Melting Snowman Sugar Cookies

How Cute is this Little Guy??

I love sugar cookies. I remember making them every Christmas with my Mom. We had such a blast. My new obsession is Pinterest. Has anyone ever been on this website? OMG. It is amazing. You can pin things literally for HOURS. It has given me so many ideas for things I want to make and other DIY crafts I need to try during Christmas break.

So thank you Pinterest for the most adorable Christmas cookie I have ever made- The Melting Snowman Sugar Cookie. As a precursor to this recipe- you can make these as home made as you want, or like all of us if the holiday season is taking a toll on how much time you have you can take some shortcuts. I used a great recipe for sugar cookies that my mom and I used and looked online at recipes, but if you have a recipe you always use go for it- use that. If you are short on time this holiday season use pre-made dough. It isn’t the end of the world. This is supposed to be fun after all! If you use pre-made dough I would roll it out then cut large circles for these cookies. They are supposed to be over sized. If you cut from the tube they may be too small to decorate. I only fit five cookies on the sheet pan so use that as an idea on how big they should be.

Here is the sugar cookies recipe I used. It makes about three dozen regular sized cookies. I made five snowman cookies and refrigerated the rest of the dough to use another day.

Ingredients

• 1 cup softened unsalted butter ( 2 sticks)
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a small bowl, stir together dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in dry ingredients.

Roll rounded teaspoons of dough into balls and place on a ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until slightly golden. Let stand for 2 minutes before removing to cool on a rack.

Note: The dough is still pretty tacky so DO NOT try rolling it out. It will stick. Since you don’t have to refrigerate the dough for this just pull off a ball and flatten it between your hands and put on the sheet pan. The more lopsided, the better. It is a melting snowman puddle after all. As I said before, I saved the rest of the sugar cookie dough for the rest of the week to make other cookies.

Now for the melting snowman steps:

Once the cookies are baked and cooling you have to make the royal icing and put the marshmallows in the microwave to deflate. Now for the royal icing- you can actually buy royal icing at the supermarket. You can even frost them with regular cookie or cake frosting. Whatever you have on hand. I made the royal icing- I had a ton of confectionery sugar and other than Christmas I never use it! I used Alton Brown’s recipe for royal icing.

After the cookies are cooled ,ice them with the royal icing. The more drippings the better!They are melting after all.

Next put the marshmallows ( snowman heads) in the microwave on a dish for 15 seconds for them to deflate. Try one first and see how long it takes it to deflate since microwaves are so different. Spray your fingers with cooking spray and carefully peel them from the bottom off the plate then stick them on the cookie. Once you place the head one don’t move it. I tried. It ends up a sticky, stringy mess.

Once the head is on decorate however you like! I used black gel icing, and red and green icing. I bought a pack of tips to make more precise parts ( like the face etc) and it was $1.99 at Wal-Mart so a good deal if you don’t have a steady hand like me!

Tip: I decorated the head first, then arms, then scarves. It is hard to do the scarves before you make the arms because you may run out of room. It took me a few tries to make them perfect so don’t get discouraged if you are decorating challenged like me.

I think this is a perfect holiday activity to do with children. The fun part is decorating each individual snowman and seeing how cute they come out! It also would make a great display piece for your Holiday parties! Little do they know, these may be super cute, but are delicious also!! Happy Holidays everyone!