Christmas Wreath Cookies

I decided to make wreath cookies.  Like with most of my projects, I don't know why I decided to, but I did and I have to say this is the most beautiful food project I have ever done!

I am so, so happy with how they turned out even if they took a long, long to decorate.  You might want to get some friends together to make these :D  (I started working on them at about 1pm, had interruptions such as lunch and dinner and finished these at like 1am, they started going faster when I changed the leaf making method.)

Here is what you need to make these awesome cookies.

Edible:

• Cookie Dough of Choice (I used Scoochmaroo's Sugar Cookies except used butter extract instead of vanilla extract) - this made about 24 wreath cookies
• Marshmallow (or regular) Fondant - I made that amount, but didn't use it all.  I'd say about half or so
• Green Food Coloring
• Twizzlers Pull and Peel
• Small Red Sprinkles (or candies) of some sort
• Corn Syrup

For putting it all together (improvise where needed):

• Everything to Make and Bake the Cookies
• Everything to Make Fondant
• Large and Small Circle Cookie Cutter (my large- 3.5 inches in diameter)(my small- 1.75 inches in diameter)
• Round frosting tip with a hold big enough that you can stick a toothpick in it.
• Toothpicks
• Baking Paintbrush or something you can use to brush on corn syrup

Twizzlers:
I thought this would be a simple pull and peel step.  It's not!  You cannot easily pull these and get the strand in one piece.  Here is what I found out works. 

First, these come in chucks of nine, a three by three bunch.  I took a sharp knife and cut the three sets apart from each other, just a little to get them separated from each other.

Take one set of three and start to pull it away from the other six.  Pull carefully and don't just pull, move your hand closer to the bunch and pull, then repet, otherwise they might break.  Do this for the last six until you have three separate bunches of three.  Now you can, carefully pull the three pieces apart.  I ended up getting two bows out of each individual strand.  So I only really needed two bunches of 9 total for these cookies.

Fondant:
I'm sorry, I didn't take pictures of making the fondant, but there is nothing to see but a HUGE mess of powdered sugar.  I did add in a picture I took with my phone for Instagram.  

When I made my fondant, I melted the marshmallows and water and stirred that all up.  Then I added in a bunch of green food coloring and a little blue.  I just used regular old water based food coloring.  I thought it would lose a lot of it's green because of all of the powdered sugar, but it didn't.  I would still make the melted marshmallows a little darker than you want.  Then mix your green melted marshmallows with your powdered sugar like the directions say.  I made mine the night before so I would have it all ready to use.  Don't store it in the fridge.  I did and it gets hard and really wet and weird.  Just wrap it up and keep it in a dry space.

Cookies:
This should be the easiest.  Make your cookie dough.

Roll out the dough and cut out your wreaths using your two size cookie cutters.  

Bake accordingly.  (I think I did about 10-11 minutes for these)

Let cool.  Now you are all ready to decorate!

I ended up doing this two different ways.  I started with Way 1, but changed to Way 2 because it was easier and quicker and this ended up taking hours and hours and hours to do.  Also, I found that by using the toothpicks and putting on the leaf viens and then sticking it to the cookie, I lost some of the detail.  Regardless of how you start the leaf, it is better to put it on the cookie and then use the toothpick to make the details.  I also liked it better when I did the center crease first and then the side veins.

Way 1 (Photos 2 - 8)

1. Roll out some fondant
2. Using the frosting tip, cut out a circle
3. Pinch the circle to make it more diamond shaped but with rounded edges.  I found it better to make the diamond heavier at one end.
4. Imprint veins on leaf using toothpick then center crease
5. Using brush, paint corn syrup on cookie
6. Stick leaf on cookie
7. Repeat a million times

Way 2 (Photos 9-14)

1. Take your chunk of fondant and pinch of a bit.
2. Roll into a ball, getting all wrinkles and creases out
3. Pinch it into a diamond shape with rounded edges, heavier at one end if you would like
4. Using corn syrup, stick the leaf on the cookie
5. Using the toothpick, make the center crease of the leaf then add the side veins.
6. Repeat a million times

For this step you need your wreath cookie with the leaves on it, Twizzlers, sprinkles and corn syrup.

Take a strip of Twizzlers and break it in half.  I carefully stretched it cause it was pretty thick.  Take your Twizzlers piece and shape it into a very simple bow.  Pinch it as hard as you can (without destroying it) where the bows and strings meet.  It will want to unroll, I'm not sure how to stop this still.  Maybe add more corn syrup on top of the bow center.

Using the corn syrup, put the wreath on the the cookie, top or bottom, doesn't matter.

Using corn syrup again, put a dab in two or three places on the wreath.  Take the red sprinkles and put three on each dab.  I just did two spots, but three would look nice too.

I know it's too pretty to eat, but it's too tasty to not eat :D  If you want, take a tick needle, like a plastic canvas one, and some string and hang one or two up just for fun!