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A selection of frosted cookies decorated for Hanukkah, on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
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5 from 1 vote

Hanukkah Cookies

Hanukkah cookies are traditional this time of year. For these, use your favorite sugar, gingerbread, or shortbread cookie dough and whip out your decorating tips.
Prep Time1 hour
Total Time1 hour
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: Jewish
Servings: 24 servings
Calories: 261

Equipment

  • Toothpicks or slender wooden skewers for when your outlining gets a little sloppy and needs to be erased
  • Cookie cutters: Star of David, dreidel, menorah, and rectangles of various sizes for gifts
  • Pastry bag or a resealable plastic bag with the tip cut off for piping icing
  • Squeezy bottles in any size for flooding icing

Ingredients

  • Your favorite roll-out cookie or shortbread dough, whether chocolate, sugar, gingerbread, or some other snazzy incarnation
  • Basic royal cing
  • Blue and/or yellow food coloring or food-color gel

Instructions

  • Roll out your cookie dough and cut out shapes with the cookie cutters. Bake the cookies as the recipe directs and cool completely.
  • Frost the cooled cookies with the Royal Icing, tinting it as desired with food coloring or food-color gel. You can follow your whim when decorating or you can take inspiration from the various decorating instructions that follow.

Notes

  1. To make the Star of David and Dreidel--Pipe the outline of the cookie. Let set for a few minutes. Flood the surface in white icing or icing tinted gentian blue. Let set. Add details in icing tinted gentian blue.
  2. To make the Menorah--Pipe the outline of the cookie in icing tinted gentian blue. Flood the surface of the cookie with the same color icing. Let set. Pipe on the candles in white icing and finish by piping teensy flames in icing tinted yellow.
  3. To make the polka dot gift--Pipe the outline of the cookie in icing tinted gentian blue. Let set. Flood the surface of the cookie with white runny icing and then immediately squeeze on spots of gentian blue runny icing. Let set. Pipe on the ribbon and bow detail in gentian blue.
  4. To make the starry gift--Pipe the outline of the cookie in icing tinted baby blue. Let set. Flood the surface of the cookie with runny gentian or baby blue. Let set. When dry, pipe on the ribbon and bow details in any color contrasting icing.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 261kcal | Carbohydrates: 39g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 4mg | Sodium: 148mg | Fiber: 0.3g | Sugar: 30g