmas!!!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: Cookies, Recipes Tagged With: cookie, gift, stencil, tag

Previous Post: « Christmas Light Cookies
Next Post: Champagne Cookies »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lucy L

    July 8, 2013 at 6:34 am

    Going to make these for christmas this year!

Primary Sidebar

Sweet Explorations is a place to share innovative baking ideas, explore new techniques and make the World a sweeter place.
Read More…

FEATURED ON

featured-on

SUBSCRIBE HERE

Subscribe to the free Sweet Explorations newsletter, and get our best recipes, freebies and shopping tips in your inbox

My Favorite Blogs

  • Bakerella
  • Better with Butter
  • SemiSweetDesigns

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Custom credits: Plugin desarrollado por AlesiaDEV