Easy Fall Leaves Dip & Swirl Cookies

These colorful autumn leaves cookies are easy and delicious! Dipping cookies is a great way to ice cookies, and kids love it!

Gingerbread Roll Out Cookies

If gingerbread is not your cookie of choice, these would also work with sugar cookies or chocolate cookies.

Gingerbread House Cookie Recipe

Find leaf cookie cutters here!

Yield: 2 dozen 2" cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened (You can substitute with 1 cup vegetable shortening)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
2 large eggs
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground clove
4 ½ - 5 cups all-purpose flour (Adjust flour if the dough is sticky)

1. Preheat oven to 375º F, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat® mats.
2. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together butter (or shortening) and sugar until smooth. Add molasses, and mix until combined.
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition. Add cornstarch, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and clove. Mix on medium-low speed until combined.
4. With your mixer on low, add the flour, ½ cup at a time, until the dough forms a ball and pulls cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. If your dough is still too sticky, add up to an additional ½ cup of flour.
5. The dough will look dry when you first add your flour, but will come together after a few minutes of mixing.
6. Roll out the dough to a thickness of ¼ inch between two sheets of parchment paper. Place rolled out dough in the refrigerator to chill for at least two hours.
7. Remove one piece of chilled dough at a time from time from the refrigerator and cut shapes with the included gingerbread house cookie cutters.
8. Transfer shapes to the prepared baking sheets, and bake for 10 - 15 minutes, or until the cookies are set around the edges and just a little softer towards the centers.

Royal Icing

For this recipe, you'll want what's called a flood consistency for your icing. That means the icing will be runny, similar pancake batter.

The colors we uses for the example cookies are: Bouquets & Boutonnieres (base peach color) and our Rustic Collection of gel icing colors.

Use a stand mixer with the whisk attachment to start.

Add to your mixing bowl:

• 1/3 cup Meringue Powder
• 1/2 cup of warm water (start with a tiny bit more if you will not be adding the lemon juice from next step)

Whisk until doubled in size, 1 - 2 minutes. Do not over mix.

Add to your whisked mixture:

• 1/4 - 1 tsp butter flavoring. You may question if this step is worth it - but it is! 
• 1 tsp vanilla
• OPTIONAL 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice This is optional, but the lemon really cuts the sweetness of the icing nicely.

Mix until just incorporated.

• Mix in 1lb of confectioners sugar

Mix until just incorporated.

• Mix in 1 tbsp light corn syrup

Mix until just incorporated.

• Mix in 1lb of confectioners sugar

Mix until fully incorporated.

Continue to mix for about 3 minutes on high - your icing will start to turn white and have a fluffy look. But do NOT overmix. Overmixing can cause the icing to collapse. This will yield a VERY stiff icing. If you feel it is too stiff even to start with, add small amounts of water.

It is best to start with very stiff icing for a few reasons:

If you are going to store it at all before using, the less water, the less it separates. When you color your icing this adds liquid, so you may regret adding too much water to start with.

To color your icing: Add your gel color and then add droplets (yes, droplets!) of water to bring it to the consistency you want.