As much as my friends expect to find freshly baked cookies at my house on any major holidays, I find that baking sweets for casual get-together’s can be more gratifying. Maybe it is the element of surprise or getting to work on a whole new theme. Whatever it is, it gets my creativity going and that’s always a good thing. Today’s theme is Movie Night and these bite-sized cookies will be the star of the evening. Here is how to make them:

I made 4 different kinds of cookies for this theme using different techniques but they are all made of the same dough.

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:

Cookie #1: Vintage Marquee Letters

I am obsessed with vintage marquee letters, the kind you’d find on old theaters. Here are some of my favorites:

To create edible versions, simply out cookies with letter cutters:

Bake them at 350°F until the edges start to turn golden.

To decorate, cover each letter with red royal icing. Once the icing has set, top each cookie with dots of yellow icing. Yes, now is when I realize I didn’t take any pictures when I was icing these bad boys. Oops!

Cookie #2 Popcorn Cookies

To shape these cookies, I am using a round cutter and a daisy-shaped cutter.

First, cut out a round cookies:

Then place your daisy cutter slightly off from the first spot. You just want to capture 3 petals worth of dough:

To assemble, place your round cookie on a baking sheet and place the petal cookie right next to it:

The 2 cookies will merge as they bake.

To decorate, outline each cookie with yellow royal icing, then flood with white icing. With the icing still wet, add shadow details in yellow icing. I varied the shapes and position of the yellow accents to look more like random kernels:

Pretty cool, huh? =)

Cookies #3 Movie Tickets

Since not everyone loves royal icing I wanted to make sure to keep some of the cookies icing-free. I still had to decorated them somehow so I used my trusted letter stamps.

Start by cutting rectangle cookies:

Using your letter stamps, spell out the words “ADMIT ONE” and press that onto each cookie:

Don’t have a stamp set? Here is a link to an affordable set on amazon: Letters and Numbers Cookie Stamp Set

Using a tiny round cutter, cut out details on each side:

Add more details like dots using a toothpick and bake for 10 minutes. That’s it! =)

Cookie #4 Star Cookies

What would be a movie night without stars? Nothing super fancy here. I just cut regular star-shaped cookies and covered each one in yellow icing =)

And here is what it looks like all together:

Happy Movie Night!!!